Talk:Vongo (video on demand service)

Just created a shitty page so that there is something for people to start off on. I have virtually no clue about this subscription service to be honest. Exity 12:01, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, neither the commercials nor the website give *ANY* indication of what Vongo is, but i'm glad Wikipedia has something to explain it. Matt 01:22, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sounds like a rip-off service considering that Vongo uses Microsoft Rights Management feature; this means that you have a limited viewing of the downloaded file (Expiration date dependant on movie title). It's already expensive to have a Broadband connection, but you're just wasting your money downloading films you can only watch on expensive Media Players that could interface with your TV. May as well get NetFlix.
 * Actually it isn't totally useless. Despite my somewhat negative experience with them, the technology works.  The pay-per-view films, which sadly include almost anything close to a new release, do indeed have a 24-hour window for viewing, but the old stuff is available any old time.  In theory this would be a decent service for loading up your laptop before a trip.  The problems are (a) the extensive reliance on PPV, (b) the small library bulked out by lots of oldies and B-level titles, and (c) the horrendous waits for phone service, including account cancellation.  That said, downloading is usually faster than waiting for Netflix and you can have many more films out at a time than Netflix allows at that price.  Paulc206 03:08, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I have used this service for about four months now. The service works very well. And you do have access to the downloaded movie for much more than 24 hours. And you can have all the movies you want in your "downloaded" section. Every movie you download shows the amount of time it's available to you to view. In some cases it's weeks, in others it can be days. As someone who travels a lot - having access to movies on the fly like this is great. Don't have to carry DVD's - just fire up Vongo.

That said - I do have two significant gripes with Vongo. 1) the choice of movies available sucks. Let's just call that out - they're B movies with very few recent options and those are available for an additional charge.  2) They make it brutally hard to cancel your service. You can't cancel via email or through the Vongo player/website. You have to call in. And they make you wait ungodly amounts of time. That's just wrong.--Parnelljw 14:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Funny enough just remembered I wanted to cancel my subscription and did a quick search to see how to do so and came across all these negative responses. Well I didn’t know how shady this company could be so I immediately called to cancel my service and to my surprise didn’t wait more than 2 minutes. I guess either all the complaints have gotten through or the time of the day played a factor (just called 7:50am NY time).

Reason for canceling, as mentioned before, their selection is basically the Starz’s channel and whatever movies they are circulating at the moment or have rights to. Movies do download fairly quickly if you have a broadband connection but keep in mind that it will start to eat up your hard drive the more movies you keep in your library.

Other than that the software worked really well. You can schedule your downloads for times while you’re away from your PC and the rental period for most movies is very generous. Some movies expired like in 2007 I believe. Also the PPV movies aren’t so bad, although they cost more besides your subscription it is an added bonus.

If you have the Starz channel at home you can pretty much go without this service however, if you like to travel and download movies and have 10 bucks a month burning a hole in your pocket go for it.


 * Vis-á-vis alternatives in the movie rental arena, I recently subscribed to Netflix (at their $10 level) and have found them to be very reliable. Even at this level they include their "Watch Instantly" service. Though I haven't tried it yet, I presume it works as well as their mail service (assuming one's hardware meets the requirements). I will try to remember to report back when I have used it. JimScott (talk) 15:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Closed Captioning
It seems to me that the program does not include closed captions. Anyone able to get them to work? If they don't provide this, we should include this information on the main page. Their web site's help section doesn't seem very friendly.Lee 23:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Bit Rate / Resolution?
Does anyone know the specifics of the video itself? VBR or CBR? etc? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.181.199.151 (talk) 17:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

Vongo the Scourge
Many HP laptop buyers over the past few years would have a few choicer (though not usable in the presence of ladies) words to describe this "service". One only needs to Google "vongo removal" to get a flavor for the unbelievable man-hours and resources wasted in attempts to remove this pestilence from HP products. More than a few have described it as one of the few legitimate viruses since it appears to be embedded in system files and is very difficult to get rid of permanently. For example, even after removing it via the usual instructions, creating a new user on the machine will usually resurrect it with varying results ranging from complete re-installation to endless windows trying to find the installation files. Some just returned the HP computer and bought something else. All of these statements are supported in links on the first page of results from the aforementioned Google search if anyone is interested to seek them; as well as from my own personal experience as I am still trying to root out the system files that resurrect this &#*@ program every time I add another grandchild (ie, user) to the laptop. Grrr. If I had the money I used to have, I'd go back to Dell in a heartbeat. A sad comment to make about a machine that has otherwise been faultless and highly commendable. JimScott (talk) 15:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)