Review: Bye bye cable TV, hello VongoHmm Reviews, customer adventures, movies — by TDavid @ 9:54 pm PST
  (2 votes, average: 1 out of 5) Loading ... |
Yesterday around 3:15pm PST my wife looked up from her computer and said: “What time does that Comcast store in Auburn close?” I didn’t know the closing time but knew immediately what she was really asking.
Time to take the two cable receivers back, leaving us with the free six month DirecTV plan on one TV.
Over the last month we’ve observed just how much we watch regular cable TV in our home and the answer is very, very little. I didn’t even watch the Seahawks win their first playoff game yesterday since the mid 80’s. Most our time in front of the TV is spent watching TV series and movies on DVD. Just finished the first two seasons of The West Wing and thorougly enjoyed that program. The writing and acting are superb in that show. Keeping both cable and satellite TV seemed to make very little sense to both of us financially or practically.
The call was made to cancel service. Fairly hassle-free although the operator did poke around and ask several exit questions. Sort of the AOL cancel process of keeping you on the line hoping you’ll change your mind. One of them: “You do know your cable internet cost will increase?” Yes, we knew we’d pay $10 more a month for cable internet.
Decision unchanged, we unplugged and loaded the two receivers, one HDTV receiver and a regular one plus remotes and power cords into the car and drove to the Comcast store in Auburn. It was a quick in and out process and cable TV was no more in our home.
Later, when we got back home, I looked around at all the TVs in our home — one in the family room (the other TV is hooked up to DirecTV), two in the kids’ rooms, 5 of them total — that no longer had any TV signal. As explained before the DirecTV plan we have doesn’t provide any premium movie channels and is only one receiver, no additional TVs. Outside the house I believe we can switch out the splitter and then have the signal — at least channels 1-99 — beamed through those other TVs. If we want channels above 99 though we will need more receivers, and that means we’ll be paying for TV again.
It occured to me that this might be the perfect time to try out that new Vongo service from STARZ. Our older laptop, a Sony VAIO, had a composite out for TV and this was the one I decided to try out Vongo on. For whatever strange reason I couldn’t get the yellow TV-out to function. I tried new drivers from Sony, fooling around with Windows settings, I hit the search engines looking for answers. Nothing.
Time for system restore. This laptop has long since had anything important removed from the hard drive so doing a system restore wasn’t that big of a deal. The original OS was Windows ME. Loaded that from the disk then spent a good hour (while watching other movies via DVD player on the TV), reloaded the PCMIA WiFI card driver and then went to Vongo.
“This OS is not supported.” Just like Opera wasn’t supported, Vongo didn’t support Windows ME. So I had to go get the OS that was upgraded on the system before the sytem restore: Windows XP Pro and upgrade again on the machine, hoping that a clean upgrade might fix the TV-out functionality problems. Fortunately it did.
We fired up Vongo again and it made it a little way into the install and then choked on the message that Windows Media Player 9 or higher was required, so off to download Windows Media 10.
What happened next was another hour plus of back and forth battling with drivers trying to make the TV-out work with Windows XP Pro. When it finally was working the Vongo player was just black on the TV, but played fine in the laptop.
[sigh]
It beat me — at least for the day — so we just went with watching it in the laptop. If any readers have figured out how to make Vongo play through TV-out, or even on a second monitor, then I’m all ears on the settings. It’s got to be easier than I was making it.
Exploring the Vongo premium membership
There is a free Vongo membership that will let you download pay per view (PPV) movies at $3,99 per 24hr viewing window. To get the full Vongo experience you need to lay down your credit card and $9.99/month. Once done with the whole registration scene (the easiest of the process unsurprisingly), it’s onto finding movies to watch.
We really liked how easy it was to search through movies by a thumbnail picture and a preview screen to the right. You can optionally watch a small preview of each movie. Some of the previews are as long as you might see in the theater and some are like 10 second jaunts between commercials on TV. All in all the selection seemed pretty decent. They claim there is 1000+ titles to check. One thing I didn’t like is how they default all the searches with PPV and the free membership movies together. You can uncheck a box and the PPV movies are removed but upon return to the interface Vongo didn’t remember that we didn’t want the two mixed together in searches. Would be nice to see that as an option.
There is a top download section, new releases and star rating system so it’s fairly easy to keep track of what’s popular.
It didn’t take us long at all picking out ten movies to download that we hadn’t seen. There’s a handy option to start watching the movie after a few minutes so you don’t have to wait for the whole thing to download. Movies fit for the computer are between 500-700 MB. I searched around on the hard drive to see if I could find where Vongo was storing them and it’s not immediately obvious. In the Vongo Help docs it says you cannot store these movies on an external drive, which is kind of a bummer. Would be nice to fill up a drive with downloads watch them, then erase and fill up with another batch. Still with some 10GB of free space we could squeeze 20+ movies on there before worrying about it.
Earlier today we watched Are We There Yet? with Ice Cube and the video and sound quality was ok at 800×600. Not close to DVD or HD quality but better than when we played movies through Cinemanow in a test a year or so ago. No pixelation really noticed.
WARNING: Only 3 devices allowed
In our case with all the fumbling about we ended up installing the Vongo program twice on the same machine. This gave us 2 devices for the same machine. Vongo members can only have it installed on three devices and the only way to get rid of the duplicate device is to call them at 1-877-866-4621, sit on hold, and have them remove it. We called that number, and it was a Sunday at dinner time so keep that in mind and it took 20 minutes for somebody to rescue us from hold and deal with the problem.
This DRM procedure is clumsy and annoying. Beware when installing Vongo on multiple machines that whatever machine or portable device you choose, you only get three of them.
It’s early in our Vongo membership — at a point where almost everything seems new and interesting — but we do like most of what we’ve seen so far. As with most DRM schemes, we don’t like the whole three device deal. Five devices would be better or, you know what, how about unlimited devices and stop treating customers like they are going to rip you off at every turn.
We’ll be with Vongo for at least one month. Adding premium channels cost an extra $12 a month to our Comcast cable and the PPV costs were the same, so the only thing we are missing here is the immediacy of OnDemand. We do, however, gain portability because we can take these movies with us on trips. Although we still have the Slingbox, but with the ability to can watch the Vongo movies without a broadband internet connection, that gives Vongo yet another
Where Vongo works, where Vongo doesn’t work
The Vongo help FAQ points out that you can’t login to the service outside the US. I’m not sure if that includes Canada or not. We don’t travel outside the US much, but we do get to Canada on occasion. It also calls for 100k connection but then it says it isn’t required to connect to Vongo in order to watch the movies, so I think the broadband download speed is just suggested to avoid taking an entire day to download a movie. On our cable internet (we kept that), it downloaded a 95 minute move in like 20 minutes or so. Again, you can start watching the movies before it downloads all the way.
Too bad the movies are still a bit old compared to DVD releases, but if you can be patient, this a decent alternative to Netflix or Blockbuster. No need to leave your computer screen (as long as it’s Windows XP / 2000 with WMP 9+ and Flash v8.0+)! For those looking inside the US looking to add some decent premium style movie watching to your computer, STARZ Vongo may really be just the ticket. Grade: B-
Related Posts- First time rented and watched movie on Xbox 360 last night
- Moviebeam to offer HDTV movie rentals, including some first run titles
- Wal-mart starts selling Windows-only digital downloads with purchase of DVD
- HBO On Demand deals with age old cable frustration
- STARZ download plan includes PDAs, excludes Opera
- Comcast cable doubles download bandwith
I have to say… for all that hassle, it almost seems like it’d be more worth it to get a $9.95 Netflix membership.
DOWNSIDES:
- Just 1 movie at a time.
- No immediacy (gotta wait a day or two).
- Most popular flicks might be unavailable (loaned out to other people).
UPSIDES:
- Easy to copy (okay, this is a gray area; it’s easy, albeit not legal to copy the DVD to another device)
- Newer releases than Vongo
- Not as fussy about operating system, etc
Comment by Adam — January 16, 2006 @ 10:49 pm PST
We had a Netflix subscription for more than six months and the biggest downside for us was actually watching the movies once we got them (as I’d feared). Bizarre as that might seem, after the first couple months the process just seemed like a hassle. We were watching movies we bought on DVD before watching the Netflix rentals, go figure.
In the case of Vongo it’s as easy as click and download, they stay on your hard drive until they expire which in some cases are as far out as 2009! At least according to expiration dates they display inside the Vongo interface. They also will let you fill up your hard drive so if you have a 250GB drive you could load 500+ movies on the drive if you wanted. I’m not sure if you cancelled the Vongo service and then tried to play those movies months or years later if they would still play. They claim there is no call back home to play the movies up to 10 times but after that there is … so the movies wouldn’t provide unlimited plays without phoning back home to Vongo.
And this just occured to me …
Seems like if you could then that might make it so people signed up, downloaded as many movies as they were interested in, cancelled Vongo, then watched them all over the next 6-9 months and then signed up again to Vongo to repeat the process when they were done watching the movies. This could prove to be a very inexpensive way to watch these movies and would it be legal because you didn’t have an active subscription? I’m not sure on that one. If it works this way then this might be a loophole Vongo needs to close …
Comment by TDavid — January 17, 2006 @ 10:11 am PST
When u download the movies it’s hidden on your computer. Is there anyway that i can find those files or hack it because i want to put these videos on blank cds.
Comment by Darren — January 27, 2006 @ 12:43 am PST
I am wondering the same thing as Darren, above— How do I locate the files on the computer. It’s not self-evident. What format are they in once found and are they easily converted/transferred?
Comment by meja — January 28, 2006 @ 3:38 pm PST
Darren & meja - I don’t know where the files are kept either, but my guess is they are hidden and encrypted quite intentionally. Even if you did make them visible and moved them they wouldn’t work without the proper DRM key which is authorized by machine (see post above).
Comment by TDavid — January 28, 2006 @ 5:13 pm PST
I found that Vongo downloads the movies to a hidden folder, C:\Program Files\Vongo\Content as a Windows Media .wmv file. At the end of the download the file is encrypted with the extension dissappearing.
Comment by Neal — February 15, 2006 @ 12:14 pm PST
TDavid i had the same problem with my tv. The video wouldnt show up.. but in the system properties what you have to do is make the tv the primary monitor. Then it will show up on the tv but not on the computer now.
Comment by monkey — February 24, 2006 @ 8:55 pm PST
Typically there you can press the function button on your laptop and also one of the function keys to toggle the main display between the laptop screen, both the laptop screen and ext monitor, and finally just the ext monitor. You have to have the ext monitor as the only active screen to watch it on your TV. This is a limitation of Windoze Media Player.
Comment by adam — February 27, 2006 @ 5:39 pm PST
[…] - Vongo revisited [Hmm Vongo review] - currently having some trouble with “can’t find media errors” when trying to watch a movie a second or third time. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Hmm quickies #22 — March 7, 2006 @ 11:32 am PST
The geographic limitations (http://www.vongo.com/geo_check/failure/pages/GeoCheckFailure.html) are particularly silly. I was all ready to configure a US-based server I control to act as a relay for the traffic.. but it turns out that enabling Google Web Accelerator is enough to fool the checks (you appear to be in google’s CA datacenter.. if they’d bothered checking x_forwarded_for they’d know my real location with this, but apparently they didn’t think that deeply about things.)
It’s nice to be able to get at US content whilst working in the UK.
Comment by William — March 7, 2006 @ 8:05 pm PST
I have used Vongo since early January. I have it playing out to my TV’s while leaving the PC still functional. In windows video settings I first added the secondary display (TV) then cloned it with DisplayDevice 1. Then I forced full screen overlay on the secondary display. When a movie is played the player is minimized in the tray.
To answer another post about burning to CD or DVD.. Vongo doesn’t allow that, but someone could theoretically use the AV outs on the TV to a mpeg video capture card, ie’make a loop. play/record, and burn.
Vongo adds about 15 new movies every friday morning around 4:00am est. Also on the first day of every month they add around 25 new movies. Movies you download do have expiration dates, and will auto delete on that date. Most expiration dates are a few month to up to a year.
I am working on an add-on for ORB dot com that should allow you to stream your movies back out to another pc, cell phone, pda, or ipod.
Comment by Brian — March 11, 2006 @ 11:51 pm PST
There is a way to keep the files… Neal in #6 above was half way there “C:\Program Files\Vongo\Content as a Windows Media .wmv file” If you go there while the file is downloading and open the temp “moviename.wmv” you can open it in Windows Media player. After you open it in WM playr go to File > Save As. Save the file to a different location. The file will still be streaming but that is okay. After the file is complete you will have a copy of it in a different location and the Vongo program will not know to go to that new location and encrypt it.
:>
Have fun and give it a try.
Hotrod
Comment by Me — March 26, 2006 @ 9:15 pm PST
There is also another way to do this…You can wait until the status bar in vongo is almost done with the movie go to the contents folder and wait for the encryption files to be created…when they pop up in the folder. DELETE THEM! The program will get an internal error and will not encrypt the WM file. Now if you wait too long after the download it will be encrypted and you will have to download it again.
Hotrod
Comment by Me — March 27, 2006 @ 1:27 am PST
There is a roundabout way to view the movies on the computer and the TV at the same time. Start playing a movie in one program. Open up the movie that you want to see on both screens and play it in a different program.
Example:
Open movie 1 in DivX player.
Open movie 2 in Windows Media Player.
Movie 2 will show up on the computer and the TV.
Movie one can be closed.
Comment by alepine — April 8, 2006 @ 7:28 pm PST
To get the video out working on your screen, you should try disabling hardware acceleration in windows media player. I’ve had this problem many times trying to show video from my laptop on a big screen.
Comment by badger_b — May 12, 2006 @ 6:26 pm PST
[…] Next month our free six months of DirecTV will be running out. I’d say the chance of us paying for cable or satellite once it runs out is now at about 10%. Fortunately, there are several different IPTV options cropping up. Plus, we started a Hollywood Video unlimited monthly rental plan and have bought some DVDs to be watched. Add all this together plus our subscription to Vongo and other entertainment options on the TV like playing video games and this very well could be replacing cable and satellite. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Life after TV = IPTV? — May 21, 2006 @ 3:13 pm PST
I tried doing #12 above and it appeared to be working. Upon playback, however, the movie stopped about halfway through. It doesn’t appear that the entire file saved to the alternate location I chose. Only about 1/3 of the file actually saved. Do I have to let the entire movie stream in wmp when using the “save as” method?
Comment by Carolee — May 23, 2006 @ 11:24 am PST
I think you need to wait, cuz I been downloading and when I tried to save as right after the movie started to download it saved only like 25M. So I guess the trick will be when it hits 99% open and save as right away cuz even tho it is open on WM and the file already encrypted you won’t be able to save it once the file changed.
Comment by Justme — May 29, 2006 @ 5:33 pm PST
[…] Read TDavid’s account of replacing Cable TV with Vongo […]
Pingback by Mobility Guys » Mobility Guys Podcast #4 — May 30, 2006 @ 11:37 pm PST
Ok, i have tried the trick of opening the file and have it play in the Windows Media player at about 97% complete and saved it to my desktop. After the file was done downloading and encrypted i tried to save it again to get the last 3% and it worked… The player did not get an error and it saved it just fine. In other words, IT WORKS!!!! WooHooo!
Well at least for now that is. Im sure they will find a way to block this soon.
Comment by mremptywallet — May 31, 2006 @ 12:41 am PST
Actually guys, i have a update. After i saved the file while it was still playing in Windows player the original file that should have been encrypted and striped of its tags was NOT. The file in C:\Program Files\Vongo\Content did not lose its tag and is not encrypted.
I think when i let it play in the windows player and saved it, the vongo program could not change the file because it was still open… Try it out and let me know if it works for anyone else.
Comment by mremptywallet — May 31, 2006 @ 12:46 am PST
Help! I cannot view the movies I downloaded from Vongo! I have windows media player version 11 and I keep getting an error message asking me if I want to be directed to a website that will help me download a software upgrade that will enable me to view the movies but its not easy to figure out just what they want me to download!!! HELP!
Comment by Melsmeg — June 1, 2006 @ 10:55 pm PST
This is a terrible site. No video controls and starts up with your computer with no way to disable.
Also program took up 80% of my resources and bogged down my system. I don\’t have a cheap system either. I have a 2.53 Ghz processor and 1 gig ram. Lastly, there is no customer service. I sent repeated emails with no response. Finally tracked down the Starz Corporate Phone number.
If you need it : 720-852-7700
Stay away from this terrible program.
Comment by Jimbo — June 2, 2006 @ 12:32 pm PST
Melsmeg
First list the error exactly as it reads. You might want to uninstall Windows Media Player and re install version 10 if you can.
Jimbo
If it’s taking up 80% of your resources then you have other issues. The application does not take up nearly that much on mine.
The controls on Vongo player suck yes, but if you want just save a copy of the movie before it is done downloading at about 98% to 99% to your desktop and just use the Windows Media Player.
Comment by mremptywallet — June 2, 2006 @ 11:25 pm PST
Loved reading all these entries…having a slow night doing Vongo tech support and thought I’d look up some blogs on the service. Was nice to come access one site that didn’t bash it. When you do have trouble with the service, usually it is a pretty easy fix. If we are unable to fix the issue we send it up to level 2 and usually customers will get a responds within 48hrs. Lately our phones have been very busy sorry to anyone that has had to wait hold for help. New hires are being added soon
Keep enjoying the service and I will check back to this site.
Comment by Northerngirl_NG — June 3, 2006 @ 2:50 am PST
Oh sorry also ment to add…no worries to those of you that are copy the movies….my lips are sealed ;)…have fun.
Comment by Northerngirl_NG — June 3, 2006 @ 2:52 am PST
VONGO is the WORST service ever!!!!!! Download speeds are weak and I can’t get them to reply to my e-mails to troubleshoot the problems I am having getting movies to play. On top of that I have now been on hold for an hour just trying to cancel the account (not to mention the first time I got a person the call misteriously got disconnected).
Comment by David — June 7, 2006 @ 5:21 pm PST
I have tried to find the file that you guys are talking about when downloading a vongo movie but have not been able to. Am I looking in the wrong place or have they changed something?
Comment by dean — June 11, 2006 @ 1:30 am PST
Never mind, solved the problem. Had to go to folder options in MyComputer and show hidden files.
Comment by dean — June 11, 2006 @ 1:54 am PST
Melsmeg:
I had the same problem you did with WMP 11, so I contacted Vongo about it. The rep told me that WMP11 does not work with Vongo very well, probably because it is still in beta. Uninstall WMP 11, reinstall WMP 10 and go to this website: “http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink?LinkID=34506″ then click the “Update” button. That should resolve your problem. If you want to test it to see if it works go to “http://www.vongo.com/player_check/Sample.wmv”
Username: VongoTest
Password: password
Comment by bmaslen — June 15, 2006 @ 12:06 pm PST
[…] We cancelled our Vongo monthly service in favor of a local Hollywood Video MVP (2 movies at a time, unlimited rentals, $24.99+tax) but we keep receiving Vongo email. Like this one that arrived — Friday mailings are big with movie services — a few minutes ago: […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Vongo Superbunny — June 16, 2006 @ 12:58 pm PST
I love Dean’s comments calling this “the worst service ever”especially when–IT’S THE ONLY SERVICE LIKE IT! I used to have to deal with Deans all the time back when I worked in tech support. It’s never their fault, it’s always someone else’s. Anyhow…
Vongo Rules. But why does it rule?
1)The video quality is OK. Not as good as ripping a DVD.
2)There are NO brightness, contrast, color or hue controls
3)I don’t think Vongo cleans up after itself. My content file has a gig of weird small files in it.
4)The flash interface is buggy and you can’t resize it
5)Downloads are buggy
However, thanks to the tricks listed above, you can easily copy the movies to your computer for playback in any player that supports wmv. Windows Media Player or VLC or whatever.
$9.95 a month for all the movies you can snag. THAT makes it awesome. Take advantage of it while you can. I’m sure they will close the loopholes soon.
Comment by matt — June 18, 2006 @ 1:53 pm PST
I have had nothing but problems with vongo from the get go. I signed up for the trial. I was charged 5 minutes after my trial started. There are no refunds and absolutely NO customer service. You cannot cancel through the website and there are no replys to your emails.
I am still waiting for the perfect movie service to come along and with all this tech stuff maybe it won’t be too far off. So I will stick with my cable co for great movies right now.
Comment by Nellie — June 21, 2006 @ 12:14 pm PST
This service was impossible to cancel, but if you need to, here’s the number they don’t put on their website: 720-852-7700
Comment by Matt Perry — June 23, 2006 @ 12:49 pm PST
I’ve been using Vongo to supplement Netflix.
With an “infinitely” long Netflix queue, and the difficulty of knowing which movies are really good - even with all the reviews, etal. - using Vongo to “preview” movies is making the Netflix experience much more efficient. Just download the movie with Vongo, and watch some of it on the PC. You get an idea very quickly if this is something you really want from Netflix - ie. you want to see it on a big screen with full resolution and 5.1 sound, etc.
Some movies that are just OK, you may watch only on the PC. Bad ones are discarded quickly. More obscure movies (indie’s, etc.) are great for sampling on Vongo before getting from NetFlix.
By eliminating many uninteresting DVDs through Netlix, you can reduce your N Out Membership by 1 or 2, paying for some or all of Vongo, and still see as many good DVD’s per month as before.
Comment by HDTiVo — June 26, 2006 @ 1:56 pm PST
While it’s possible to copy the files Vongo downloads before they become unplayable in Windows Media Player, take a peek at the license tab under that WMV’s properties. Nothing is gained by moving the file - it will still expire when it’s supposed to. Sooo… If your only reason for using Vongo is that you want to cheat the system, you’re going to need to find another way.
Comment by Tracy — June 27, 2006 @ 2:19 am PST
Hmm, cheat the system? Dates are still embedded?? I wonder if you were able to get it decrypted …what if you just changed the system date on your computer before viewing?
Now that I brought it up, would that also mean that you probably couldn’t watch it on a regular DVD player because they don’t have dates? Whether or not the file expires/d, would you still be able to use it on a DVD player that doesn’t have dates?
Did I just go full circle and decide they can’t be copied to DVD even if you can prevent encryption??? Or am I assuming too much of DVD players and just go ahead and play them forever because the player DOESN’T recognize dates and doesn’t really care one way or the other about dates.
Sheesh.
Comment by Deb — June 30, 2006 @ 4:00 pm PST
Dear Deb,
ANYTHING that you can watch or listen to via computer can be ripped and striped of any protection. This is a fact. All you need is the right software. The same goes for TV. ANYTHING that you can watch via DVD can be stripped of macrovision protection. All you need is the right hardware. All copyprotection manages to do is stop people who don’t know how to type “remove DRM protection” into Google.
Do they have expiration dates on Vongo files? If so, remove them with this
http://www.tunebite.com/
You can find the torrent for Tunebite and other to remove DRM’s on torrentz.com
Case solved.
Comment by matt — July 4, 2006 @ 3:37 pm PST
Just thought I would give my opinion on my free trial of Vongo. I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to find the perfect way to rent movies. Vongo was not the answer for me. Some problems I had with Vongo were; Terrible selection of movies, Average picture and I was also not a big fan of the downloading. Although the download times were somewhat fast (10-20 minutes), you could only download one movie at a time. Another thing I didn’t like about the service is you have to call the company to cancel your account. They give you the whole “oh no that’s terrible, what can I do not to get you to cancel.” The only funny thing about the cancelling was that my customer service guy sounded exactly like Neil Goldman from Family Guy. A little FYI, if you cancel your subscription your movies will be deleted in about a day or two. You might want to try keeping your internet offline so they can’t access it. All and all I was not pleased. It seemed like it was just a way for STARZ to make a little more money off of their movies.
Comment by Tim — July 5, 2006 @ 12:35 am PST
Tried Vongo for a week. The software, which is Flash based, just bites and bogs down your box like all get out, to the point where the one thing I did download to test them out wouldn’t even play right anyway.
As someone else mentioned, I also do not like their AOL style approach to cancellations… Let you sign up online in a hot minute, then force you to call and argue with a temp agency rent-a-twit for 20 minutes just to get them out of your hair. And beware their “14 day free trial”… They claimed what I saw on my charge the next day was just a hold, but it went through my bank like poop thru a goose.
I have been a service professional for over twenty years and have overseen CS operations for one of the largest musical instrument makers in America… Take it from me, Vongo is certainly nowhere near being truly ready for prime-time.
Comment by Jim — July 21, 2006 @ 12:09 pm PST
OK, I believe I have figured out how to keep vongo from encrypting the wmv files. I do this not to get around DRM as it wont but I prefer using windows media player vs. the Vongo player.
1) Start Downloading a movie.
2) Find the movie in the ‘contect’ folder. Usually C:\Program Files\Vongo\Content
3) right click on the currently downloading move and select properties
4) Put a checkmark in the read only attribute. You can also make it visible by unchecking the hidden box.
5) The movie will continue to download as it already has the connection to the file.
6) When the movie is finished downloading, the application will rename the file (remove the .wmv extension) however when it trys to encrypt the file it will see it as read only and will not encrypt the file
7) Rename the file (to what ever you want) but add the .wmv extension.
This works for me so that I can view my downloaded movies in ShowCenter 200. Saves me having to run wires or use a tv out card.
Good luck and let me know if you can get it to work for you as well.
Comment by rptgeek — July 22, 2006 @ 1:35 am PST
Could you go out from your video card using mediaplayer and go straight into a DVD recorder/DVR?
Comment by eng_geek — July 22, 2006 @ 1:52 pm PST
LOL, thats pretty much the just of it. Trust me when i say this company will fall like napster.Like all of you ive been looking for alternative rental/viewing cable/sat true on demand entertainment service. It simply doesnt exsist and wont exsist until all networks(paramount,disney,fox,dreamworks, the rest) combine into a monopoly.(which will never happen in the US lol,most likely) Paying $100 a month for a true on demand service would be reasonable and comparable to cable/sat. Paying $10 a month only means your getting dated content and unreliable service. Now i thought about signing up for vongo, installed there software(which slowed my system down also)and then proceeded to delete the software after seeing top downloads!!! not only that but why would quality and size vary for a standardized service with licensing, sorry but i think vongo is like going to blockbuster and renting a cam version(TS,TC, camera in theater)dvd. The only reason why it would vary is because of the different groups that release pirated movies. Im sure its obvious when u watch a 500meg movie the quality is a little better than horrible to a hd fan, thats because those movies were ripped vhs movies that were released in the mid 90\’s. the 1.4 gig movies are closest to dvd and i highly recommend them, 700 meg can vary greatly because they were meant to fit on a cd when they were pirated for easy storage. since u (cant) transfer these movies to other media through vonage there is no reason for the sacrificed quality. My advice just stay away from these companies until you see a major label supported company not a cable company like starz like i listed above. Just like the music industry, the movie industry doesnt want to get involved yet even though they would yeild higher profits. there is no physical product and is easier to reproduce. This wont happen until late 2010 or futher from what ive seen heard so far. Problem is they still have to produce dvds for the major market. we all arent tech savy yet or own a computer and able to use one the way vonage is marketing there service(obvious from posts). Especially when most consumers are buying $500> computers(everyday consumer grade) from bestbuy and the likes(off subject go to a local computer repair/custom computer shop and ask them what they think of mass market computers and try getting one repaired/upgraded for anything less than $200 and bring up vongo).Think thats it i hope i get a few replies from xpert/advanced users.
Comment by XpertUser — August 1, 2006 @ 10:57 am PST
Thought of a couple more things. why go through the trouble of breaking their license agreement to copy and save the movies when there are so many other options out there that are unencrypted and free. Illegal but whats the difference if your going to do whatever you want to the file anyway! Oh yeah what ever you do not get netflix they are even more useless. HVP and blockbuster unlimited plans are the way to go, over any online option if u want to stay legal! If you choose the dark side not only can u get older movies but new releases and a lot of times are able to get high quality movies months before they are released on dvd. there are sites out there that rate the files/movies and user comments on the files/movies. Problem is you have to spend time researching and finding these sites. CinemaNow and Movielink which i havent seen advertise on TV have a higher price tag but better content & quality and allow you to burn dvds! Downside windows only compatible!!!
Comment by XpertUser — August 1, 2006 @ 7:43 pm PST
Okay, the Vongo service is a nice ADDITION to our DishNetwork service because of being able to see good movies (although most are older movies) “on demand”. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it on our big screen Phillips tv (about 4 years old) but after talking to Phillips, I finally figured out I had to go in the tv out with the s-video cable, then into the s-video on the side of the tv which is, according to Phillips, AV3 AND you MUST fire up the computer with the tv set on AV3 (or whatever setting yours needs to be) and it comes right in. In fact, your whole computer/desktop comes in. I’m even playing GAMES on it and the quality is pretty good. Not as good as the computer, but at least fun. You don’t have to STAY there, however, and going back to AV1 for regular tv was normal. As I agree with rptgeek, comment #41, I have just wanted to be able to adjust the color/contrast/quality using a different player. rptgeek’s solution is working great! However, we’re still also keeping Blockbuster Online. As per another comment, “Starz is trying to make more money”, I can agree with that completely because the movies are “Starz” as if you paid separately for their service through, in our case, DishNetwork. The pay-per-view service is a nice feature although, I’d assume, with some time, they would lose their “ppv” status and be free. Because ANY of the Dish/cable services aren’t all that great (lots of channels but few good choices), I would say that Vongo is worth the price and worth keeping. Additionally, transferring movies to my laptop has never worked through their interface, so in saving them via #41 as .wmv files, it’s now easy to just transfer to the laptop through my home network.
Comment by sparkycomputer — August 2, 2006 @ 3:44 pm PST
OH, almost forgot: As I’m on broadband, I leave the computer on most of the time. Turning OFF the tv set does NOT lose your AV# setting to play Vongo content (or any other computer content, for that matter). In other words, you don’t have to reboot to the particular AV setting on your set. It stays. I also wanted to say that because Vongo’s Help section and tech support is TERRIBLE, the ONLY answers I got to get the movies on the tv was to deal with the manufacturer of the set, which was Phillips in our case. If your set has gone out of warranty (like ours did) many of them charge for support like this. However, I found with Phillips, that when being somewhat humorous (”bet you’ve never heard this one before - have you heard of Vongo? - I’m about to make your day…”), they, being the techs that they are, are usually prone to a challenge and forego the phone support charge. Comment #41 was absolutely the way to go and I didn’t have to watch the download like a hawk to 99% or whatever as in other solutions. The file being downloaded was easily recognizable because it was coming in as a Realplayer file (in my case) and had the icon.
Some of you might think that what my husband and I pay for movies and Dish are a bit extreme and we could cut back. However, since we don’t like going out to movies very often nor do other things that are costly, our home has been our palace and these services our “fun expense” with beer and popcorn :-).
Comment by sparkycomputer — August 2, 2006 @ 4:30 pm PST
Since playing around more with Vongo and using the tip on #41, I’ve been having a blast being able to play movies on my laptop, tabletpc and pc in my bedroom (besides the one in the livingroom hooked up to the hd tv BECAUSE THEY ARE IN .WMV FORMAT which means you can, in my case, share the movie files on a network and just bring them up through Windows Media Player and the quality is very good. Not excellent - but definitely very good viewing through Windows Media Player. There are other players out there (search Google) for playing audio/video files that will allow you to also adjust contrast, etc., although I’ve found that I haven’t had to do that. With trying to make a dvd from one (for personal use) to play on my portable dvd player, that’s a challenge: to remove the dvm (think that’s what it is) protection, I’ve tried some software and wasn’t impressed with the quality (jerky). I absolutely agree that “everyday cheap computers for $500″ aren’t going to cut it. I had bought my Vaio a few years ago and it has 500 megs of ram and I KNOW it’s the only way I’m getting the quality on the tv like I am. THAT quality is NOT “very good”; it’s GOOD. I’d compare it to watching an old VHS movie.
I don’t think that most people will want to watch a movie on their computer monitors most of the time. That’s the hangup here, for the most part. The BEST quality is through the computer and the “translation” to tv will vary by manufacturer to manufacturer of both the computer system and tv.
Overall, as I stated earlier, Vongo is a nice ADDITION to our movie selections. I mean, think about it: what more do you want for $2.50 a week? That’s less than renting ONE movie at Blockbuster! I think that as long as people are aware that there are no “top movies” available (and it is Starz-based) and that they need to have a decent computer/enough ram to play the movies smoothly, it’s okay. Vongo does need to do more work on their website in those regards (being honest about the movie selections) and beef up their tech support/faqs pages in a big way.
Comment by sparkycomputer — August 7, 2006 @ 5:38 pm PST
I just tried Vongo today, and canceled the same day. I downloaded their software, registered, and gave my credit card information. That part went 100% smooth (of course). I never got their software to work; couldn’t download a single movie, or even see what was available. One time it would say I was ‘offline’, the next time it would say ‘I wasn’t in the US’. After messing around with it for more than an hour, I gave up. I found out to cancel, I would have to call. I couldn’t just cancel on-line as I signed up. When I called, it took 20 minutes on hold before someone spoke to me. He told me the reason I had the problems was a server was down. I canceled anyway. It seems there more worried that someone is going to watch a free movie than they are about taking care of their paying customers. I can’t see why they need to guard some old movies like there in Fort Knox. Their paranoia is baseless. I’ve been around a while. The first computers I worked on were mainframes. The first personal computers I owned were long before IBM or Microsoft got into the business. When VCRs came out, and a long time after that, the Video Rental Stores, I, like a lot of other people, spent a small fortune buying tapes (both betamax and vhs), and recorded everything I rented or watched. I accumulated thousands of tapes. I spent even more money moving these tapes around the world as I moved for my job. After moving them around for more than 20 years, I threw them all away. I found I never watched any of those old tapes twice. I wish these media companies would realize there’s nothing there to guard. There are so many movies available; who has time to watch them over and over again.
Comment by Joe — August 7, 2006 @ 9:07 pm PST
I can no longer find C:\Program Files\Vongo\Content when trying to copy a Vongo movie to my desktop. I think Vongo has caught on to how we were saving their movies to our computers. Does anyone no how to save Vongo movies to my desktop since Vongo has made the changes?
Comment by Andrew H — August 8, 2006 @ 5:56 am PST
I have used Vongo for several months now and before it I used Starz RealTicket on the movies. Both offer pretty much the same variety but Real had the unwelcome problem of not being able to do partial downloads. Real needs to invest more in cleaning up its interface design. Vongo on the other hand has a dedicated client that works great. My only complaint is not being able to easily establish a common video library of downloads so that I don’t have to download a movie I like on all of the three devices I might like to watch it on. It does work great when I’m away with my laptop and I’ve not found a better service. All the rest charge too much and if they have a subscription service then it is full of movies no one wants to watch. I tried Cinema Now and it was a big disappointment for exactly that reason. What I’d like to see is these services add collections of old tv shows. The licensing can not be so much and it would provide great content.
Comment by Mael — August 12, 2006 @ 5:31 pm PST
Here\’s a thread of removing DRM with something called Automate unDRM v.1.0. forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=89243&page=2
I\’ve been using it with good results. It\’s very fast too. I tried using TuneBite, but it slowed the system to a crawl and then aborted with an error.
I also looked at the encrypted files in a hex editor, and it seems like Vongo just swaps things around in the first few bytes. The file is still an .WMV but just needs the bytes put back in order. I did this, and it was a playable .WMV again, but frankly this is too much trouble. The solution in comment #41 is the way to go. Any bets how long it will take Starz to overcome this loophole? Until then, make sure to delete the unDRMed files when the license expires lest you commit a crime.
Comment by Naruto — August 14, 2006 @ 11:16 pm PST
Much better picture quality will be available from reeltimetv.net (just bought reeltime.com, should be up on that URL soon). Signing content deals as I type this. Overall will prove to be a much better service - goes live September 12th.
Comment by John — September 1, 2006 @ 3:44 pm PST
[…] There were noticeable artifacts in the video quality very similar to every other movie streaming experience, including Vongo. The Hmm Vongo Review has been a heavily commented and accessed post so that suggests to me, at least in this tiny vacuum of web publishing that there is significant interest in some type of video on demand through the PC system. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » Reeltime to launch September 12 offering online “DVD-quality” on demand system — September 7, 2006 @ 9:56 am PST
I wonder if Vongo uses a torrent system. It seems that it’s using my upload channel as heavily as upload. It would make sense for them to free up their network recourses too. Any thoughts?
Comment by Lev — September 12, 2006 @ 1:14 am PST
I had subscribed to the Vongo service a few months ago. I went through the process of watching the download until it hit 99% and then saved the file to a different location. I probably got about 30 movies the first month during the free trial. When I called to cancel I got a little stonewalling but repeated 3 times that it didn’t matter why I was canceling - I just wanted to cancel and I think the guy gave up on me and canceled it. However, today I went back to the folder where I store the vongo movies with the .wma extension and tried to open one for playback. I used a few different players but all give me the same message: PLAYER FAILURE - THIS MOVIE OR OTHER VIDEO SELECTION CAN ONLY BE PLAYED WITH THE VONGO APPLICATION. PLEASE DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE VONGO SOFTWARE AND THEN RE-DOWNLOAD THE CONTENT FROM WITHIN THE APPLICATION.
Has anyone else run into this? Does anyone know of a work around? The files still have the .wma extension. Thanks
Comment by Diane — September 21, 2006 @ 8:40 am PST
Diane - what you are asking for is breaking the license you have with Vongo and the DRM you agreed to when you downloaded those movies. That’s the point, you are paying to rent the movies from them, not own them for use on any player, and when you stop renting you can no longer play the movies. You need to pay to use the Vongo service. It may seem unfair or stupid, I don’t want to get into that discussion here, but that’s the deal you agreed to when you used the Vongo service.
If you would like movies you can play and not rentals than there are various other *legal* online movie services out there which let you do that. iTunes sells movies now, Guba is another.
Or you could just sign up for an unlimited plan at places like Hollywood Video and watch as many movies as you want every month for like 25 bones a month. Yeah, you have to get in your car and drive to get them but after 90-120 days you’ll run through their inventory if you are an avid movie watcher.
Hope this helps
Comment by TDavid — September 21, 2006 @ 8:51 am PST
[…] I don’t want to get all high and mighty with a post and come off like I’m judging other people (but I’m sure I’ll be judged by simply writing about this topic), but our Vongo comment thread has taken a turn for the dark side. A discussion which started in response to a review I wrote of the Vongo service has descended into how to crack Vongo’s DRM. […]
Pingback by Make You Go Hmm: » DRM more appealing than piracy — September 21, 2006 @ 10:39 am PST
Regarding question #55, while you were downloading, you had to right-click and open up the properties and uncheck “Hidden” and check “Read Only”.
In regards to the website’s owner and statement in #57, I totally agree. I completely prefer, after trying to view with the Vongo Player and Windows Media Player, that the only reason I, personally, wanted to find a better way to view the movies on my tv was the only reason I wanted to turn the movies into .wma’s. They have a much better quality overall. To remove the DRM is not only a hassle, it can be costly, and it’s just not worth the time for all the movies you want for $9.99 a month. Who wants to save those older movies anyway????? Additionally, the only way I’ve been able to view the movies on only one other computer (my laptop) was to open the .wma through my home network and go that route; Vongo’s upload thing for that never has worked for me. The .wma conversion allows me to use the service I PAY FOR for up to THREE computers and THAT I should be entitled to and don’t feel at all guilty about converting the movies to .wma for that reason. But, to remove the DRM is just plain dumb and not worth. Download it again if you want a repeat performance!
Comment by Chakara — September 21, 2006 @ 8:53 pm PST
Just a follow up to my comment # 55, I have no intention of trying to crack the DRM on the Vongo movies. All of these movies will be on cable TV sooner or later anyway. I had a lot going on in my life after I downloaded the movies and didn’t get the time to watch any of them. So now that I do have the time I thought I would try one. I just thought that since I had saved them with the .wmv extension I would be able to use Media Player to view them. No big deal; I’ll delete the files since they are taking up space and are not usable to me. Thanks
Comment by Diane — September 22, 2006 @ 6:24 am PST
Just cancelled my Vongo. Worked great for little over 2 weeks. Then the disappearing movies that where not old enough to auto delete “player cannot find file” then “You must be in the US to use vongo” errors, then two others.
Movies got real laggy for no reason no load on system.
Movies lock up near the middle
You download one one night and the next day the player cannot find it.
6 emails 4 phone calls and no one in tech support cares about their customers as its been 3 days since they replied to my last request for help.
Stars stream stopped working about 2 weeks ago.
The service is a disaster, the main APP is a processor pig, it loses its own movies during VALID license period.
Vongo = FUBAR
Save your money, try someone else, as this was a disaster, tried to cancel today online and it give an error saying some file was missing? Had to call to cancel.
Staff of idiots governed by morons and a technical staff who has no clue about OS or the app they support. I have had more help from the idiots at Veritas/Symantec and they are in India and dont speak and understand English!
Vongo wasted my cash and refused to help!
Comment by Stefan — September 29, 2006 @ 1:26 pm PST
I, as Diane #59, am in the same predicament. I downloaded a bunch of movies a few months ago in hopes of wathcing them and now i’m unable to because of the same message listed by Diane in #55. Are there any “other alternative ways” to watch these downloaded movies?
Comment by Matt — October 2, 2006 @ 8:53 pm PST
I was wondering if you could copy the movies from vongo to blank dvd’s and if so, is it easy?
Comment by Terri — October 3, 2006 @ 6:38 am PST
Can posts be listed here and deleted by others? I had a post here yesterday and now it’s no longer here.
Comment by Matt — October 3, 2006 @ 11:56 am PST
Matt message #61 (and Diane message #55): I had the same problem after first trying vongo yesterday, with getting that same error message, and I emailed vongo and got this response today -
We’re very sorry to hear you’re having such troubles with the application.
This is a very common error when using Windows XP Media Center Edition. This operating system is currently unsupported, but many customers have had success after trying the following. (While it’s uncommon to get this particular error with other operating systems, the troubleshooting is still the same.)
First, you want to ensure that you are not using Windows Media Player 11. This program is still in Beta and is not supported by Vongo at this time. You want to ensure that you have Windows Media Player 10 and it’s set as the default player.
Next, we want to update the license. (Please ensure that all programs, including Vongo, are closed before you start)
Open a new Internet explorer window and paste the following address into the address bar:
http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink?LinkID=34506
There will be a big Update button, click on it and then once it’s finished saving, restart the computer.
Once the computer comes back up, without opening any other programs, please try the following:
In a new Internet Explorer window, please paste the following into the address bar:
http://www.vongo.com/player_check/Sample.wmv
Please, click ‘Yes’ if it asks if you want to play item in Internet Explorer.
It should then ask you for a username and password, please use:
username = VongoTest
password = password
It should tell you that information is being delivered to your computer, click Play when it becomes available. (You may receive an error here. Click out of the error and click Play again, it should work.) A Starz video clip should begin to play. Let this play through, close the window and launch your Vongo application.
I followed their instructions and it worked perfectly for me, and I am now able to watch the movies I downloaded.
Comment by FatGuy — October 3, 2006 @ 1:47 pm PST
RE: post #64. Thanks for the info, however i followed your directions exactly and i still can not get this to work. Are the movies playing through Win Media or the Vongo player? Everytime i try through the WMP, i still get the licensing window for vongo.
Comment by Matt — October 4, 2006 @ 4:22 pm PST
This is to make it playable through the vongo software, which is a popup WMP type window. You can’t play them in WMP itself without getting the licensing error, unless you follow some of the OTHER methods listed above that explain how to stop the drm’ing of the files. If you follow the explanation that post #41 suggests, you should have no problem using WMP afterwards. You don’t even have to rename as suggested and don’t need to put the wmv extension back on. It will still play, but you’ll get a quick error about WMP not supporting the extension, but only on the first file since you can click the “don’t show this message again” afterwards.
I’m not saying you SHOULD do this, but it’s one option that will enable you to use WMP. The only problem is sitting at the computer and catching each download as it starts so you can mark it “read only”. It’d be nice if there was a simpler way to mark ALL of the pending ones that way, but for now that is your option.
Comment by FatGuy — October 4, 2006 @ 5:24 pm PST
I love me the Vongo. 10 bucks seems like a dealio. The only prob I have is the only supported portable is the Toshiba Gigabeat. Mine just arrived from Amazon but before I open it I’d like to take one more shot at transferring the Vongo movies to my Archos. Any thought if the #41 fix will work. Thanks
Comment by sdc20010 — October 10, 2006 @ 5:05 pm PST
Question about Vongo and portables. I’d like to play Vongo movies on an Archos but the only supported portable is the Gigabeat. Is there anyway to accomplish this. I know the DRM isn’t compatible. The encryption work around probably won’t cut it. Getting reay to travel and would like to take the movies with me. Thanks much
Comment by Steph — October 10, 2006 @ 6:36 pm PST
What formats does the Archos support? I know that “workaround” mentioned in previous posts works to make the files playable in windows media player 10, because the files are WMV (Windows Media Video) format but with the wmv extension removed. Just use the workaround that was mentioned earlier, and then rename the file to whatever you want, and add back the wmv extension, and it should play for you, at least in windows media player on the PC, but not sure if you can play the wmv format on the archos. There are plenty of programs that will convert wmv to avi, mpg, or other formats, so you should be able to make things work one way or another. However, using the workaround is breaking your agreement with Vongo, and I don’t really recommend it, or condone it, not that I condemn it either. Not that my opinion matters a whole lot. lol
I don’t do it personally, but only because I don’t feel the need. My PC is setup better than most home theatre systems, so sitting in here watching a movie is just fine by me. I have a 5.1 surround system, with a 21″ screen, and that is enough to keep me happy.
Comment by FatGuy — October 10, 2006 @ 10:51 pm PST
I hate their customer service. I hate that I cant fast forward. It took 8 hours to dl one movie.. my batter died while watching the movie and I lost the spot. In addition, I went back, watch about 75% of the movie, went blank and black and I have to start over.. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Comment by Frank — October 29, 2006 @ 9:49 am PST
Frank, That’s odd. I have so far had no problems with their customer service, but I’ve only needed to contact them one time, and they answered my question quickly and accurately, and it helped me sort the problem out immediately. I also never have a movie take that long to download. It doesn’t usually take more than 30 minutes to download a movie for me, and so far they seem fine. Do you have dial-up or broadband? You might have some firewall issues or other networking problems that cause such slow speeds, and might be able to get more help from your ISP in sorting that out. If you use some of the directions included in this forum you can save the movies so you can play them with your regular windows media player instead of with the vongo player, and you should be able to ff/rw/etc. without any issues.
I hope your experience with Vongo gets better. Mine has been good so far, but I might cancel next month anyway because I find that I don’t have enough time to sit in my office and watch movies these days. I spend all my time working or taking care of my new son, and spending time with my family, so I don’t get to enjoy movies nearly as much as I used to. lol
Comment by FatGuy — October 29, 2006 @ 10:15 pm PST
We have Media Center on our computer and use an XBox 360 to extend that to our TV, so it is a must to be able to get these files in the “.wmv” format for the XBox 360 to be able to access. Comment #41 was the way to go for me too. It is a little bit of a hassle to have to go to the folder everytime and change the file attributes, so I created a little .bat script that changes the attributes/properties of all .wmv files in that directory. I am still working on how to automate this so it does it every 15 minutes. It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Anyway, just cut and paste the text below into notepad and save it as a .bat file. You can just click on that from your desktop, or where ever you save it to, and it will change the attributes/properties of every .wmv file in your “c:/program files/vongo/content” folder.
cd c:\Program Files\Vongo\Content
attrib -h +r *.wmv
When you save this file with notepad be sure to change the save as type dropdown to “All Files” and add the “.bat” extension to the filename.
Hope this helps. And if anyone figures out an easy way to make this script run every 15 minutes or so, please post it back here.
P.S. The Vongo software needs some major updates. I have a relatively new computer and the software is slow. It’s not unusable, but definitely unacceptable. I really wish there was a greater movie selection (like netflix), but we will get our $10/mo out of it. The speed is good. It takes me less than an hour to download a movie and I like the option of being able to schedule downloads at certain times. I will definitely use this feature when I get the above script setup to run on automatically so I don’t have to click a button everytime a movie downloads. I really don’t understand why vongo is only allowing the movie to be viewed with the vongo player. That is silly. They are already protected by DRM, so I don’t get it. If they are going to allow you to use a portable device, why not an XBOX 360 or any other kind of media extender?
Comment by Trai Davenport — November 15, 2006 @ 7:43 pm PST
I guess my follow up comment got deleted because of the DRM reference. That is cool, but I do want to let anyone know following this post that you can use Task Scheduler within windows to run the above .bat file every 15 minutes. This will automatically change the file properties/attributes (as mentioned in reply #41) so you don\’t have to do it manually. The only thing you will have to do after the file is finished downloading is to open the contents folder and change the filename (adding the .wmv extension of course). It works perfect!
Hope that helps.
Comment by Trai Davenport — November 16, 2006 @ 5:24 pm PST
I think it might have gotten deleted because of the changed name. Same as above (name used) is not a name, just use your name mon
I just fixed your name to match in the post above. If the name is different and matches another email already in the system used it throws off all sorts of red flags in our moderation process, just FYI (read the comment rules).
Comment by TDavid — November 16, 2006 @ 6:04 pm PST
Troubles when I changed the attributes while it was downloading to read only. It finished and I renamed it with the .wmv My 360 is telling me it can’t read the protected file ?? any thoughts
Comment by ichabod13 — December 3, 2006 @ 3:21 am PST
Horrible Service. Bad client, bad selection, bad connection speed, bad customer service, absolutely horrible licence agreement. Besides all of the above mentioned problems, the licence agreement says that they collect and sell your information. I signed up 14 days ago for the 14 day free trial, and today I cancelled my membership. When I looked at my billing history, I found out that I had been billed on the day I signed up. I called customer service, and talked with a rep for around half an hour. He repeatedly cited the 15 page license agreement, and said that my 14 days expired at exactly 336 hours after I had signed up, and not on the end of the 14th day. Finally, he told me that he had no power to give me a refund, but that he would send me to an automated system that I could leave a message on, and someone would contact me by phone or email in the next 72 hours. At $10.71, it’s cheap as lessons go, but I’d advise anyone considering trying VONGO to try something else.
Comment by keep the cable — December 22, 2006 @ 12:06 am PST
They don’t actually “charge” you until the actual free trial ends, but they do put a “hold” on the $9.99 monthly fee when you first sign up. It’s normal practice unfortunately, and they did the same to me. I don’t know where you get $10.71, as I’ve never been billed 10.71 the entire time I’ve had the service.it’s always exactly $9.99 (or is that $9.95). I didn’t experience Any of the problems you mentioned either, so maybe it’s something on your end, like slow internet connection. I am able to download movies in a matter of a few minutes typically, and while the selection isn’t as good as it could be, it’s decent for a fledgling company. I have looked at others, and not too many offer anything more at this point. It takes a lot of time and money to get permissions to distribute all this stuff, so give that a thought before you criticize them. I had to contact customer service once, and I felt that they answered my question quickly and very accurately, so I’d say their customer service was excellent. I think you are just disgruntled because you were charged when you didn’t expect it, and they didn’t immediately refund your money when you wanted them to, because the customer service rep wasn’t authorized to do so. Read your agreements carefully when you sign up for things like this so you know what to expect in the end. be VERY careful what you agree to, and count the days closely to be sure you don’t go beyond your free trial period and end up charged. I have made that mistake as well, and I just had to say “oh well”, and went on using the service for the month I paid for, and cancelled just before the new month went into effect, that way I wasn’t charged again. (this was not for vongo, because I’m actually still paying them currently, although I don’t use the service much. Considering cancelling because I am not here enough to really enjoy it.).
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience though. I guess not everyone is going to be happy with the same services.
Comment by FatGuy — December 22, 2006 @ 6:14 pm PST
I think it was $10.71 because they added tax. I don’t think my connection is the problem because I did a bandwith test that put me at around 800 kbps. As for reading the contract better, you are right, i just skimmed it because it was 15 pages long. I’ve used netfilx before, and if i sign up for anything else, it will be with them again. They don’t sell your personal information, the selection is alot better, so it’s worth the 2 day wait.
Comment by keep the cable — December 25, 2006 @ 8:17 pm PST
Hmm, I wonder why they never taxed me? Maybe you are in the same state that they are based out of and they have to charge tax because of that or something.
I’ve always liked Netflix as well, other than the typical delay in getting any new released through them. I used them for quite a while, but I was only ever able to get movies that have been out for quite a while, and had to wait months for new releases to become available. It was easier for me to just hit my local Hollywood Video to get the new releases right when they come out, and just use Netflix for more obscure titles that I couldn’t find at the local stores anymore. I too am considering going back to Netflix for another try though, and I’ll probably be dropping Vongo soon, mainly because I just don’t ever watch the movies that I download. I download, and they sit there until they get deleted. lol
Hopefully whatever option you go with next time will be better for you, and you won’t have any issues with them. I’m sure we’ll see a lot more net based services in the near future, and as the competition picks up the quality and selection will improve as well.
Good Luck!
Comment by FatGuy — December 26, 2006 @ 9:25 am PST
The function key and the F8 key hit simultaneously is what projects a laptop onto a data projector. Sometimes you have to hit the keys more than once to toggle from laptop, to laptop and tv, to just tv. Good luck.
Comment by CTyler — December 27, 2006 @ 12:20 pm PST
I’m ready to cancel this god-awful service as soon as I finish watching Annapolis… Can anyone tell me why fast forward doesn’t work? It’s annoying when their crappy player stops playing the movie about 1/4 of the way in and then I have to watch it from the beginning AGAIN.
Comment by IceCracker — December 27, 2006 @ 8:49 pm PST
my sister works for vongo and i’m planning to follow her. i believe i’ll be part of the marketing and development team. comments and suggestions are welcome. i will also try to answer most of your inquiries, as all of our computers have vongo system access.
Comment by big bro — December 27, 2006 @ 11:46 pm PST
for some of the issues i’ve read, here’s the explanation:
Problem:
On certain HP laptop windows installer starts a windows repair process, known as resiliency, on the pre-installed Vongo application.
If the user account is a limited user, then the repair process will fail numerous times because the Vongo install process requires administrative privileges.
Cause:
Vongo uses a third party component from InstallShield called the Update Manager to help notify users of new updates to the product. This component is used by other companies as well. There is a bug in the InstallShield component that is causing the windows installer to think it is broken and needs repair.
Temporary Solution:
Turn off ISUSPM from System Configuration Utility.
Permanent Solution:
Starz Entertainment Group is working with Installshield on a permanent solution to the problem.
Comment by big bro — December 28, 2006 @ 9:25 pm PST
Aight, I’ll bite.
1) Why does Fast Forward not work? Clicking the fast forward does nothing, and adjusting the slider bar does nothing. This is a problem I’ve had on every movie I’ve watched so far. This wouldn’t really be a problem, but sometime the Vongo Player decides to stop halfway through the movie, then I have to let it play for an hour before I get back to where it restarted.
2) Why does the downloader start and stop downloading at will? I left my computer on over night to download Pacifier, Hitch, and Robocop. It downloaded Pacifier and then stopped. I got up the next morning, and it just didn’t want to download the next movie on the list, then it randomly started several hours later whilst I was upstairs making lunch in the kitchen. There’s a pause button for your downloads, but no resume button. I just have to kinda wait around until it decides I’m worthy enough for it to begin downloading. I was downloading Layer Cake, paused it for a second to stream a music video, then it wouldn’t start back up. I cancelled it, downloaded it again (clicking on “Download Now”) and it just sat around for about an hour before it actually started working.
Those are my two biggest complaints, if you could help me out I’d appreciate and I might even keep it… I’ve been dreaming of a service like this for a few years now… If it worked properly I’d be in heaven.
P.S. Why are random movies Pay Per View? I can understand hot, new titles like Cars being PPB, but for some reason Starship Troopers and Bridge on the River Kwai are PPV (to name a couple, there are many more old and random PPV titles). What’s up with that?
Comment by IceCracker — December 29, 2006 @ 1:43 am PST
icecracker,
here’s what i got for the first issue: upgrade wmp and make it your default player.
on your second issue, i can’t seem to find a similar issue hence no update yet. but i’m waiting for a reply, i forwarded your concerns to her. as far as i know, as long as you click the download now button for each movie, it will just line up in queue, unless you use the task manager.
with the movies, yes, i understand, i felt the same. but there are some movies that is in subscription and ppv at the same time (as there are two types of account for vongo), just make sure you customize your search to subscription movies only. but then again, i’ll take note of this just in case. research and dev team is already pressured to provide solution to every issue that they’ve encountered.
i’ll keep you posted.
Comment by big bro — December 30, 2006 @ 10:53 am PST
I am writing because I just saw a commercial about Vongo on T.V. and I am interested in signing up for a movie rental program like Netflix or something. From what I have read so far it is my understanding that Vongo only allows you to download movies onto your PC and watch them on your PC and you have no control over how long the movies stay on your PC. I want to be able to watch movies on my T.V., not my computer. If I have my information incorrect please advise me about Vongo as I still am not sure what Vongo is all about. Confused but curious.
Comment by R.Stvr — December 31, 2006 @ 3:02 pm PST
In my opinion Vongo is well worth the $10/mo. You dont get the selection that you get with Netflix/Blockbuster, but I probably watch at least 10/11 movies from Vongo per month. I agree with the above poster that the random ppv movies are stupid. I wouldnt mind paying to rent new releases, but come on there is no way I am gonna pay to rent Karate Kid! The only reason that Vongo is worth the money to me is because I found a way to watch the movies on all of my TV\’s (XBox 360 & another computer connected to a TV).
Check out my post above with the script to keep Vongo from adding their own header to the movie file. With that script you just have to go back into the content folder after it is downloaded and rename the file and add the .wmv extension. I can even watch the movie on my computer or XBox 360 while it is still downloading. While the movie is downloading you can\’t fast forward or rewind, but after it has downloaded you can.
As soon as another company comes out with a service like Vongo that has more selections (like Netflix) I will switch, but this is about the best I have found so far for the price.
My 2 cents.
Comment by Trai Davenport — January 1, 2007 @ 3:11 pm PST
icecracker,
use the download sheduler to make downloading automatic and will not need to wait for you to start downloading again.
R.Stvr,
yup, just browse around the discussion thread and you’ll find amazing tips on how you can maximize vongo. just keep in mind that vongo only let you rent the license and not own it so it will not stay forever in your library. TraiDavenport is right, evolution of this kind of service has started rolling, we’ll enjoy better service soon.
everyone,
random ppv movie is a crap. no updates yet to why vongo hangs on to it. but as promised, i’ll keep you posted. happy new year!
Comment by big bro — January 1, 2007 @ 6:45 pm PST
Vongo updates:
FF and the slider won’t work when you are using the watch now button and the movie hasn’t finished downloading yet. Random stopping may be due to a bigger underlying issue. Do you have this problem on certain movie only? I haven’t encountered it in a good movie file.
The random stopping of movies in the download queue over night is probably related more to ISP service. If you become disconnected from the internet over night for a brief period of time and then reconnects. At which point the movie will prompt you if you want to restart the download or you have a schedule set up to stop and start these movies at certain times when downloading. At any rate the pause button also works like a resume button pressing on it when the movie is paused from download with start the download again.
Old PPV titles are libraries of movies that Starz purchases from the studios which they will only allow vongo to provide to the public at a PPV offering.
Vongo is $9.99 plus applicable state tax.
You can still download ppv movies (and only pay for it) even if you have cancelled your account with vongo.
A third party finance company “theoretically holds” the amount payable to Vongo within the free trial and the actual deduction only happens when you let your free trial expires without cancelling. Cancellation (online or better yet, on the phone to be very sure)before the end of the free trial automatically “return” the money to your account thus, its free.
Vongo is a legal service, but if you are in doubt with the financial transaction of vongo with your credit card, you can always ask for the authorization code and transaction reference number from the 24/7 vongo customer service and verify it with your bank.
Tips for a hassle-less vongo enjoyment:
a.) make sure your system requirement is at least a notch more than the minimum (ask vongo> type system requirement)
b.) keep the toll-free 24/7 tech and customer service vongo number (1-877-VONGO-21)
c.) read the discussion thread to give you an idea on the service (take note how each issue is being resolved)
enjoy your vongo!
Comment by big bro — January 4, 2007 @ 2:10 am PST
I would just like to say that I think Vongo is totally Awesome. The Movie selections get better and better every week, and the quality of the movies is absolutely state of the art. I have used netflix previously and the constantly overused and dirty DVDS did nothing but mess up my computer. With Vongo and my cox cable modem, I can download most movies in under 20 minutes, and watch them even while they’re still downloading. It’s totally effortless! As far as keeping the movies, let me tell you guys something. I remember back when VCR technology first got started. I was one of the 50 original cable subscribers to HBO and I spent $1200 for a new state of the art device back then which was called a Sony Betamax. Blank Tapes cost around $20.00 each and you could tape 5 hours of decent quality or 3 hours of what was then considered to be GREAT quality. Video Stores had just come onto the horizon and each rental cost me around $6.00, but you first had to join a club for $29.95 before the store would even rent you a movie and then if you brought back the movie late or unrewound, the store would charge you another $4.00 And God Forbid if you lost a movie, then you’d have to fork over anywhere between $75-$125 because that is what they were going for back then. Then came the 1980’s and with that came a few new inventions. DVD was still experimental, JVC replaced the Beta format with VHS and because the machines were cheaper and played longer tapes, most of the video stores stopped carrying BETA and you could only get new movies in VHS, so I decided to buy the best and I spent another $799.00 on the best VHS machine that there was. Rental stores increased, first was Video Shack and then around 1987 or 88 Blockbuster was born, and the rental fees went down to $3.00 per movie with a $2.00 per night late fee, if you were late bring it back. So in any case, to make a long story short, here’s my take on keeping the movies. I now have in my attic about a good 500 movies in Betamax format which are now unplayable because the tape life (even of the High Grade Tapes) was only 10-15 years which I’ll probably either wind up throwing out someday, or donating to a museum if they ever want to open one to remember those “good ol” days, plus I have another maybe 1000 movies in VHS format which are also now becoming unplayable, plus they are nowhere near as good in quality as those currently on Vongo by today’s standards. So now the year is 2007 and we now have DVD and next year we’ll have blue-ray, and then after that, who even knows if I’ll even be alive by then. All I can say to you younger guys is that you really should appreciate something like Vongo. I do, mainly because I not only get to enjoy a lot of the movies again which I used to be able to watch on my VCR, but now I NO LONGER NEED EITHER A VCR OR TAPES, OR EVEN DVDS FOR THAT MATTER, plus I get a lot of the new stuff too, all for only $10 a month??? That’s almost too good to be true. There’s only 1 thing that I would like to see improved about Vongo (and I know that somebody’s probably working on this even as I’m writing this post.) I’d like to be able to download and share these movies with other people in my household who only have TV sets and not PCs while I’m watching them. You know, kind of like a wireless transmitter which is hooked up to my PC which could transmit maybe a couple of hundred feet to a receiver which is hooked up to a regular TV set. Sure, I know you can do that by just ordering STARZ on Demand and then getting digital boxes for each set from Cox, but doing it that way would send my monthly cable bill into the stratosphere, as Cox charges $10 per month per digital box and then another $10 per month for on demand service. Combine that with my high speed internet service and we’re talking about $150 per month. Right now I’m paying around $70 per month for high speed internet and digital on only 1 TV in the house, so I can watch movies in the living room, but not in either of the 2 bedrooms which is why I don’t mind paying only $10.00 a month to watch Vongo in at least 1 of my bedrooms. That’s the only thing that I Can think of that I’d like to see done with Vongo. An inhome wireless transmitter with the ability to add on as many receivers as you have got TVS. Other than that, you young “Whippersnappers” should feel lucky and honored that the good lord put you onto this earth at a time when technology like this has become available for such a more than reasonable (it’s freaking too cheap, for crying out loud!) price.
Anyone wanna buy a library of Beta and VHS movies REALLY cheap? (Dust is included at no extra charge.)
Comment by Gary Schein — January 6, 2007 @ 12:45 am PST
Vongo sucks. Straight up sucks. 0 out of 10. Reason: you only have access to the movies that the stars channel has the rights to. New movies are about a dollar cheaper than movies OnDemand from my cable company. This is not a Blockbuster.com or NetFlix site where you can stream movies that you would expect to see in the video store, which they conveniently do not tell you. One more time, Vongo S-U-C-K-S sucks.
Comment by mark — January 19, 2007 @ 3:03 pm PST
ok wow////What a read this page has been! I have ONE question!!
DOES anyone KNOW HOW TO….. install vongo onto a different hard drive than your c drive.
Most apps give you the option.. VONGO dosen’t. My c drive is a 10,000 rpm raptor and only 74 gig… I cant have it filling up with movies.. I have 3 other drives… one for photoshop ( I wont bore you all with all of this ) But basically I want it or at least its movies and where they go to … off of my raptor!! HELP!!!!!
J
Comment by jaySUN — January 24, 2007 @ 6:48 am PST
i just downloaded vongo yesterday, and the files are being saved here: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Videos\Vongo. not sure if that was something i did but if anyone else is having a hard time finding the files, check in this location. also i should mention that the Vongo folder is a hidden one so make sure you turn on the ability to see hidden content in folder options.
Comment by NetflixUser530 — January 28, 2007 @ 10:02 am PST
Vongo is Awesome! I have been watching movies on my 60 inch Plasma for 4 months! One thing I don’t like is some of my favorites movies seem to disappear. What’s up with that?
Comment by BearMan — February 1, 2007 @ 8:20 pm PST
I can download most movies in under 20 minutes, and watch them even while they’re still downloading. It’s totally effortless! As far as keeping the movies, let me tell you guys something. I remember back when VCR technology first got started. I was one of the 50 original cable subscribers to HBO and I spent $1200 for a new state of the art device back then which was called a Sony Betamax. Blank Tapes cost around $20.00 each and you could tape 5 hours of decent quality or 3 hours of what was then considered to be GREAT quality. Video Stores had just come onto the horizon and each rental cost me around $6.00, but you first had to join a club for $29.95 before the store would even rent you a movie and then if you brought back the movie late or unrewound, the store would charge you another $4.00 And God Forbid if you lost a movie, then you’d have to fork over anywhere between $75-$125 because that is what they were going for back then. Then came the 1980’s and with that came a few new inventions.
Comment by Jeremy — February 7, 2007 @ 11:53 am PST
I’ve had Vongo since July 2006. Any problems I experienced seem to be minor ones until the last couple of months. Movies that are NOT expired are auto deleting (not during upgrades/updates). I can be sitting at my computer and I will see the little bubble XXXXX has been deleted. I’m doing nothing to cause this. I’m not on a network, etc. This has been the most frustrating thing and no one seems to be able to help.
After major upgrades / updates all movies seemed to have been lost or irretrievable but this problem is maddening so I may have to just discontinue service. I’m waiting for a call back from the “escalation level” but have gotten absolutely no where with the service when I call in for help.
Comment by Shari — February 9, 2007 @ 5:29 am PST
Bearman .. are you having the same issue I am or are your movies disappearing when you upgrade/update the software itself?
Comment by Shari — February 9, 2007 @ 5:31 am PST
Reply to comment #92
You can create a .bat script that will run every so often and move all the .wmv files in a specific folder to another folder. That’s my best idea for now. There might be a way to change where vongo saves your files by hacking the registry, but I don’t have the need to do that and I haven’t looked into it.
Here’s an example of the script.
move *.wmv “D:\Vongo Movies”
You will need to change “D:\Vongo Movies” to where you actually want to move the files. Just copy and paste the line above and save it as a .bat file (use notepad). Put the file in “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Videos\Vongo” and use windows task scheduler to run it however often you want to (in your case maybe just once late at night).
My vongo software was recently updated and it seems they have “heard” “some” of our issues. I no longer have to use the .bat script to keep vongo from writing their own header to the files (they did this so they could only be played from within the vongo software). They don’t write their header information anymore, so you can play the file through windows media player or your xbox 360.
HEY VONGO! NEXT MAKE A PLUGIN FOR WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER THAT RUNS ON THE EXTENDERS SO I DON’T HAVE TO GO TO MY COMPUTER TO DOWNLOAD A MOVIE! ALSO, PLEASE GET MORE DECENT MOVIES OR ELSE NO ONE WILL EVER REMAIN A CUSTOMER FOR OVER 2-3 MONTHS. THE PICKINGS ARE GETTING SLIM!
Comment by Trai Davenport — February 9, 2007 @ 9:58 pm PST
Vongo’s toll-free number is 1-877-VONGO21 (1-877-866-4621).
Comment by bigbro — February 11, 2007 @ 6:53 am PST
I just signed up this week ( I got a free month with DSL upgrade) and already have experienced several of the problems mentioned above: unpredictable download starts, unexpired films disappearing, and worst of all, the “licencing agreement required” notice from WMP - this after an upgrade to WMP10. Decided to reinstall XP and finally am able to download and view films.
One point, I would suggest a straight up HTML interface, what the hell is Vongo’s obsession with resource hogging Flash?
and why would any half-intelligent designer create an installation package with no option to choose the installation drive? That was another reason I had to reinstalled XP - my C drive was on a 4 gig partition - to use Vongo, I had to move the first film I downloaded out to D drive and then couldn’t play it after I swapped it back into the downloads folder.
Not keeping Vongo. Netflix is awesome for me - there is a distribution center in my hometown. When I had it, it only took two days to receive another set of three new discs to decrypt to my PC or view normally. After a few months, I had more films copied to DVDRW’s than I could ever get around to viewing. I don’t see how Vongo can survive, offering mainly classics and stuff you get “free with rental” from any video store.
Vongo is not worth the effort due to the inconvenience, restrictions and second-rate video selection. I would use it only as a novelty, for the experience.
Comment by Warm Summer Rain — February 24, 2007 @ 5:17 pm PST
Finally! After looking for a bit on my laptop, I finally found the folder the movies are in. I am running Vista, and the folder they were in for me (hidden folder btw) was as follows:
(C:) Users > Public > Public Videos > Vongo
Hope that is the same with everyone else possibly on Vista
Comment by Sevaexus — June 5, 2007 @ 1:44 am PST
Well, I have Vongo. I am using a D-link DSM-520 media player and the Tversity media server to view the movies on my big screen HDTV without any issues. For $10 a month, I think it’s a great service.
Comment by Sundance — January 5, 2008 @ 9:52 am PST
Toshiba imposed VONGO on me by preloading my new Toshiba laptop with a Toshiba FREE 30 day trial of VONGO.
When I downloaded the 30 day trial it became a 14 day trial. The monthly subscription came packaged with a pay per view
package. I quit before the first download and now enjoy Netflix. I abhore corrupt business schemes as much as corrupt files.
My review = Buyer Beware, do not be surprised if you cannot rip Vongo from your computer .It is well imbeded and difficult to remove. If you want Vongo, that’s your perogative unless you have a Toshiba, then it’s in your face wether you like it or not…
Comment by Pixles — January 22, 2008 @ 6:14 am PST
About Vongo,I tried to become a paying customer,but they kept telling me there was an error with my email address.When I tried to seek help,their computerize helper couldn’t comprehend.So,I guess I’ll keep HBO and Showtime for awhile………….:(
Comment by Bob — January 24, 2008 @ 8:31 pm PST