CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[VideoGrabber]

Universal has always had the problem of "too little content" and "too many hours to fill", which has resulted in a huge number of re-runs of everything they air. Looking for something new there was like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack. But when they did come up with new ones, they frequently were films not seen elsewhere, and often in OAR. So I always kept my eyes open for stuff there.

Sure, the bitrate was lower than any other channel, and they couldn't get the audio right to save their a$$, but it was a channel I was glad to have available. Even when they switched over from running their films w/o commercial interruption (all ads were clustered at the end of a film), and started embedding the ads, they still aired the "theatrical version" of each film, complete and intact.

Well, those days are now gone. I don't have a precise date (due to my skipping many re-runs I'd seen before), but sometime in the last 30-days they've made the migration to a "new" UnivHD:

- all films reformatted to "fit the screen" (bye, bye OAR!)

- edited for content (no "naughty" bits)

- edited for time (must hack out MORE room for MORE ads, since the extra 45 min padding is NOT enough)

- speed scroll credits at the end

I see for January that they have 5 airings total of 3 films that are "Un-Cut", which they're promoting! Ironic, since that used to be the case for everything. When I was checking out a Bond flick yesterday to see how bad it was, my mouth was hanging open at the 15-minute commercial break before the final climatic scene. (I wasn't actually watching... I used the live buffer in my TiVo.) You could go out to the store for a snack during that one... if you could even remember what it was you were watching when it finally returned. UHD deserves a lifetime-achievement award for "longest-commercial break on record" for that one.

In any event, all that's left to complete their transformation are popups during films (already in place during series programming), and airing 4x3 content stretched to 16x9, and they can change their logo to "TNT" (the worst sludge on the "HD" landscape). It's sad to see another HD provider sink so low. Unfortunately, it's not a channel I can cancel, since they're on a tier with others. Which is probably why they feel they have immunity... they're already got assured carriage, so "f" the viewers. And I have to continue to pay for, and subsidize them.

I'd send them a complaint, but I think the "feedback" page on their website is set up to throw away any comments you enter, without actually forwarding them anywhere! Seems consistent with their total lack of respect for their viewers. Anyway, one more down, and not many left, before total abandonment of broadcast HD for Blu-ray.

[MikeEby]

I hear you Tim, I am seriously considering cancelling my Premium Sat service. Showtime HD now has a watermark on the low right corner and HBO does the crop thing.

Universal-HD is one of the few channels I don't get for Dish Network, sounds like I'm not missing much. Somehow when DN went to MP4 a few months ago I lost HD-Net-Movies, one of the few channels that show unmolested content, I think it’s not included in the package I have.

Mike

[WanMan]

You are correct in that the company could care less about your comments. Their business philosophy is mimic-friendly by the industry catering to the gross majority, which are your common cowsumers that are either too ignorant, too stupid, or not watching. Even though

I've upgraded a couple of DirecTV HR21 DVRs for +100 hours of HD recording capacity, I doubt I'll ever get to that point of consuming more than 50% of its capacity. I think whatever shows I care about watching in HD will just be readily available on BD well before any other acceptable solution arrives.

[Clarence]

yeah, I'm about to drop Comcast... bill went up another $20 last month... $200 now for broadband and cable.

Plus they screwed up my firewire capability a few months ago.

I need to compare the DishNetwork and DirecTV packages, commitments, and DVRs.

I'll probably drop the premium channels and go back to netflix or blockbuster.com ... the so-called "premium" channels are a joke... corner logos, non-OAR, crawls and pop-ups, bandwidth starved compression artifacts

What's the general consensus on blu-ray availability from netflix and blockbuster.com? Long wait lists or are they well stocked?

[VideoGrabber]

Mike,
> Somehow when DN went to MP4 a few months ago I lost HD-Net-Movies, one of the few channels that show unmolested content, I think it’s not included in the package I have <

They moved HDNet Movies to a 7 channel "PlatinumHD" group, along with MGM-HD, UniversalHD, SmithsonianHD, and 3 others, for $10/month. If the PQ is any good, I'd say that was worth it for the first 2 alone. But you may need an ancillary dish to get those.

Clarence,
I can't say about BB, but NF has had lots of complaints on long wait lists for BR discs, because they won't buy enough units to meet demand.

[WanMan]

[emdawgz1]

[ecrabb]

Clarence,

We've had pretty damn good lock with BD's from Netflix, but then we're not a large metro area. Buddy at the office does the BB.com thing where he can return a mailed disc to the store and get another disc. Seems to like it.

I've also been fairly happy with DirecTV - especially with the new MPEG-4 equipment/service. No, the boxes are no HD Tivo, but then as has been pointed out, practically all the equipment and service in the industry is now all ho-hum.

Too bad there's nobody in this industry that can somehow set the bar little higher. Wouldn't we all pay a few more bucks if we could higher quality? Where's the provider to cater to that segment? I guess it was Voom - and we all know how that turned out.

SC

[emdawgz1]