I've added a quick poll (top right) to see how credible you guys think the latest claims from Virgin are regarding new HD channels this summer. Given the press coverage the promise of 5/6 new HD channels got (saw stories in the Mail, Guardian, Telegraph and even The Times) Mr Berkett really has to deliver this time around. Or does he?
Oh, and has anyone else managed to track down those 270 hours of on demand HD programmes yet? I'm coming up with around half that number on current listings.
12 comments:
i hope you are going to send the poll results to the ceo(Liar)
i know that VM love the 2 words "coming soon" perhaps even more than "increased customers" (which is what will happen if VM had introduced more HD channels earlier) but i believe that this time Berkett has announced it formally and even though its probably going to be delayed a month or two, we weill definitely see some new HD offering in this calender year...fingers crossed
i dont think there wil be any hd from vm as thay love bb and are playing with it again 200mbps so we know which direction thay are looking again but fingers crossed eh
I'm thinking they mean 270 hours of HD On Demand in total, not all of which is available at any given time?
I thought it may be that too, but then I did a quick bit of maths and that would be too low a number, given the films and series of Lost, Criminal Minds et al we've had over the last two years or so.
There's no doubting the quality of the series available - HBO's output is phenomenally consistent - but it's not to everyone's taste. Some more populist series wouldn't go amiss.
I think they include every music video as well.
There is only 1 music video in HD at 4 minutes long. (Its a good one though - Editors.)
There were a few music related HD videos, a while back at least, and a handful of softcore porn, but certainly not anywhere near the missing ~135 hours.
And I agree that all of the Lost, HBO etc shown recently must add up way beyond that number. The Sopranos alone is 86 episodes, each listed as 1 hour in the EPG (although each really a bit less than that, dunno which number they use for counting). Maybe if you discount Lost, which they may no longer have the rights to show at all (since they're not), the numbers come closer?
Scary idea: they're about to introduce 135 hours of adverts to make up the numbers!
Anonymous: "Scary idea: they're about to introduce 135 hours of adverts to make up the numbers!"
I don't see that as a necessarily bad thing, as long as we're not shown too many of them at once. I was watching some Gadget Show clips recently, and they all start with two identical ads for the LG Arena (the same as the TV ad, "simulated features" and all!). The new video ads on Last.rm radio are all the same one, for Vodafone.
It gets excruciatingly repetitive *very* quickly, and even if they were relevant to me (they're not - you'd have to pry my iPhone 3G from my cold, dead fingers!) I certainly wouldn't accept that sort of repetitiveness on a service I use regularly.
Sam
Actually I do agree that 135 hours of unique adverts that were skippable and not too invasive wouldn't be too bad. I was imagining, since we seem to be at 50% the number of hours they suggest, they would do somsething like match the number of hours of content with the same number of hours of unskippable, repetetive advertising: every hour of VOD is 50% adverts!
In December 2008 Neil Beckett said that there would be 4 more HD channels up and running within the next 3 months, now he is saying that there will be 6 or 7 channels in the last quarter of 2009.
Who is he kidding!!!!!
This HD service on Virgin Media has actually got worse, When it first started we had BBCHD and ITVHD channels now there is only BBCHD and most of this is previews.
VM need to sort this out and get them ASAP before people run in droves. It's only a matter of time before Sky have decent VOD stuff.
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