Vongo Review
by David
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Many of you may be familiar with the Starz movies channel on cable. Well, Vongo is a relatively new subsidiary of Starz Entertainment. Vongo enters the market with a somewhat unique approach: they aim to provide an all-you-can-view video buffet for a single $10 monthly fee. Sounds great, huh? Well, despites its ambitions it comes with limitations that bring it back in line with its competitors. Watch Free Movies Online will lay out these limitations for you in detail.
Vongo Review: Costs
As I mentioned, the basis of Vongo is their $10 a month fee. The problem with this is twofold: 1) The selections of movies and tv shows available is remarkably weak compared to MovieLink, Amazon Unbox, CinemaNow, Netflix and even the relatively selection-weak iTunes. 2) You can gain access to more… for a fee. While the additional content only costs $1 to $4 per use, this is in addition to the $10 monthly fee and the selection is still pretty sparse. I found myself most wanting to watch the paid content, so you can imagine how that seemingly small and simple $10 a month fee can quickly balloon as you accumulate the additional individual charges.
I should add that Vongo does allow rentals in many cases where other services only allowed purchases. Vongo also doesn’t require a set top for streaming to the television, although most users will need a Media Center Extender.
Currently Vongo doesn’t feature any kind of purchasing program. It’s strictly a subscribe and rent service.
How Vongo Works
To browse, rent and watch movies or television shows, you need to download and install Vongo’s proprietary client. The client is clean and simple, but it is nowhere near as robust as Microsoft’s Media Center, iTunes or even the Amazon Unbox Video Player. It fulfills its need well enough, but don’t expect to find a lot of useful data on videos you browse and don’t expect a robust search and find functionality.
Once again, with Vongo we have a video download service using Microsoft’s WMV compressed video format for its video files. And again they’re only served in standard defintion (640×480). These files can be used on three separate devices simultaneously. So you can watch your rented video on your PC, stream it to your TV using a Windows Media Center Extender, or play it on a PlaysForSure portable device.
Despite some disappointment with the Vongo client for browsing and downloading, the downloaded media integrates well for viewing with Media Center. Vongo provides an integrated interface for viewing Media Center content in living room environments, giving you easy navigation and control through a Media Center remote control. This manages to turn a potential weakness (the Vongo client) into a strength (the nice integration of Vongo with Media Center and Media Center remotes). Of course, you may not have a Media Center PC or extender, which makes this strength moot for many consumers.
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I can say that the compressed video appeared to be superior than some other services (like CinemaNow), but since Vongo uses the same resolution (480p) and video codec (WMV), most consumers won’t recognize the subtle quality differences.
Like most of its competitors (aside from CinemaNow & BitTorrent), Vongo does not allow DVD burning of its content.
How Do I Order My Videos On Vongo?
Since most of your viewing will involve the all-you-can-view portion of a Vongo subscription, selecting videos to view is simple. You use the simple Vongo client to browse and select your video, then start your download. In most cases you can begin viewing your video before it finishes downloading. I enjoyed how this removes the payment step for quicker instant gratification. I just wish there was more content to browse in the all-you-can-view area. If you wish to use the Pay-Per-View section, you can select these videos, agree to be charged for them and then proceed like any other service. I do hope they can move this content over to the all-you-can-view section, as it’s the only thing that makes Vongo competitive.
Vongo’s Library
Because of parent-company Starz Entertainment’s strong Hollywood ties, Vongo does feature some exclusive content, especially for content available to rent. However, on the whole, Vongo features just about the weakest library I’ve examined yet. If you want recent releases, you’re best bet is to go with Amazon Unbox or CinemaNow, as they provide far more of the recent top releases. If you want classics and television shows, Netflix is head and shoulders above Vongo. Vongo is particularly weak when it comes to television shows. It’s in last place for its TV selection of all the major services so far.
Where’s My HD Video?
I’m eager to write and publish my review on the services which offer HD content, because I feel like I’m starting to sound like broken record here. Vongo, like CinemaNow and Amazon Unbox (and most services, currently), does not offer any high definition content. All Vongo videos are standard definition videos compressed in the WMV format. Like I’ve said before, it is difficult to penalize them since most services don’t offer streamed or downloadable HD content just yet, but because some do, I must identify that Vongo is not one of them.
So What’s The Vongo Conclusion?
I love the core Vongo concept of a single, small subscription fee for unlimited videos. But the concept is compromised by making some of the content require additional individual payments and by having relatively little in the all-you-can-view library. Compare it to Netflix for example, and you find it hard to see how Vongo can compete. For just $9.99 a month, Netflix provides you unlimited streamed video from a library several times the size of Vongo’s library. And for that same single fee, Netflix includes its traditional (and still great) mailed DVD service, which gives you access to a movie and television show library far, far larger than any download or streaming video service library.
I’m eager to see if Vongo can grow while keeping the monthly subscription low. For now, I can’t recommend Vongo over Amazon Unbox, CinemaNow, or Netflix.
This concludes my Watch Movies Free Online review of the ambitious Vongo service. I hope you now better understand how it might fit into your media viewing plans.
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