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Vongo dies, very few notice
Vongo gave it a solid go there for a while, but a supported device list that totaled seven (and was missing a certain white whale) combined with lukewarm support and lackluster marketing always spelled doom for the scrappy video-on-demand service, and it looks like Starz has gone ahead and pulled the plug. If you're one of the, uh, dozens who were paying the $10/mo fee, you can still use the service until September 30th, but after that there'll be nothing left -- literally, since all your Vongo content will be deleted. Yeah, that's fun way to make customers check out the new, seemingly-identical Starz Play service. Anyone still intrigued by this kind of subscription video model? We're pretty over it.
Samsung's P2 gets certified for Vongo
It's not like we haven't seen PMPs certified for Vongo before, but considering just how sexy the P2 really is, we think the aforementioned video provider did itself a favor by teaming up with Samsung. As of today, P2 owners can surf on over to Vongo's website and begin using the subscription-based service for $9.99 per month, and for P2 owners to-be, you can look forward to a "trial membership" with an unspecified length. Huzzah!
Starz announces Vongo 2.0 with slightly expanded portable device support
We haven't heard much from Vongo since the company announced it was a Vista launch partner in January, but Starz's scrappy video-on-demand division just unveiled the 2.0 version of the service today -- although it's a little unclear what's been changed apart from a supported portable device list that now numbers an absolutely astonishing seven. The chosen few PMPs include devices from Archos (which we sort of figured), Creative, and Toshiba, with additional support for any number of Media Center Extenders. Of course, users of the $10 / month service can only use it on three devices at a time including PCs, so you'll probably run out of activations before you try to add another PMP or Media Center Extender, but it's a nice thought, at least.
Archos 605 contains evidence of massive content partnerships?
A couple of lines in a settings file does not a partnership make, but some enterprising hackers at the Archos Community Forums have discovered evidence that Archos is planning at least one large-scale content deal when the super-hot 605 launches in the US. Poking around in the unit's provider.xml file inside the system folder, user Plissken007 discovered pointers to not one, but eight major content partners for wireless media distribution, including some with live holder pages on the Archos website. Notables include Best Buy, Cicuit City, Amazon (for Unbox, probably), MovieLink, Vongo, AOL, and, of course, YouTube. Now, we can't see Best Buy and Circuit City sharing space like this, so Archos is probably hedging their bets a little, but if it's true, it looks like there's finally going to be a major competitor to Apple's iPod / iTunes ecosystem out there, eh?[Disclosure: AOL owns Engadget's parent company.][Via Archos Fans]
CES: Vongo video-on-demand takes demands from Xbox 360
In addition to announcing their video on demand offering as the "premier" movie download service for Windows Vista -- as well as rolling out a snazzy new interface for Vista with Media Center -- Vongo has announced that their services will be compatible with the Xbox 360. Of course, Microsoft has their own video on demand service on Xbox Live Marketplace, but Vongo provides a subscription-based ($10/month) service that may be palatable to some US-based gamers as well as a library of over 1,000 movies and 2,500 "video selections." More interesting is the fact that they've circumvented the difficulty of sharing DRMd content across the two platforms. In our chat with Bill Gates, he specifically mentioned that the Xbox 360 will enjoy a larger content base because of the secure nature of the hardware. Vongo's presser states, "The Xbox 360 will automatically check to see which Windows XP or Vista-based devices are registered on the network and ask the user whether they want to access content, such as their Vongo movies, from that PC." Consider this an opportunity to bypass the 360's anemic hard drive and Marketplace' non-subscription based pricing but still get video on demand movies on your big screen.
Watch downloaded Vongo movies on your TV
At the last CES, Starz announced its new movie download service, Vongo, for portable devices and regular PCs. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the strangely-named service gives you access to over 1,000 movies and 2,500 "video selections" all for 10 bucks a month. This time around, Vongo has been selected as the "launch partner" for Vista, meaning that folks with the Premium or Ultimate versions will be able to legally display that content on a TV. You'll also be able to use MCE extenders, so you can stream stuff to that big screen connected to your XBox 360 console if you like, as well. Just save us a seat when you download "Talladega Nights," ok? We'll bring the popcorn.[Thanks, Will W.]
Toshiba officially partners with Vongo, launches Gigabeat S
It's not like we all didn't know that Vongo and Toshiba were bedfellows that begot the Gigabeat S in hardware and service, but today they made it official, laying down the 30GB MES30VW (left) for $299.99 and the 60GB MES60VK for $399.99. The part where they said the players are "available now" was news to us, but Starz's $10 per month Vongo movie download service is up and running, so assuming you actually find a place to pick up that Gigabeat S (with 2.4-inch QVGA display, PMC 2.0, FM tuner, USB On-The-Go, etc.) you can get your "iPod-killer" on post-haste. And it's about freaking time, too.
Switched On: Flight of the damned... usage terms
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about the future of technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment: (Based on a true story.) During fourthmeal a few days ago, I realized that I couldn't well let my fellow Engadget columnist Stephen Speicher grab all the Internet video glory with his recent tripartite YouTube encomium, so I decided to spend some time this week with an Internet video service that trades in good ol' Hollywood-produced motion pictures.Announced at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, Vongo is offered by the Starz Entertainment Group and competes with other PC-targeted movie services CinemaNow and MovieLink. Much as the iTunes Music Store gained credibility by letting people buy music the way they do in the physical world, Vongo has received accolades by operating similarly to a premium cable network or even a service such as Netflix. For a relatively low subscription price of about $10 per month, you can watch as many movies as you like on the service on up to three PCs as well as watch a video feed of the Starz premium movie channel, Vongo is also working on support for portable video "sideloading" to devices that use Microsoft's Portable Media Center platform. Vongo also offers "pay per view" movies at $3.99 per viewing. I tried the latter option for my first crack at Vongo, choosing the movie Flightplan, the 2005 thriller in the Hitchcock tradition starring Jodie Foster and directed by Robert Schwentke.
Seven major studios line up to sell movies online
We have no idea why they chose today to do it, but today seven major movie studios announced they'll be selling movies online through Movielink and CinemaNow. Warner Bros, Universal, Sony, Paramount, Fox, and MGM will all be distributing first-run titles online -- definitely something they've never done before -- through Movielink for between 20 and 30 bones (way, way too much if you ask us), with older movies going for between $10 and $20. Lionsgate (and Sony) also announced distribution through CinemaNow. Really this was only a matter of time -- for these guys it was either sell these things online DRMed all to hell for way too much money (see above), go the subscription route (like Vongo, for example -- not likely) or continue whining without any justification whatsoever about pirates stealing movies in the Internet. At least now they can say they've legitimately offered their digital content up online (hey, you can even make a DVD backup for use only on Movielink-authorized computers), even though they still can't account for the artificial demand they try to create by releasing movies for purchase months after the films have gone out of theater.[Thanks, Phil]
