Information AboutVoom |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT VOOM | |
| direct broadcast satellite services | |
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| 2005 disestablishments | |
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Voom was a Direct Broadcast Satellite Television provider serving the United States . It was a competitor to the established DirecTV and Dish Network systems. Voom was operated by Rainbow DBS Company , a Subsidiary of Cablevision . In 2004 , the organization promoted itself by advertising that it had more High-definition Television Channel s available than its competitors. Service was broadcast via the Rainbow-1 Communications Satellite , which was built by Lockheed Martin and launched on July 17 , 2003 . The satellite carries Video Streamed in both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Video Format s from the 61.5°W orbital location. The satellite's low position in the sky on the west coast often made the service more difficult to receive than those of its competitors. In early 2005 , Voom's parent company Cablevision announced it would seek "strategic alternatives" for Rainbow Media Enterprises , the business unit that contains its Voom satellite service, leaving the future of Voom questionable. After a bitter dispute in the boardroom, Charles Dolan (the founder of Cablevision) ousted three board members who pushed for the extinction of Voom. Dolan had until March 31st to arrange for Voom's assets to be purchased. When that deadline passed, Cablevision's board proceeded to shut Voom down. The service was shut off on April 30 , 2005 . Rainbow-1 and VOOM's spectrum allocations were sold to EchoStar . The day before, Dish Network announced that they would be adding 10 of Voom's Original 21 channels to their Lineup starting May 1 . The remaining channels would be added by 2006. Unlike most discontinued direct broadcast satellite systems in the United States such as PrimeStar and AlphaStar , the Voom set-top boxes are still useful even though the service is gone; they can be used to receive ATSC off-air signals. Voom set-top boxes have commanded prices upwards of $100 on websites such as EBay as people seek a less expensive way to receive digital off-air broadcasts. Due to overwhelming backlash by the public regarding the format of the newly re-named Voom HD Networks, Cablevision announced that it would only launch 15 channels instead of 21. The 6 channels that Dish Network did not initially carry were added to their lineup on February 1, 2006. Voom's HD collection was added to Cablevision's HD-lineup late June 2007. SEE ALSO
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