Edshugeo The GodMoor

Reminds me of early 90s cable TV, which had great commercial free channels like Bravo and American Movie Classics. Those channels still exist, but are not commercial free. Bravo which used to showcase foreign films primarily, had become known as the gay channel (no homophobe) for a while due to programming like Queer Eye and some other programming. American Movie Classics still plays classic American films, but also movies that aren't necessarily classic nor American. The real crime, though, is butchering (editing) the movies and interrupting them with commercials.

I bring this up because of the inclusion of the Voom HD channels in my cable package.
Film Fest HD is a movie mix of classics, indies, and curiosities.
World Cinema HD give us an international mix.
Kung Fu HD (previously mentioned) Hong Kong action (subtitled and dubbed), Samurai flicks, and of course some U.S. attempts like Kick Boxer 4.
Monster HD all horror, all the time. Not my favorite genre, but there's some interesting stuff.

The above are Movie channels with films shown complete and without interruption. Great, right? Yeah, but for how long?

Voom started as Cablevision's satellite service meant to compete with DirectTv and other providers, without actually improving cable service (fuckers!). When that plan failed, they fell back on the obvious and added these channels to the cable service at no extra cost. Great, but for how long?

There's a bunch of other channels on the Voom "network" that wouldn't be hurt by commercials. AniMania is mostly short form cartoons, though not enough Anime (Samurai 7 airs nightly).
GamePlay is all video game related programming; Tournaments, interviews, previews and a show (Cinemaddicts) that combine the cut scenes with the game play to produce short films. Like machinima, except these (from what I've seen) seem to follow the plotline of the game itself.
Rave is all music programming. Live performances rather than music videos.
None of these would be hurt by commercials in my opinion.

I like the approach taken by Universal HD (on Cablevision, but not part of the Voom package); they play full length, unedited movies without commercial interuption, and also TV shows with commercials. I have no problem with that.

Labels: good deal, HDTV, tv