The movie downloading service Vongo has to go. A notice on the site says, “We are no longer accepting new subscribers for the Vongo service.”
Current members will be able to use Vongo through the month of September, then it’s curtains. The nasty part is, all downloaded movies in customers’ possession will self-destruct at that time. Cheapskates. The death of Vongo had been expected.
Interested parties are referred to Starz Play on the Verizon Store, a licensed version of the old Vongo download operation. (Starz Entertainment will continue to distribute movies download via third parties.) The new service will charge $5.99 a month for access to more than 1,000 movies.
The Vongo/Starz Play FAQ says the services remain the same except for pay-per-view movies. Fortunately, they’re waking the dead, so if you’re a Vongo subscriber you have to uninstall that application and install the Starz Play files.
Meanwhile, the Intel-backed ClickStar also faded out, Home Media magazine reports. It sought to bring the theatrical/video window down to a couple of weeks, but didn’t have the product to make it happen.
Vongo had been in operation for two years, working with major studios such as Disney and Sony. It experimented with one-price access to a batch of VOD movies (many of them junky).
Its download software had been preloaded on various Toshiba laptops and portable devices. Starz is an offshoot of cable overlord John Malone’s Liberty Media.
Look for the movie download shake-out to continue, as iTunes and Co. run off the smaller pioneer services.
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