In further evaluation of voOM, I have a specific example of artifacts in the video presentation. In this case, it is an HD channel, HBOHD. The scene in question is from the recent HD presentation of the Matrix (original 1999). It's approximately 2/3 of the way through the film, just after Neo and Trininty decimate the foyer of the building where Morpheus is held captive by the 3 agents on the upper floor. They get into the elevator, and then onto the roof of the elevator where Neo sets an explosive device. Then he says, "there is no spoon", the device detonates, and he and Trinity hang onto the elevator cable as the explosion goes down into the shaft. During the explosion (flames etc.) there was a series of frames, perhaps as long as 3/4 of a second, where serious block artifacts occur. I'm assuming the stream is 24p, although I don't have any way to verify that. So we're looking at about 18 (3/4 of 24) frames that have serious artifacts. It detracted from the presentation of the movie.

Since HBOHD is on both voOM and DirecTV, I am wondering if HBO provides a compressed MPEG-2 feed to the DTV broadcasters - so it would seem, as the header for an HD film reads "in HD where available".