Free Akimbo Upgrade, But Who Really Cares?

Saw this on Engadget earlier today: Video-on-demand service Akimbo is offering $40 upgrades to its box for existing subscribers. (The price for non-subscribers is $200). The main difference seems to be the quality of the connections: The old box has composite outputs for video, the new one has S-Video and component, which should increase the video quality of the 13,000 or so shows the $9.99-per-month, over-the-Web service offers. Akimbo has been talking about this box for quite a while, which is probably why the announced improvements seem a little tired (how about some nice HDMI outputs?)

A friend of mine works at Akimbo, so I really wanted to get behind the service. But I tried it out over the summer, both with the existing set-top box and using the embedded Akimbo software on Media Center PC, and was unmoved. Of the 13,000 programs, most of what I found were old cooking shows, stale Jane Seymour miniseries from Granada television, and some mildly-alluring cult movies from GreenCine (Carnival of Souls, anyone?).

The new box has the Movielink service installed, too, so you can at least now get first-run movies and classics (for an extra sum, of course). If you use the Media Center PC version, you can get HD downloads from HDNet, but I haven't heard if this service will be available on the new box (I assume it will be, given the component outputs).

Most of this content, or content of this caliber, is easy enough to get online in some shape or form. And between what's on offer at iTunes and through my cable system (Entourage, Weeds, and the like), I'm kind of set. Besides, this stuff took forever to download (and the software was sluggish on my Media Center PC).

That said, 13,000 shows is not a complete waste of time for anyone who lives in an area with no (or lousy) cable service. But chances are if it's an area with bad cable, it's probably also an area with bad broadband or no broadband at all, which also makes Akimbo a tough proposition.

Frankly, with all the other video options, I'm surprised Akimbo is still around.

Maybe I'm just lucky and have great cable service, making Akimbo seem boring to me. Anyone out there with no on-demand options or lousy Internet who can weigh in? If so, is Akimbo for you?