Anyone seen Vudu in HD yet?

[rushwj]

as the title asks, i'm wondering if anyone has seen the Vudu in HD yet? I'm particularly curious as to the video quality of it and how it compares to HD DVD/Blu-Ray picture quality. my local audio store has vudu, tried to do the software upgrade on Black Friday, but still couldn't get any HD movies, so i haven't seen it yet. also, does anyone know how many movies they'll be getting in HD?

thanks.

 

[Joe Schmoe]

What is Vudu?

 

[rushwj]

Go to www.vudu.com to check it out, but basically its reportedly the best way of getting direct movie downloads (not to your computer and all compressed, but to a set-top box connected directly to your tv). it looks really promising, but only if its HD picture matches up to hi-def dvd players.

 

[InTheIndustry]

The VuDu rep is sending me a unit to try with a few movies loaded on it as well as a credit to buy a few more. He had said that the Borne Trilogy is also pre-loaded for me to check out. I will be curious as to the quality of the movie. I don't see how VuDu could have a format (streaming/uncompressed) that would rival HDDVD/BluRay.


Here is a summary from the "sit down" interview/sales call with our VuDu rep (the poor guy). A lot of this is verbatim:

VuDuREP: WOW, now you can stream movies directly to your TV! Check out our technology! <Rep puts a VuDu box on the table>

Me: That's awesome! Does it do HDDVD & BluRay?

VuDuREP: Why would you want that?

Me: Uhhhh, it’s new DVD technology.

VuDuREP: That's over rated. Man, does our 480p look great!

Me: So is this an unlimited subscription like NetFlix but without the mailing?

VuDuREP: No, you have to pay for the movies individually for the same price you pay @ the store. You can also rent them @ $4 each

Me: Uhhhhhh, OK. What about download times?

VuDuREP: Instant streaming. You click, and it's there.

Me: Okay cool. That sounds good. What about -

VuDuREP: Oh, except for the "HD" movies. Those take 30 - 40 minutes

Me: So, by the time I could go to the store, buy the movie on HDDVD or BluRay, get snacks, and come back my movie might be ready to play?

VuDuREP: Yeah. But, now you only have to get the snacks while you're out.

Me: How many movies can it store?

VuDuREP: 90 480p movies.

Me: That's not a lot.

VuDuREP: We understand that, but in a few weeks you'll be able to connect an external hard drive to store more movies.

Me: Ummm, okay. What does it cost?

VuDuREP: $400 MSRP

Me: No, I meant - What does this $400 480p DVD player cost ME?

VuDuREP: (I can't get into specifics, but lets just say that after shipping was paid for I would MAYBE be able to take the family out to a movie & buy some snacks.... seriously)

Me: I don't think I can use this over what I already have available.

VuDuREP: Let me send you one for free. You'll love it.

Me: (shrugging shoulders) Sure, I'll try it.


Being honest, I'm kind of excited to get the VuDu box and play around with it. I am hoping big time that it's so much better than a standard def DVD player that we can recommend it to clients as a kind of streaming player that I network from a central location throught a house once the IR port is active in a "few weeks" (whatever that really means). I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that the "HD" movies are worth the wait. The REP is an honest guy & I buy a few other lines through him so maybe he's on point in claiming the picture is great. My only problems with it are:

1. Storage Space
2. All of the features aren't "active" with the hardware
3. Time it takes to download "HD" movies
4. We make almost NO money on the thing. While this would NEVER stop me from selling something that would enhance the home theater experience I don't want to be having multiple service calls to a clients house (which I am picturing all of the issues that this thing could have). I try to not charge for service calls @ all in the first year a client owns their system, but I can only do that because there's decent margin made on most products.

Sorry for the LOOOOONNNNNGGGG post but VuDu is something I see brought up more and more frequently. So, to some people this might be pertinent. I will be back with my impressions soon. Here's to hoping!

 

[rushwj]

thanks for the in-depth reply. i agree that there's some obvious shortcomings w/ Vudu, but i'm just so tired of the hi-def format war that i thought this might be a good alternative or way out of it. i don't know about most people, but i don't have a place to rent hi-def movies near me, so my only options are purchase (expensive) and netflix or other online rentals (not same day, but still a pretty good option). i wasn't aware of the 30-40min download times for the HD stuff on vudu - that's kind of a bummer. i'm still anxious to check out the picture quality on it in HD though. I saw it in SD and it was good, but i'm not sure it was great. unfortunately, no SD dvd player hooked up to the same screen to compare, so some of what i perceived as lesser quality could have been the screen itself - hard to know.

 

[InTheIndustry]

Got the Vudu

Okay, we got the Vudu and hooked it up. Unfortunately, our experience with a product called Sonos (now the ONLY distributed audio system we use) has set the bar so high for internet based content products that I would make this analogy:

Sonos = Valedictorian

Vudu = Guy who shows up the day of the test totally unprepared after a night of partying too hard…. and then fails out. And, no, I doubt he ever goes on to make “millions” selling real estate.

To answer the OP’s question about Vudu’s picture quality: Outstanding. I hooked it up through HDMI and standard def movies looked phenomenal. Absolutely lovely! Some if not THE best images I’ve seen out of an up converting player. We were using a 60” LG plasma.

High def movies: I’ll never know because I won’t turn the thing on ever again. Not even to get my $50 back that I had to deposit on their website to make the thing work (read on to find out why). And, no, I am not saying anything in this post out of anger that I was promised some free movies. I planned on spending money testing it out. So, no big deal.

The problems that were big deals - let me rephrase that. The problems that make this thing completely useless and a huge disappointment are:

1. You have to register on their website and essentially buy blocks of movies @ a time. Their site gives you a choice of $20, $50, or $100 “deposits” that are automatically renewed (charged to your CC on file) when you buy or rent through that dollar amount. ???Huh??? You mean, I have to pay for movies now that I don’t even know when or what I want to watch?

2. Movie selection is horrendous! I mean just terrible. By terrible I mean that the first 8 movies I searched for came up with NO results. I played around with the search feature and discovered that there are only 8 – 10 Denzel Washington movies available through VuDu. I wanted to watch “Man on Fire” (been out for awhile, right?). NOPE! Not available with Vudu. Tried the “Illusionist”. Negative on that one as well. How about something old school? Christopher Reeves in “Superman”. WRONG! Oh, wait a minute what’s that I see? Superman 3. Huh? They have Superman 3, but no other Superman titles. Not even the newer one. Vudu’s title list read through like a BAD Showtime or Cinemax line up. Caddyshack 2, but not Caddyshack 1? WTF!? I call Shenanigans! This experience was in complete contrast with Sonos where my clients & I had fun just trying to stump it, which never happened, by finding obscure artists or songs.


3. NO (or next to none) new releases. Yeah, that’s right. “Blades of Glory” was still on their New Releases front page! Ummmm, mid summer called and it wants it’s new movies back. Nothing even close to new was available.

4. Cost of the movies. $3.99 to rent? OK. That’s in line with a lot of other places and I can accept that even after reminding myself that the machine costs $400 retail. $19.99 to buy a movie? What!? Anything that I saw even close to being considered a mainstream title was $19.99 to buy. The really bad “B” movies were around $10.00. If you have a Walmart, CC, BB, or just about any other mainstream place that sells movies you’d save a fortune by going there to buy your flicks. Vudu had movies on there for $19.99 that I had seen in the Walmart $9.99 racks.


5. Depending on the title, some movies are ONLY available to rent. Some movies are ONLY available to buy. Maybe, the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Want to buy “Disturbia”? Sorry, rental only. Others being buy only is just as, if not more irritating.

That sums up the more major issues I had with the product.

Positives:
1. It only took about 20 minutes to plug in, run the updates, and log into their site. Very easy.
2. The remote control that comes with it was kind of nice. Very small & RF out of the box. *Note: if you have any sort of set up where you like to use one remote, you’re out of luck until they activate the funky looking ports on the back to accomodate IR.
3. Picture quality was fabulous
4. Movies began playing instantly. The movie I watched was a kind of bad Jim Carey movie called “23”. There were no previews.
5. If they had a good (not even asking for great) movie selection and pricing that made sense and was at least competitive, I would think Vudu had potential. Until then, I will just check back with them for updates on the above issues.

Hope this helps some of you with questions about Vudu. Unfortunately, I was the one who lost $50 finding out the answers. But hey, at least I can write it off, right?

 

[en sabur nur]

Thanks for the review. I was strongly considering buying the Vudu after work tonight, but those "cons" you mentioned are too big for me to jump in right now. Hopefully, they can get them worked out with the studios.