We recently canceled our DirecTV subscription. Nothing wrong with DirecTV, but our bill was about $80/month, and we wanted to cut back on the amount of TV our family was watching. As a result, though, we rent and buy more movies. Being able to instantly rent movies, without worrying about returns, is a great idea.

Vudu is taking up a big challenge in building a business based on their hopes that Hollywood will license to them. I hope they succeed, because it’s a better way to rent movies.

CJohn17 was a Vudu beta tester who violated his NDA with Vudu by publicly discussing elements of the Vudu beta program in a public forum. He was asked repeatedly to stop and instead make his comments in the private forum for beta users. He refused. He continued to post inflammatory threads after being asked repeatedly to stop. As such, his access to the forums was blocked temporarily as a warning. After further consideration of his actions, the Vudu staff decided that he should no longer be a member of the beta program. Simultaneously, CJohn17 decided that he would quit the program.

He is now on a smear campaign regarding Vudu and he sees it as his crusade for some reason.

The reviews here are written by VUDU forum moderators so I would take their opinions with a grain of salt…

VUDU has some really serious content issues – of the 5,000 advertised titles there’s little to rent. Their movie library if filled with titles one would find on a Hong Kong street corner or flea market. Laughable, amateurish, appalling movies that look like they’re been shot in someone’s basement. Much of the catalog is purchase only. New releases are not available to rent for 3-4 weeks, if ever. Quite a few older titles that have been staples at Blockbuster, or gathering dust at a the local supermarket, are purchase only.

VUDU moderators are blocking forum posts critical of the product.

“Vudu relies on a peer-to-peer network system for faster downloading. So, essentially, this company is using your bandwidth to help it save money it would have otherwise spent on its own servers and bandwidth.” – Walt Mossberg, WSJ

“Plenty of the movies are pure filler. They range from no-name horror cheapies (“San Franpsycho” or “Night Fangs,” anyone?) to superniche flicks like “The History of Texas Longhorns Football” and “Yoga for Depression and Gastro-Intestinal Disorders.”

Another reason: Vudu’s catalog is a victim of what Hollywood calls distribution windows. After a movie leaves theaters, it becomes available through other channels in a strict order: (1) hotels and airlines; (2) DVD; (3) pay-per-view television; (4) movie channels like HBO and Starz; (5) TV and everywhere else.” – David Pogue, NYTimes

“The average consumer, as long as he or she doesn’t have true control over downloads thanks to technology such as digital rights management, is going to have a hard time justifying an expensive set-top box when it has neither the channel-surfing capabilities of a TiVo digital video recorder nor the low to nonexistent price of a DVR provided by a cable television company.” – ZDNet

“That doesn’t count for much when you can’t get “the right movie, right now”. The studios don’t want to rent new releases, because they make more off sales… VUDU sucks and there is no reason to believe they will get better.” – Keith Ohlfs, User Experience Architect, VUDU Inc. 11/24/07

My extended review: http://theillustratedconservative.blogspot.com/2007/11/vudu-pointless-disappointing.html

What? You fell for the oldest trick in the book. Never (ever ever ever) buy cables from Best Buy (or any other store). I saw a 4 foot HDMI to DVI cable selling at Best Buy for $70 and have seen the price go all the way up to $120. I buy all my cables from Monoprice.com, they have a 6′ cable of the same type for $4.24. Don’t get ripped off for the high priced digital cables again.

Funny thing, though, is with the lower costs lately of buying a retail DVD, more people are choosing ownership over renting. Most people I know prefer to buy the movie rather than renting or downloading through Unboxed or a service like this one.

And as for the pricing structure – it’s very comparable with what you would pay for movies on PayPerView or OnDemand from your cable company…

Don’t let your emotions regarding the remote hang you up though. It works very well and while annoying, there is so much more positive about this product that makes you forget about the remote issue.

Jon

I encourage anyone who has question, comments, feature requests, etc. to post them in the public forums. Vudu is a small company and is VERY receptive to user requests for additional features, etc.

In terms of the network usage for upstream connections, the Vudu uses typically around 100 to 200 kbps at most. It’s very minimal. There is what we call a “Nice to Network” feature which cuts the speed down on the uplink, but it also cuts the download speed in half which will require you to buffer movies (ie: no instant playback).

In terms of the pricing structure, rental terms, portability, etc. – it’s all set by the studios. Vudu has heard plenty from us about the need for portability, the need for longer rental periods, etc. But they can only provide what the studios allow them to. As the product takes off and the model becomes successful, it’s possible that the studios will change the terms and maybe, just maybe things will loosen up. We’ll have to see. Bottom line is that they don’t want to provide content to a product that will be easily pirated.

I will say that this thing will change your viewing habits and the way you watch movies.

Enjoy!

Jon

I knew I’d read about this somewhere; I even posted about it on a forum.

According to the NYTimes (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/technology/circuits/06pogue.html) the system is capable of HD content but they’re still negotiating the rights. They can enable HD via a firmware update, presumably.

(Sorry for the double post!)