Vudu is both powerful and pricey, how does it stand up to competitors like Amazon and Netflix?
Review summary of the Vudu:
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 We were wholly impressed by our experience with the Vudu. The interface was excellent and easy to navigate, and the movies looked great and instantly started playing (with our admittedly fast ethernet connection). With only 5,000 or so titles available, the Vudu's selection is more like your local video store than the nearest Blockbuster, but figures to grow and is on par with most currently available video-download services. The $400 price tag may scare away many potential customers, but for sheer viewing experience, the Vudu can't be beat. Release: October 2007. Price: $400.
Pros: Great picture quality, extremely fast menu navigation and video playback
Cons: Inconsistent sound, high hardware cost, not all movies available for both rental and purchase
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Full Vudu Review:
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Design - Excellent
The Vudu is a relatively non-descript black box with only its name printed in blue along the top; aesthetically unremarkable in every way. Its simplistic design and small footprint make it easy to hide amongst home theater components, but the real jewel of the Vudu are its guts, not its shell.
Packing an impressive 250GB HD, Vudu promises up to 100 hours of storage for purchased movies. The company also claims that its video processor is capable of rendering video at Full HD 1080p resolution. Port-wise, the Vudu is as flexible as they come. It offers an HDMI port for digital video and audio as well as component, composite and S-video output options. Audio is pumped through R/L analog, digital coaxial or digital optical ports. The Ethernet port allows connection to the service, and two USB ports allow for future storage expansion. Vudu includes the most advanced (HDMI) and the most rudimentary (composite) cables for connection to your television; for the in-between options you must find or purchase additional cables. We like that they included the cable for the best connection possible, and that they looked out for the less-advanced by including the low-end composite cable.
Perhaps the most important part of the Vudu's design is its funny-looking remote. Its twisted-figure 8 shape fits perfectly in both right and left hands, and it transmits signals to the Vudu box via RF radio signals as opposed to an IR beam. This provides the Vudu with perhaps its most attractive design feature, the ability to become invisible. Because RF works through walls, floors, ceilings and cabinet doors, the box can be placed out of sight. Unfortunately, the sensitive scroll wheel caused unwanted playback control when accidentally sat on or wedged between a couch cushion.
Interface - Excellent
Dominated by its scroll wheel, there are no directional buttons on the Vudu's remote; no matter, as the scroll wheel enables extremely fast scrolling and selection. The menu structure was simple, clean, and laid out all options in front of us. There was never the fear that we were missing something because there were no hidden menus that we sometimes see on DVD players. We were most impressed by the speed at which the menus loaded; we experienced no lag, whether it was switching from menu to menu or when selecting a movie. Vudu's promise of "instant viewing" was dead-on, as there was not one instance when we tried to play a movie but were denied by a loading screen. Immediately following instant playback, we were unable to fast forward more than a few seconds, but once the movie was finished downloading, the scroll wheel could be used to scrub through any point in the film almost instantly.
While Vudu may be guilty of launching too soon (they claimed the ability to download and play movies in 1080p native resolution before they could actually offer it), they separate themselves from the pack by absolutely nailing the interface, not to mention striking deals with every major studio. We loved that we could search by actor or director as well as by title, and the myriad genre selections certainly made for an interesting movie browsing experience.
We're still puzzled by the lack of a storage meter that tells us how much space we have left on the box. We're unsure what happens when we reach our capacity; we didn't top out even with just under 40 films on the box.
Content - Very Good
Vudu's greatest strength is its library, for without the numerous deals struck with major and independent studios, it wouldn't matter how big the hard drive is or how fluid the interface operates. Vudu's selection of around 5,000 films puts them a couple thousand short of Amazon but about 1,000 ahead of CinemaNow, and embarrasses iTunes and Microsoft's Xbox Video Marketplace, each with less than 1,000 titles. Vudu's closest competition is Netflix, which offers around 6,000 titles for instant viewing.
The quality of the content was excellent at times but inconsistent. Titles were available in 5.1 surround sound, but not all of them; we're not sure how the titles on Vudu offering 5.1 corresponded to the sound on their respective DVD versions, but we're sure it will disappoint users ready to plunk down $20 for a movie only to find that it will be lowly stereo audio pumping through their home theater systems.
The image quality was almost universally excellent however, and proved to be much more consistent than the audio selection. All titles were available in at least 480p resolution, and movies scaled up to 1080i on our HDTV looked excellent. Vudu says their box is capable of processing 1080p content, but despite recent news releases saying they had released the first HD titles ("The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy") for free, we were unable to find these titles available for viewing in HD. Could it be because we had already purchased both films before they were made available for free? We're unsure, but we were also unable to find any of the announced TV shows available for download, even after a software update to our review unit.
Value - Good
$3.99 rentals, $4.99-$19.99 purchases. The rental service is very similar to on-demand pay-per-view services offered by cable providers. Once the rental is paid for, the rented movies can remain on the box unwatched for 30 days. Only when you press play is the 24-hour viewing period initiated, after which the rental expires. The movie can be viewed as often as you desire during the 24-hour viewing period.
The idea of purchasing a movie that exists only as a digital file and not as a piece of physical media is not new; iTunes, CinemaNow, Amazon and Netflix all offer digital downloads for purchase or rental. What sets the Vudu apart from those services is that it is the only one that does not require a computer. Even Apple's AppleTV, which is currently chained to iTunes and its music store, can only access files already downloaded to a computer through the store; without a computer, it is quite useless. Netflix is the only one to also offer instant viewing, but the quality does not compare, and without a set-top box, users are stuck watching their movies on a computer unless they have the know-how and the hardware to hook their computers up to their televisions.
While all its competitors offer similar pricing structures for renting and purchasing movies (although Netflix has an unlimited plan), none of them require a $400 piece of hardware. That being said, there are deals to be had, as a current promotion offers a free Vudu box to purchasers of Sharp televisions of at least 42 inches. Users also get a $50 credit towards rentals and purchases.
Price and availability
The Vudu will start selling for $400 () in October 2007.
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