Great Deal on VUDU Box

[GodofBlu]

Originally Posted by obiwopkenobi62

Actually for me and many others, I don't want to go to the video store or do Netflix. This is an excellent alternative. I did the research and the Vudu came out ahead of others like Apples Itunes store, netflix Roku, amazon Unbox etc...

To each his own. I swear I think some folks just like to look around the forum to see who they can dog. So childish.

Does this mean you no longer have a use for Blu-ray if your Vudu system works out?

While I seriously doubt Vudu downloads are up to BD quality, I'm sure they are good enough for many. I'm always interested in what other people do because it influences the overall market. Most people here seem to think BD's competitors need to have equal or better PQ and audio. They dismiss anything else as folly. I believe differently. Most people I know are happy with Verizon, Comcast and Dish HD broadcast and their HD download rentals. Basically it's good enough for them. This is unfortunate, I guess. But realistically, most people don't even have a audio system for their HT or at best a piece of crap HTiB. So superior sound isn't on their top 10 list. Also considering the TV size 50" and smaller, most consumers won't actually see the difference unless you point it out to them. And even then they might not care.

Basically I'm a person who loves to go to BB. I rent on impulse, stroll the isles until I find something I want to watch today. I have no desire to ever buy a BD title, but BD is my media of choice. I want the best picture and sound I can afford. Unfortunately, with the rise of RedBox, cable & Dish HD rentals, I see the day of brick and mortar video stores as numbered. Sucks to be me...

[Blu Jacket]

Originally Posted by GodofBlu

While I seriously doubt Vudu downloads are up to BD quality, I'm sure they are good enough for many. I'm always interested in what other people do because it influences the overall market. Most people here seem to think BD's competitors need to have equal or better PQ and audio. They dismiss anything else as folly. I believe differently. Most people I know are happy with Verizon, Comcast and Dish HD broadcast and their HD download rentals. Basically it's good enough for them. This is unfortunate, I guess. But realistically, most people don't even have a audio system for their HT or at best a piece of crap HTiB. So superior sound isn't on their top 10 list. Also considering the TV size 50" and smaller, most consumers won't actually see the difference unless you point it out to them. And even then they might not care.

Firstly, the "good enough" syndrome is complete BS. Millions of people said the same thing about DVD replacing VHS and we all know how that turned out.

Secondly, the "less than 50" TV not being noticeable" is also BS. My parents and brothers saw my PotC blu-ray on my 40" XBR and were completely blown away.

[GodofBlu]

Originally Posted by Blu Jacket

Secondly, the "less than 50" TV not being noticeable" is also BS. My parents and brothers saw my PotC blu-ray on my 40" XBR and were completely blown away.

Did your A/B it with a Dish or Verizon Fios HD version for their opinion? If not you post is meaningless.

Several relatives commented how great my father in laws BD player looks. When I visited a last week I noticed he had it hooked up via composite video and L+R audio!!!!

Went home and ordered him a hdmi cable from mono. Food for thought.

[obiwopkenobi62]

Originally Posted by GodofBlu

Does this mean you no longer have a use for Blu-ray if your Vudu system works out?

While I seriously doubt Vudu downloads are up to BD quality, I'm sure they are good enough for many. I'm always interested in what other people do because it influences the overall market. Most people here seem to think BD's competitors need to have equal or better PQ and audio. They dismiss anything else as folly. I believe differently. Most people I know are happy with Verizon, Comcast and Dish HD broadcast and their HD download rentals. Basically it's good enough for them. This is unfortunate, I guess. But realistically, most people don't even have a audio system for their HT or at best a piece of crap HTiB. So superior sound isn't on their top 10 list. Also considering the TV size 50" and smaller, most consumers won't actually see the difference unless you point it out to them. And even then they might not care.

Basically I'm a person who loves to go to BB. I rent on impulse, stroll the isles until I find something I want to watch today. I have no desire to ever buy a BD title, but BD is my media of choice. I want the best picture and sound I can afford. Unfortunately, with the rise of RedBox, cable & Dish HD rentals, I see the day of brick and mortar video stores as numbered. Sucks to be me...

Actually, I love Blu-ray and I will still buy movies but for me the Vudu is a way to preview certain movies without doing Netflix or going to the video store. Here is my latest update on the Vudu box. The quality is very good, I can watch stuff immediately and I have it running through my HDMI switch and Onkyo 605.

I downloaded and HD AVN awards show(for free) and the quality was amazing. Damn near Bluray quality. Had a little glitch with the audio not working so I e-mailed them. They responded pretty fast and told me there was a bug that they were working on and told me how to fix it. I followed their instructions and it worked like a champ. So I'm also impressed with their tech support. I also streamed some of their free stuff from the Vudu labs like youtube and some other stuff and it worked flawlessly.
I would definitely recommend one to friends and family and for me I no longer have to worry about Netflix or going to the video store.
Take care and e-mail me if you have any more questions.

As I said I'm not looking to replace my Blu-ray buys. Oh and one other thing, there was absolutely no slowdown with my home network as I was downloading a movie, my wife was on the laptop, and I switched over to the PS3 to play RockBand 2 online. No slowdown whatsoever. Pretty awesome stuff.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by haushausman

4. Bandwidth usage per user actually declines as the Vudu network gets larger, so there's no reason to be concerned that things are ok now but will get worse over time. (If anything, available upstream bandwidth will go up

This doesn't make sense.

If usage remained constant bandwidth would go down as users went up, sure.

But usage won't remain constant with more users, it'll go up.

There is no difference to me if there are 3 users downloading 3 movies or 3 million users downloading 3 million movies, the bandwidth I use is the same.

I suppose this supports the whole "It won't get worse" thing, but he's trying to imply it'll get better.

And unlucky you if you are the first guy to download a new movie.

[Movie-Grrl]

Is this basically a torrent network?

[obiwopkenobi62]

Okay for anyone that has questions about Vudu, I have now been using it for a few days. The concensus with me and my wife is we love it and it's one of the best gadgets we ever bought.

Hook up was simple(5 minutes)
Popped the TV on and Vudu went to work.
It did some updating first(about 5-10 min)
Next it checked my bandwidth(4Mbps), and said I could stream SD or HD movies instantly.
HDX movies will take a little time, but I knew that already.
So then it brought up a number(code) on the screen and said to go to their website and activate our account. We did. I noticed no lag while my wife was on the laptop on the Vudu site.
I noticed there was no 50 movie credit on my account. My wife immediately e-mailed them and we had it a few hours later.

Now to actually test the box. I went ahead and did a standard def movie(Little Mermaid-Ariels beginning), and a free Adult video awards show. I didn't want to watch them right away so I clicked watch later.
Next I went to Vudu labs where all of the free content is like Youtube and a bunch of other great content. Watched a couple of Youtube videos and they played flawlessly.
Okay so the next morning we go to watch one of the movies and I had video but no audio. I immediately e-mailed them and told them what was happening. I got an e-mail reply back in a few hours that said they were aware of the problem(bug) and were working to fix it. They also told me how to reset the audio. Apparently if you go to Vudu labs and then back to watch a regular movie it kills the audio. I followed ther simple instructions to reset it and it worked like a champ. They also credited the price of the rentals back to my account since I didn't get to finish watching them. (did I mention fantastic support?)
After that the next thing to do was stream an HD movie. I picked Sky High. As soon as I did my rental, I hit play and it went right into the movie. Picture quality was better than DVD and a little below Blu-ray with the audio being Digital 5.1. Pretty friggin sweet. HDX quality is damn close to Blu-ray quality.
Another thing I did was have it download an HD movie. After I started the download, I switched over to my PS3 and got on Rock Band 2 online and strted playing with some other people online, and also had my wife get on the laptop and go online(youtube). I wanted to see if doing all this at the same time would bog anything down. It had no slowdown whatsoever. Needless to say I was pretty impressed.
This is not meant to replace Blu-Ray discs for me as I will still buy ones I want. The purpose of this for me is to not have to deal with Netflix, no more trips to the video store, and no more blind buys on Blu-ray. Now I can rent a movie and if I still want it on blu I can order it from Amazon.
As for movie purchases, You can but and store up to 50 SD movies on the box(250g HDD). As for the HD movies, at this point it says you can purchase them but I'm not sure if those are being stored on the HDD. They are also working towards upgrades such as bigger HDD or maybe being able to add an external later on.
Since HD movies take up way more room than SD movies, you'd eat up that 250g pretty fast. But for me this about mainly renting. With movies going from .99 to 3.99, that as good maybe a little better than Netflix or video store because of the convenience.
Hopefully that helped anyone that had questions.

[Anthony P]

This doesn't make sense.

obviously, but look at how many idiots jumped on the Paramounts CTOs reasons for dropping BD. Really dumb people would believe anything.

There is no difference to me if there are 3 users downloading 3 movies or 3 million users downloading 3 million movies, the bandwidth I use is the same.

I suppose this supports the whole "It won't get worse" thing, but he's trying to imply it'll get better.

And unlucky you if you are the first guy to download a new movie.

no the issue is that you arte missing some key aspects

1) traffic theory: The same reason that adding more lanes does not necessarily help with traffic for cars
2) increasing overhead: DL already has a high overhead, but the more you distribute it, the more you need to make sure it remains synched and so you raise overhead.
3) More usage per person: Lets face it it always startes with lets try one or two to see how it works, and if you like it it becomes lets use it for more and more, so it is not just more people.
4) Unequal distribution: as telcos crack down and more people use it, more people will know of the other points made, so % wise less people will support the upload portion of it.
5) Limited ownership: if you buy content then it is there for ever, but if you rent that 250GB, fills up quickly and is only temporary, so not everyone will have movie X on their system even if they did see it in the past. Your assumption is that everyone has it and everyone DL from everyone, and that is not true.
6) The core: the reason for P2P is to diffuse the cost, if with X people 10% (made up number) of the DL is from the core (from Vudu) then when it moves to 10X or 100X can it still remain 10% from the core? Or will Vudu do less and less and more and more will be P2P.

[mapledragon]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

I am sure there where people that did say Tivo won't last or be big. Not that it is big, but I was not one of them. Some people like talking without knowing what they are talking about, I am not one of them.

As for Vudu, it was a response to Gary who made a valid point that with ISPs being restrictive and the customer being the distributor since it is a peer to peer network they can get in trouble with the ISP. My comment was not meant as a negative to Vudu nor to convince you or anyone else that it is not good. It was just a comment on reality that as long as it stays small (and it will) it might not be a big issue (unless you are extremely limited by your ISP). If I wanted to make a negative point, I would point out that Vudu is/was on the verge of bankruptcy, that this summer they had to let go a large percent of their work force, that they have been losing clients and many CI firms. I know a few guys that where Vudu fanatics and who have know moved on. But no, my post was that his point was 100% valid but most likely will never be an issue.

Their needed infrastructure cost is substantial since they need to move a lot of boxes into customer hands to have enough of an installed base to generate enough continuous movie rental/sales revenue to cover their payroll.

Their use of peer to peer is an insteresting attempt to defray bandwidth costs since that part of the model is problematic. Think of it, a 4MB mp3 generates a $1-$2 revenue, so if a 2GB movie wants to generate the same revenue/bandwidth-unit, it has to be sold at $500 for equivalent internet bandwidth as the mp3. By using peer to peer, vudu conveniently has loaded the costs onto their customer base instead, which is ok if bandwidth is free for their customers. Bandwidth for business entity like vudu/itunes however, is not free, and it's doubtful to believe that the ISPs backbone can handle this kind of peer to peer traffic @ the 4Mbps range (non-HDX) without placing some extra usage fees somewhere to be paid by someone.

It could mean that if you download a 2GB movie, and you do it early, you could end up serving the same 2GB movie to dozens of others. Your ISP (and ultimately you) end up handling this extra traffic instead of vudu, and this needs to be done to make vudu work, and noone will care if there is no bandwidth cap. Otoh, those with bandwidth caps will have to deal with it very quickly.

General feeling among industry observers is that smaller companies like vudu will not get enough revenue to break even and will need to raise money somehow, and 2009 is the wrong time for anyone to try to raise money, which leaves some advertising revenue (or whitebox-video business model), which in itself is challenging for this climate, but is free money for very little R&D spending.

Will VUDU survive intact to december 2009? I guess we'll fidn out.

[Anthony P]

It could mean that if you download a 2GB movie, and you do it early, you could end up serving the same 2GB movie to dozens of others.

ISPs usually have two limits (a higher one for DL and a lower one for UL, with my carrier it is 7mbps for DL and 1mbps for upload) so a movie won't come from one individual source but actually several sources at the same time (so for example using 7mbps and 1mbps you might be getting 15 people uploading (streaming) at .5mbps to your device so that you have near your 7mbps (and yes I know 15*.5= 7.5 but there is extra overhead to account for since the whole system needs to keep track of everything and hiccups along the way)

[mapledragon]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

ISPs usually have two limits (a higher one for DL and a lower one for UL, with my carrier it is 7mbps for DL and 1mbps for upload) so a movie won't come from one individual source but actually several sources at the same time (so for example using 7mbps and 1mbps you might be getting 15 people uploading (streaming) at .5mbps to your device so that you have near your 7mbps (and yes I know 15*.5= 7.5 but there is extra overhead to account for since the whole system needs to keep track of everything and hiccups along the way)

Supposedly with most peer to peer software on a PC, you can throttle the max UL bandwidth used by the file sharing program. Does VUDU have a setting to limit the total UL BW usage? Without downloading a new movie, if you have old movie(s) needed by other vudu users, leaving the box on 24/7 at a 1Mbps UL limit is still a 10GB/day or 300GB/month total theoretical bandwidth usage. That's bandwidth that you or your ISP have to 'pay' for somewhere.

[beast0117]

Unlike the flogging I received when I posted a thread a few months back as to why anybody would want to purchase Blu-Ray titles when Vudu offers similar quality, I'll be direct and gentle with you.

First, I'd like to acknowledge those of you (few) that did write back to educate me. I have hundreds of Blu-Ray movies and just wanted to make certain I wasn't wasting money.

I finally picked up the Vudu as a supplimental item.

While it does have some occasional quirks and I'd like ot see some software features added, overall the product is great. And, now you can get it for $100.

The first movie I watched hiccuped/skipped a couple of times, but since then each movie has perfomed really well. Most of what I've ordered has been HD streaminig (not HDX) and superb.

I think for me, that's the ticket. It will be rare that I will plan to order a movie 4+ hours in advance for the HDX version. So, the streaming HD (or SD if unavailable) is really my goal.

It would also be great to see the ability to share multiple boxes and/or content within a home rather than treating them as separate. I'd also like a way to make DVDs from purchased movies. They could easily implement this through basic software and a PC/Mac.

Also, photo/audio streaming from a home network would be great! This hands down trumps the AppleTV quality, and these two other features would place it even further ahead.

We'll see what the future holds, but for $100 (rather than $300 standard price), it's a bargain I think - espeically because there are no monthly fees. You only pay for what you watch.

One last thing; Hollywood... get in the game and stop &^%$#@@ this up already. The music labels screwed everything up and missed their chance for great success melded with a successful guest experience. No Hollywood is doing the same thing. Make it simple; sell your own catalogs and offer the customer to purchase in any format. Forget exclusivity. This is the video game market. Make you content available to all providers. You'll sell more and people won't feel dumb that they can purchase content for one hardware device but not another. Or worse, have to purchase the same item three times (Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy). Create Blu-Rays that are hybrid and contain HD, DVD and Digital Copy. No were getting somewhere. Didn't the Sony UMB fiasco teach you anything?

[gearyt]

Originally Posted by beast0117

... I'd also like a way to make DVDs from purchased movies. They could easily implement this through basic software and a PC/Mac.

That's the "rub" you didn't purchase it, you rented it... If you keep a rental, you get billed for the dvd...

sorry.... no free lunch

[lch]

Originally Posted by beast0117

One last thing; Hollywood... get in the game and stop &^%$#@@ this up already. The music labels screwed everything up and missed their chance for great success melded with a successful guest experience. No Hollywood is doing the same thing. Make it simple; sell your own catalogs and offer the customer to purchase in any format. Forget exclusivity. This is the video game market. Make you content available to all providers. You'll sell more and people won't feel dumb that they can purchase content for one hardware device but not another. Or worse, have to purchase the same item three times (Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy). Create Blu-Rays that are hybrid and contain HD, DVD and Digital Copy. No were getting somewhere. Didn't the Sony UMB fiasco teach you anything?

why would the studio want to do this ?
why would they want to sell to vudu/apple for eg 99c when they can get much more from dvd and bd ?
they will be better off when they do exclusive stuff that everybody want on bd, so that this will force all to buy bd player which ensure future big income as everybody already have bd player.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by gearyt

That's the "rub" you didn't purchase it, you rented it... If you keep a rental, you get billed for the dvd...

sorry.... no free lunch

Would the studios really want you to be able to burn a copy? They don't want you giving away free copies to your friends. They want people to purchase their own copies.

[obiwopkenobi62]

Originally Posted by beast0117

Unlike the flogging I received when I posted a thread a few months back as to why anybody would want to purchase Blu-Ray titles when Vudu offers similar quality, I'll be direct and gentle with you.

First, I'd like to acknowledge those of you (few) that did write back to educate me. I have hundreds of Blu-Ray movies and just wanted to make certain I wasn't wasting money.

I finally picked up the Vudu as a supplimental item.

While it does have some occasional quirks and I'd like ot see some software features added, overall the product is great. And, now you can get it for $100.

The first movie I watched hiccuped/skipped a couple of times, but since then each movie has perfomed really well. Most of what I've ordered has been HD streaminig (not HDX) and superb.

I think for me, that's the ticket. It will be rare that I will plan to order a movie 4+ hours in advance for the HDX version. So, the streaming HD (or SD if unavailable) is really my goal.

It would also be great to see the ability to share multiple boxes and/or content within a home rather than treating them as separate. I'd also like a way to make DVDs from purchased movies. They could easily implement this through basic software and a PC/Mac.

Also, photo/audio streaming from a home network would be great! This hands down trumps the AppleTV quality, and these two other features would place it even further ahead.

We'll see what the future holds, but for $100 (rather than $300 standard price), it's a bargain I think - espeically because there are no monthly fees. You only pay for what you watch.

One last thing; Hollywood... get in the game and stop &^%$#@@ this up already. The music labels screwed everything up and missed their chance for great success melded with a successful guest experience. No Hollywood is doing the same thing. Make it simple; sell your own catalogs and offer the customer to purchase in any format. Forget exclusivity. This is the video game market. Make you content available to all providers. You'll sell more and people won't feel dumb that they can purchase content for one hardware device but not another. Or worse, have to purchase the same item three times (Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy). Create Blu-Rays that are hybrid and contain HD, DVD and Digital Copy. No were getting somewhere. Didn't the Sony UMB fiasco teach you anything?

Glad to see someone else that has positive stuff to say that actually has a Vudu box like me. I love mine. For anyone on here that thinks it's stupid, all I have to say is I'm not driving to the video store or waiting for it to get to my mailbox anymore. I love my Vudu box.

[JasonS]

Originally Posted by obiwopkenobi62

Glad to see someone else that has positive stuff to say that actually has a Vudu box like me. I love mine. For anyone on here that thinks it's stupid, all I have to say is I'm not driving to the video store or waiting for it to get to my mailbox anymore. I love my Vudu box.

How is the menu / interface of the Vudu? I've been looking into one for rentals (I obviously have a huge Blu-ray collection) so it wouldn't be replacing, but would be supplemental. Nothing is worse than anticipating release Tuesday only to have Blockbuster run out of copies.

[mapledragon]

Originally Posted by beast0117

Unlike the flogging I received when I posted a thread a few months back as to why anybody would want to purchase Blu-Ray titles when Vudu offers similar quality, I'll be direct and gentle with you.

First, I'd like to acknowledge those of you (few) that did write back to educate me. I have hundreds of Blu-Ray movies and just wanted to make certain I wasn't wasting money.

I finally picked up the Vudu as a supplimental item.

While it does have some occasional quirks and I'd like ot see some software features added, overall the product is great. And, now you can get it for $100.

The first movie I watched hiccuped/skipped a couple of times, but since then each movie has perfomed really well. Most of what I've ordered has been HD streaminig (not HDX) and superb.

I think for me, that's the ticket. It will be rare that I will plan to order a movie 4+ hours in advance for the HDX version. So, the streaming HD (or SD if unavailable) is really my goal.

It would also be great to see the ability to share multiple boxes and/or content within a home rather than treating them as separate. I'd also like a way to make DVDs from purchased movies. They could easily implement this through basic software and a PC/Mac.

Also, photo/audio streaming from a home network would be great! This hands down trumps the AppleTV quality, and these two other features would place it even further ahead.

We'll see what the future holds, but for $100 (rather than $300 standard price), it's a bargain I think - espeically because there are no monthly fees. You only pay for what you watch.

One last thing; Hollywood... get in the game and stop &^%$#@@ this up already. The music labels screwed everything up and missed their chance for great success melded with a successful guest experience. No Hollywood is doing the same thing. Make it simple; sell your own catalogs and offer the customer to purchase in any format. Forget exclusivity. This is the video game market. Make you content available to all providers. You'll sell more and people won't feel dumb that they can purchase content for one hardware device but not another. Or worse, have to purchase the same item three times (Blu-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy). Create Blu-Rays that are hybrid and contain HD, DVD and Digital Copy. No were getting somewhere. Didn't the Sony UMB fiasco teach you anything?

The HD and HDX versions are rentals only. If you download it, the license expires and you can't watch it again whenever you watn to. They're really like renting blu-ray disks, except at lower quality.

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by mapledragon

The HD and HDX versions are rentals only. If you download it, the license expires and you can't watch it again whenever you watn to. They're really like renting blu-ray disks, except at lower quality.

Also, what happens when a studio decides to pull a movie? Do you really expect EVERYTHING to ALWAYS be available? What if a studio decides to retire a movie? You won't be able to rent it any longer and you can't buy it from someone else who might have it. What happens if VUDU goes out of business? It is a new business, happens all the time. You'll be stuck with a player that can rent movies anymore and maybe a few DVD quality movies you downloaded onto the hard drive.

[Movie-Grrl]

I actually came here since I was considering purchasing a BD player, however this Vudu Box may better fit my needs. Think I'll order one tomorrow and see how it works out. I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks Obi