The first thing you’ll notice about VUDU is the uniquely-shaped RF remote control. The remote sports only five buttons and a clickable scroll wheel, and it feels great in the hand. If you budget five minutes of your day for learning the VUDU remote, you’ll soon be wondering what to do with that extra four minutes and thirty seconds. It’s that easy. And the attractive, colorful user interface is more than just intuitive; it’s good—Tivo and iTunes good.
Video quality on standard definition titles comes close to rivaling DVD. The Bourne Ultimatum in HD looked decidedly better but not as impressive as my HD DVD. Although a video download from VUDU is unlikely to ever match the video prowess of a Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD, the convenience factor cannot be overlooked. Without fail, every film I rented or purchased started playing within ten seconds of clicking “Watch it Now.” That’s a remarkable achievement when you consider the fact that these are full length movies and not tiny MP3 files.
As for storage capacity, the standard VUDU box comes with hard drive capacity for 100 hours of standard definition content. If that doesn’t sound like enough, take comfort in the fact that support for Network Attached Storage (NAS) is coming later this year. That will mean your home PC or separate server can serve as a secondary repository for your VUDU content.
At press time, Apple had just announced its latest AppleTV box which appears to promise much of what VUDU is already delivering. Although Apple is not to be underestimated, it’s hard to imagine a simpler, more refined movie download experience than the one VUDU has created. Will VUDU do to the DVD what iTunes did to the CD? The fact that they’re offering instant content from every major Hollywood studio is a big step in the right direction.
What do you think about VUDU? Talk about it in the E-Gear forums.
Page 1 | 2
Companies Mentioned:
 |
Gr.eat review. The Vudu has 5000 films to 400 from Apple and 250 from my cable company. Click and it's instant ly playing. The navigatinbg is terrific. One other great bonus. You can choose a category like drama or comedy. You can also filter for only 4 or 5 + critics rated movies. The list only gives you the absolute best movies ever put out. That's fabulous. One blogger said .you'll never see a bad movie again." Considering that 80% of what's made is lousy, you'll be crazy about the filter. No one else thought of it. I love my Vudu. I have afriend with an Apple Tv and he's not happy. Film quality is not as good, and navigating is not as good. Also Apple only has 720 p which is not high def and you sometimes have to wait a half hour or two hours for a download - and that is after their yearly upgrade last month. Vudu is king.