VUDU - 1080p HD Internet Movie Player

We bought the VUDU last night, brought it home and found the hookup to be very friendly and straightforward. Before you buy this make sure you do the internet connection test at VUDU. You need: **fast internet connection** for SD movies, faster for HD. 4.0 Mbps is required for 'immediate' HD and 2.0 Mbps for SD, but we have faster than 4.0 and couldn't even get SD movies to immediately start. They start within a minute. There is a special deal through BB thru the end of 2008 to get $200 in movies which brings the price down but keep in mind you do need a credit card and a minimum purchase of $20 to get your account activated. When you get down to $5 VUDU automatically taps your card for another $20. I didn't see any way to tell the system not to do that which is a bit annoying. The VIDU user interface is fantastic and very easy to figure out without needing to look at the manual. There is a cool wish list feature for you to be able to go through the library of thousands of movies and mark which ones you're interested in. Another neat feature is the ability to see dates when new movies will be available for rental and/or purchase. Some movies are available for rent the day they come out on DVD, others have rentals delayed. There doesn't seem to be any method to the licensing, although the VUDU sales rep told me it depended on the studio as to which movies appear when. The video on demand market is a bit unstable right now as Hollywood can't seem to make up its mind where to go with licensing, but VUDU seems to be near the top of the pack in selection and release dates, especially with its growing selection of 1080p movies. If you love high quality Blu-ray quality movies, you definitely want to check out VUDU. I miss the fact that you can't watch any personal media through it and/or treat it like a Media Center. VUDU needs a browser and the ability to do display your personal media. What VUDU does do -- movies and to some extent TV shows -- it does pretty well.

Really happy with the purchase. Had it set up in about a half hour, watched an HD movie that night. Great quality. The Good: 1) setup pretty quick. Has to download firmware updates and reboot a few times. Took about a half hour including registration at vudu.com. But this was probably the easiest install of any device I've ever attached to my network. 2) watched a movie right away - HD quality. It was a very crisp/sharp picture. I can't imagine what HDX looks like. 3) Both web site and vudu user interface are fairly intuitive. 4) I used the HDMI hookup, and the ethernet hookup to my router. No issues with either connection. 5) Movie played flawlessly. The not-so-good: 1) I was dissapointed to see not all the listed movies are available to rent. Disney movies in particular are available only for purchase. I'm sure that has to do more with the Studio than Vudu, but it was still dissapointing. So, if you want to watch Johnny Depp as Captain Jack, you'll need to purchase. 2) My network passed all the connection tests, but watching Burn After Reading in HDX would have required a significant (it told me 17 hours) download. So I watched in HD. All in all, I'm really happy with this purchase. The good and the user experience outweigh the not-so-good by a mile. I'm looking forward to many family movie nights and less time bringing movies back to redbox or blockbuster.

Overall this system is great. It was a little clumsy to set up, because the directions were a little wrong. But the support team at VuDu was great and walked me right through. Once I was connected though, the service was amazing. It's easy to use and works great with our HDTV 1080p. Other services advertise HD, but don't give you the full resolution. My only complaint is that the remote receiver is RF, which doesn't work with our universal. They allow you to purchase an IR receiver, but that's another $40. After spending that much on the box, I expected the IR to come standard. But, the service is still worth it. I just have to get over the fact that my Universal is no longer universal.

I have a 1080p 120hz lcd tv and downloading a HDX movie (which is vudu's version of BLURAY and utilizes 1080p 24fps) is awesome to watch. it might take up to 8 hours but i dont mind that. SD and HD ( HD is 720p 60hz ) plays instantly for me which is nice for movies i dont care to see in HDX. I highly recommend this i bought it for my parents as well and they are not tech savy and they love it and find it easy to use. i think this will be the wave of the future. i also own a bluray player and HDX downloads look just as good as a bluray to me. Hats off to Vudu for making a great product and giving us HDX downloads.

If you want a great interface and beautiful 1080p movies this is the one. The only two complaints I have are, if you want to download 1080p movies you must do it ahead of time. It takes about 4 hours per movie. Otherwise you can stream the movie as you watch. The other complaint is the funky remote. Although it feels good in the hand and is easy to use, it falls over on my table and it is not backlit. It is not that big a deal because there are not many buttons. In the end this is a very easy to set up unit and with its slick interface and 1080p movies it is a must buy for movie lovers.

Well I've read plenty of articles on this little black box and all rated it pretty high, so I decided to purchase this machine instead of an Apple TV because of the quality of video that could be attained through its HDX viewing. Although HDX is 1080p, it can't quite touch the quality of Blu Ray, for now anyway. Quite a few movies hover around the 19.99 SD mark for purchasing, when you can buy them in the stores for around 12.99 and digitize them yourself. But to have the work done for you justifies the price. But all in all, for the restrictions set forth from the studio companies, I would say that Vudu hit the mark with video quality and 5.1 surround sound performance. The remote is absolutely heavenly. A few complaints would be no onboard wireless connectivity, I don't feel as if I should purchase another add-on to suffice for the box's shortcomings, and well that's it.

We have been VUDU users for about three months and it has completely changed the way we watch our movies. Soooo simple to use. We LOVE it! The service has a great selection of new releases and we can usually find something to watch every time we sit down with the player. I love the "interface" and the remote is killer. My wife loves watching trailers and just browsing around the list of movies. They have a "wish list" feature which we use similar to our Netflix queue to load things up for us to watch later. The box seems to always be changing with new stuff. We just bought our HDTV (thanks BestBuy :)) and we are now playing around with HD stuff which looks awesome on VUDU. Love it and cannot wait to see what's next!

I was surprised on how fast I could Download HD movies, also I rented Mongol on HDX which took alot longer but the picture was much better then HD movie selection, HDX is where it is at. Easy to setup. Wait at least a day or several hours for it to do all its updates and download all the movie information then you would love it. I hope soon down the road we will see HD Concerts to download and Movie Trailers for movies coming soon to Theaters or are in theaters. Better quality then apple tv with HDX. I love this and think of buying my father one for Christmas. Do wish they gave you a IR reciever so I could use my harmony one remote instead of buying a 40 dollar add on.