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Vudu sells set-top internet video box at Best Buy

28 May 2008 3:55 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus | 8 comments

All the attention garnered this year by Apple's revamped AppleTV set-top box is both a blessing and a curse for competing devices and services. On one hand Apple's brand certainly gives the idea of downloaded video more respectability with some consumers. At the same time it's hard for other companies that don't have the same level of name recognition to get the public's attention. One such competitor, Vudu, is addressing that issue by selling their hardware in a small number of Best Buy stores.

Previously the Vudu set-top box was available only from online retailers, including their own website and Amazon.com. Besides increasing their visibility, the move to sell the units at Best Buy also gives consumers the opportunity to do some hands-on evaluation before taking one home. For unfamiliar technology with a price tag of nearly $300 this seems like an important step in the right direction.

Vudu currently has 5,500 titles available either for rent or purchase. As with Apple's iTunes offerings, many movies are available for purchase the same day they're released on DVD, while rentals are typically available 30 days later. The two devices also have similar storage capabilities for around 50 hours of video.

�Brand awareness is growing very quickly, as our Web site traffic is growing very quickly,� said Patrick Cosson, VP of marketing at Vudu, �And it�s growing all across the country�in all kinds of markets.�

Permalink to this article | Topics: IPTV Online video

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Time Warner set to bring Internet video content to home TVs (31 May 2008)

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TiVo will offer Disney movies through CinemaNow (28 May 2008)

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Vudu drops price to battle AppleTV (24 January 2008)

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AppleTV gets hacked for USB storage (30 July 2007)

Movie studios fear Apple TV (12 June 2007)

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wolf123 (Member) 28 May 2008 5:45
This sounds like that thing that was out in the late 1990's and it craped out because broadband wasn't in wide use yet and I am sorry the name slips my mind but it was the internet on the tv through the phone line type deal. Someone help me here. [ + quote]
lynchGOP (Inactive) 28 May 2008 11:03
What a waste of money. For the dollar spent on this garbage, just buy or build a pc with dope parts and a wireless mouse/kb and put next to your ent. ctr. [ + quote]
emugamer (Member) 28 May 2008 11:45
Price is too steep, even to just gain visibility. Just because a Lexus gains visibility on a showroom floor, doesn't mean someone without the money is going to want to buy it. If anything, this type of visibility will have people writing it off. Pay $300 and rental fees or just pay rental fees and live with mail deliveries for a little while longer. And How are you going to do hands on evaluation at Best Buy? Are they going to set up stations so that you can rent a movie and stand there for 1.5 hours? How is a consumers network speed going to compare to Best Buy's? I guess hands on means touching and feeling how smooth the device is and seeing the pretty VUDU logo. [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 28 May 2008 11:48
wuhead (Newbie) 28 May 2008 14:11
*Originally posted by wolf123:* This sounds like that thing that was out in the late 1990's and it craped out because broadband wasn't in wide use yet and I am sorry the name slips my mind but it was the internet on the tv through the phone line type deal. Someone help me here. DIVX? - Digital Video Express [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_%28Digital_Video_Express%29][/url] [ + quote]
wuhead (Newbie) 28 May 2008 14:16
*Quote:* *Originally posted by wolf123:* This sounds like that thing that was out in the late 1990's and it craped out because broadband wasn't in wide use yet and I am sorry the name slips my mind but it was the internet on the tv through the phone line type deal. Someone help me here. DIVX? - Digital Video Express http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_%28Digital_Video_Express%29 or do you mean WebTV? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_TV [ + quote]
wolf123 (Member) 28 May 2008 14:45
*Quote:* *Quote:* *Originally posted by wolf123:* This sounds like that thing that was out in the late 1990's and it craped out because broadband wasn't in wide use yet and I am sorry the name slips my mind but it was the internet on the tv through the phone line type deal. Someone help me here. DIVX? - Digital Video Express http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_%28Digital_Video_Express%29 or do you mean WebTV? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_TV web tv thank you. [ + quote]
SProdigy (Member) 29 May 2008 15:58
*Originally posted by emugamer:* Price is too steep, even to just gain visibility. Just because a Lexus gains visibility on a showroom floor, doesn't mean someone without the money is going to want to buy it. If anything, this type of visibility will have people writing it off. Pay $300 and rental fees or just pay rental fees and live with mail deliveries for a little while longer. And How are you going to do hands on evaluation at Best Buy? Are they going to set up stations so that you can rent a movie and stand there for 1.5 hours? How is a consumers network speed going to compare to Best Buy's? I guess hands on means touching and feeling how smooth the device is and seeing the pretty VUDU logo. I'm willing to bet it runs pretty awful if Best Buy were to set one up. The network speeds at Best Buy are atrocious, because they use VOIP phones, have Geek Squad Agents that remote into PC's from offsite, and don't forget about bank/credit transactions at the register. At most, I'm willing to bet VUDU would set up a box with some canned 2 minute clips on it, which would bring in some ad revenue to them as well, so there would be no true hands on feel to it. I agree with the guy above: you can even upgrade a 4-5 year old system to playback most content. Even a soft-modded original Xbox running XBMC will do just about anything except HD content, and you could pick them up rather cheaply off Ebay these days. [ + quote]
vudoo (Member) 3 June 2008 18:35
It would be kewl of someone came up with a set top box with a 500-700GB (or more)HD and the ability to play Mp4, DivX, Xvid, Mpeg, Mp3, AAC on it. This would make it easier to bring the computer files to your TV. They could simply say its for viewing DV camera files and youtube to keep them out of harms way from the all so old song and dance called inciting copyright infringement. Just my two cents. [ + quote]