Vudu assembles massive library of on-demand movies
Vudu markets a set-top box that downloads HD-quality movies on a pay-per-view basis to your home theater. Now the company boasts that their library of over 1,100 titles makes the most HD movies available of any competing service.
Vudu has been making a massive push to gain the attention of video-philes seeking a high-quality movie download service for their home theater systems. The company added HD titles at a clip of 150 per week in the month of October to aggressively grow its catalog.
The service is similar to Roku’s set-top box that streams downloads from Netflix, though it aims for a high-end viewing experience. While the Netflix download service has proven to be wildly popular, it hasn’t yet launched an HD-quality service.
Vudu is also offering a holiday promotion through Best Buy to encourage sales of its $299 set-top box. The company is currently offering a $200 movie credit for new owners of its movie-download box.
The downside of streaming HD video through your home network is that it requires a serious amount of bandwidth for the best experience. Vudu recommends a minimum of 4 Mbps allocated to streaming in order to watch movies without obnoxious delays.
It’s unclear how large the market for streaming HD video service has become, especially considering that both the streaming to set-top box model and HD formats are still very new to the market.
In the meantime, Netflix is quietly working to make its service available across a number of different hardware components. Netflix streaming video is available through Tivo and the Xbox 360 media center solutions at a flat monthly rate.
The Vudu promotion begs the question of whether it’s worthwhile to pay three times as much for a set-top box and a per-download charge for each movie for higher quality video. Or would you rather pay $99 for a Roku-Netflix player and an account for $5-10 per month?
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