vudu

Got the XBR6 hooked up and running on Wednesday... On Saturday, we decided to give the vudu (yes, lowercase letters) box a try.  vudu is a box hooked up to your TV and allows you to rent or OWN movies... sort of an on-line Blockbuster or NetFlix.

We purchased this at BestBuy when purchasing the XBR6 set up.  In talking with our service consultant, vudu is something that should work well with our FiOS (fiber-optics) connection through Verizon.

We have the wireless hookup through our Internet connection.  You can also hard-wire via ethernet.  The cost for the vudu unit was $299, but they're giving you a $200 credit towards rentals/purchases right now, so the net cost was $99.  The wireless hook-up is another $99.

vudu has a unique and simple to use remote, one that will be shortly replaced by our Harmony 1 remote (another Blog entry for this). Once you fire up the vudu box, the TV screen takes you through a 4 step process.  First, is verifies your TV/Receiver hook-up.  It then verifies your Internet hook-up.  We have 20/5 for Internet, so that went pretty fast.

Step 3 is where you enter all your account information via their web site, so I grabbed a laptop and entered away.  You're asked for all the basic info (name, email, etc.), plus Credit Card and access codes from the TV display. 

Step 4 then downloads, reboots, etc. all the new software and movie info.  Even with our 20/5 speed, it still took about 10-15 minutes. Once completed, your ready to.

Navigating their menu is pretty easy.  You can search for movies by Title, Actor, Genre, even if the movie is HD or not.  Prices to rent vary from $2.99 in Standard Definition (SD) up to $5.99 in HD or HDX.  Couldn't find what HDX is, but it's the same price as HD. Once you rent the movie, it's available for 30 days in your 'inbox', but once your start play, it's only available for 24 hours.  We wanted to rent Get Smart.  Once you select your preference (SD, HD, HDX) it starts the download process.  For HD, it stated "watch in 32 seconds", so we chose HD and the download began with a status of what % of the download is complete.  Needless to say, it took more than 32 seconds, with various changes in the completion status, as well as changes in 'ready to watch' status.  All in all, from the time of first power-up on the box, going through Steps 1-4, then actually starting to watch the movie, it was an hour.  I'm hoping the next time it will be a matter of selecting the movie and the download process, which I hope is much faster...

You can also 'buy' the movies.  Most were $9.99. Have not done that yet so not sure how that all works.  I'll Blog that when we give it a go.  The selection of movies that were available is not too shabby.  Most current DVD releases, plus some older movies as well.  Not all are available in HD, and not are available to purchase.  I'm sure this will evolve as the vudu process/market matures.

All in all, on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best, I'm giving vudu a 7.5 for now. Not bad for a new product.   As I use it more, I'll add a new Blog entry with any updates to my vudu experience.