VUDU on Thursday announced that it has brought brought three key Internet apps to VUDU-enabled TVs. These are the same apps that were already available on the VUDU box and include Picasa, Flickr, Pandora, a free TV on-demand service and a few simple games. VUDU says it brought these apps to the TVs from its partners due to popular demand.
Apple could upturn the entire TV market by offering an iTunes TV subscription service, a prominent rumor says today. iTunes head Eddy Cue is believed to be pitching the idea of a $30 monthly plan that would give users much broader access, much like conventional TV. The exact terms aren't specified by the "multiple" MediaMemo tips but wouldn't confine the service to a single device.
LG on Wednesday announced that its BD390 Blu-ray player now supports video streams from VUDU. The service will allow users to view content such as movies and TV shows, with over 2,200 movies available in 1080p resolution paired with 5.1-channel audio. Other supported sources for streaming video include Netflix, Roxio, CinemaNow and YouTube.
Mitsubishi announced on Thursday that it has integrated VUDU support for the flagship Diamond models in its Unisen Immersive Sound range of LCD HDTVs. This will give users access to VUDU's extensive library that include thousands of HD movies and TV shows. The two Diamond Unisen models, the 46-inch LT-46249 and 52-inch LT-52249, have an Ethernet port that allows them to connect to the web. Otherwise, there is an optional VUDU wireless accessory bridge for hooking up to existing home networks.
Young movie store Film Fresh today launched itself as the first US-based movie store to provide downloads from larger studios in DivX form. Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony and Warner have all agreed to include both recent and classic titles on the store and as a result have created one of the first few truly cross-platform movie services. Although the videos are still copy-protected, the choice of DivX lets them play on Macs as well as any other device with an official DivX certification, including Blu-ray and DVD players, consoles like the PS3, and even the TVs themselves.
Electronics producer LG today said it has teamed up with Vudu to integrate the latter's on-demand movie and TV services into its HDTVs. This will allow the Internet-connected TVs to browse and view a full library of content, including in HD. Currently, Vudu offers set-top boxes that need to plugged into a TV and network connection, which adds to the clutter and complexity of a living room, as well as adding another remote control. With the partnership with LG, Vudu hopes to make its service more accessible to customers.
Starting July 16th, Mitsubishi will give buyers of the majority of its TVs a Vudu HD set-top box and $50 of movie credits. The promotion will run until August 10th at stores carrying Mitsubishi sets and effectively provides a $200 discount on the combo. Vudu offers over 2,000 high-definition movies from more than 40 studios and distributors and gives users renting or purchase options for the content.
VUDU today added movies from Disney's various studios to its catalog in a significant expansion of its catalog. The initial roster includes about 60 titles and focuses more on mature titles such as No Country for Old Men but also includes children's titles like High School Musical 3. In a first, the device and video provider also claims to be the first to offer permanent, purchasable versions of these movies in HD. Competitors like iTunes are currently limited to renting in HD and purchasing in standard resolution.
VUDU today signaled a partial change in direction with word that it will start offering ad-supported music and video through its service. Once limited to renting as well as selling movies and TV shows, the company is tapping Brightcove to provide ads for a free Sony music video service. It also plans to expand this to include other services but hasn't set out its plans to date, including whether or not it may extend this to TV and other long-form content.
Researchers NPD Group today said that 88% of the money consumers spend on home entertainment goes towards purchasing and renting movies on DVD and Blu-ray discs. Of the $25 each US consumer spends on average in a given month, 63 percent was found to be spent on DVD purchases, 7 percent on Blu-ray discs, and 18% went towards renting DVD and Blu-ray movies. The remaining 12 percent was split between video on-demand (VOD) services (9 percent) and digital downloads and online streaming (3 percent).
For the first time, Vudu will offer its library of more than 14,000 movies and 1,500 high-definition movies on hardware from a third-party, effectively becoming a service provider in addition to a hardware manufacturer in the process. Vudu chose Entone as its partner, which supplies set-top boxes and DVRs to small regional TV providers. Vudu will endow the Entone hardware with the same functionality as its Vudu Box offering, including on-demand access to HD and HDX movies, via a software update.
Blockbuster yesterday submitted a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that reveals the company doesn't believe it can continue business. The video store is no longer certain that it can remain a "going concern" and may have to stop operations and close its doors if its financial situation doesn't improve in the near future. The warning comes in spite of a $250 million refinancing loan having been put in place just last week; Blockbuster now says there is "no assurance" that it can meet the requirements of the transaction before it's completed on May 11th.
Myka today said it would start shipping its self-titled media hubs shortly after their initial batch is finished production on April 6th. Originally unveiled last year, the set-top box is designed as an open-source alternative to devices like the Apple TV and the VUDU Box that uses BitTorrent as its underlying framework. The feature lets users download commercial and unofficial content without being dependent on any one connection or service. Myka doesn't immediatly have content deals but claims to be in negotiations with "major" providers.
Blockbuster today said it would start delivering movies and TV shows over TiVo's DVRs. The tie-in will give users about 10,000 combined movies and TV shows that can be purchased or rented from any Series 2, Series 3 or HD series device. The company is offering movie rentals for between $2 and $4 and permanent movie purchases between $15 and $20. As part of the deal, Blockbuster says it will also start selling TiVo units in its retail stores.
VUDU has recently announced it has added support for the recommendation-based Internet radio service Pandora. The feature is the first music application available on the VUDU Box and allows on-screen access to the multitude of channels. Multiple user accounts are supported, so each member of the family can log in and access their own favorite presets.
VUDU's next major firmware upgrade to the VUDU Box could give it and its sibling devices a greater role as a local media hub, according to a new rumor. Networked set-top box observer Dave Zatz hears that the next version of the firmware after this week's 2.2 update will add the option to use the VUDU Box as a media extender for computers on the local network. It's not known if this would include Windows Media Center PCs, DLNA or other formats.
Roku today gave its Roku Player support for Amazon's Video on Demand service. The feature gives the networked media hub its first non-subscription video model and lets owners both rent movies on a title-by-title basis as well as buy them; as Amazon allows online streaming, movies and TV shows can be seen without needing permanent storage as on the Apple TV or VUDU Box. Roku's interface for Amazon also trumps the Netflix solution by letting owners browse and buy directly from the TV interface rather than require users add titles separately on a website.
VUDU on Tuesday staked out its position network media hubs by becoming the first to sell permanent downloads of movies in HD for its own device. The VUDU Box, XL and XL2 can now keep full-length titles in either the company's regular HD as well as in its 1080p HDX format rather than having to rent them. The initial lineup will include movies like Man on Wire and War, Inc. and should see every future movie made available to buy as well as rent in HD on the same day as it's available on DVD.
Netflix on Thursday passed a symbolic milestone and said it obtained its 10 millionth subscriber overnight. The number was achieved after adding about 600,000 new users in the month and a half since the start of 2009 and is growing faster than already seen in the large fall leap, when the movie rental firm added about 718,000 new regular users over the space of the last three months of 2008. The company expects to add between 100,000 and 300,000 more by the end of March.
Vudu, Inc. has permanently slashed the price of its media box, now offering the devices for $150. The company has progressively lowered the cost of its basic set-top box, dropping from $400 to $295 a year ago. A holiday promotion initially halved the price to $150, undercutting the Apple TV by $80. The basic Vudu Box also offers 250GB of storage, exceeding the 160GB capacity of the top-level Apple TV which costs more than twice as much.
Microsoft and Netflix on Thursday announced a milestone in their co-operation to bring Netflix movies to the users' homes via the Xbox 360 gaming console, saying one million Xbox Live Gold members downloaded and activated software that lets them access Netflix' library of movies and TV shows. This number was reached in just three months since the service was offered in November, with the equivalent of 1.5 billion minutes of movies and TV episodes consumed by the subscribers.
Netflix this afternoon bucked expectations by revealing a major leap in the number of subscribers to its movie rental service this past fall. The company says its subscriber base surged 26 percent versus a year ago to 9.39 million and that its net income has climbed even faster, jumping nearly 44.6 percent to $22.7 million. Both improvements are "near record" statistics, according to Netflix chief Reed Hastings.
VUDU, makers of the 1080p high definition movie player, has launched a movie catalog application for the iPhone/iPod touch, VUDU Movie Catalog. Allowing users to search and browse through VUDU’s catalog from anywhere an internet connection is available, users will be able to rent or purchase any movies and shows through their VUDU account. All media chosen will be automatically downloaded to the VUDU box for available use.
Google's video site YouTube has started rolling out downloadable versions of its video clips as well as newer viewing options for set-tops. The former lets viewers of freely available clips, such as from Barack Obama and home-made movies, download permanent copies of those clips in their higher-quality but standard definition 480x270 versions in an H.264 format playable on modern portable devices such as all modern iPhones and iPods, Sony's Walkman line and Microsoft's Zune series.
YouTube today extended its features with the launch of YouTube for Television. The site is specifically reengineered for media hubs and other web-capable TV devices with an interface designed to be viewable at living room distances and controlled through a remote rather than a mouse. The portal is available right away in 22 regions and is initially confirmed to work with the PlayStation 3 and Wii.
VUDU has quietly introduced a major discount on its networked media hubs just ahead of Christmas. The company has cut the price of the VUDU Box in half to $150 and also provides $50 in credits to buy or rent movies and TV shows. A similar deal also provides a $200 wireless bundle that includes the hub as well as an 802.11.g Wi-Fi kit that bridges the media device to a home router. The hardware itself is the same and can play movies up to 1080p in its new HDX format and has 250GB of storage to hold as many as 50 movies in 480p.
Microsoft is actively pursuing its hinted plans to directly integrate its Zune players with its Xbox systems, a recently unearthed job post for a User Experience Designer shows. A recruit hired for the position would be tasked with conceptualizing and developing the interface for not only the Zune players and PC client but also "Zune Xbox," alluding to a likely playback and possible music purchasing system for the Xbox 360 or later.
VUDU today staked out a potential edge in networked media hubs on Tuesday by launching a new platform specifically tailored to normally web-oriented services. The RIA (Rich Internet Application) standard lets developers write and users download add-ons that convert web games, photo and video services into a native program for the VUDU Box rather than have to use a special web browser or make special arrangements for app development. The implementation will make it relatively straightforward to integrate web content while still having a "lean-back" interface with remote control, the company explains.
VUDU today catered to custom home theater installations with a second-generation networked media hub. The XL2 has the same 1TB of hard drive space for videos as the original XL but drops VUDU's favorite curved shape in favor of a thin, single-unit (1U) box design that can be rackmounted in a media cabinet or another part of a customized home theater. It also improves on the stock VUDU Box by adding control over infrared or over most network-based home automation systems using the Ethernet connection.
TiVo today revealed the surprise addition of Netflix for TiVo (link active soon), its own adaptation of Netflix's Watch Instantly feature. The update will give TiVo's DVRs access to streaming versions of the roughly 12,000 movies available online and will include both the standard-definition versions as well as the recently unveiled HD versions of some titles that will first be available on the Xbox 360. Like earlier implementations, users must manage their online movie queues from a web browser but can play movies or TV shows in any order from TiVo units.
Microsoft's New Xbox Experience will come with the surprise addition of HD video streaming over Netflix, an early Engadget hands-on shows. While every Netflix-capable device to date has been limited to standard-definition versions of videos, including Blu-ray players from LG Samsung, the Xbox 360 after its November 19th upgrade will get about 300 titles in HD that include both movies and TV shows.
Sony today made good on a summer promise by becoming one of the first to premiere a major movie rental on a networked video hub rather than releasing it simultaneously with or after its physical release. Owners of the company's Internet Video Link for its BRAVIA HDTV sets will have the option of downloading a rental version of Hancock from October 28th, or nearly a month before the November 25th street date. This will include both a 720p HD stream as well as both high- and low-bitrate 480p versions for those with slower connections.
VUDU upped its stakes in the online movie rental arena today by confirming a rumor and introducing some of the first 1080p online movie rentals. Labeled as HDX, the format is roughly twice as sharp as the 720p offered for most VUDU and Apple TV movies but attempts to avoid some of the compression artifacts that often crop up in attempting to shrink HD video to download-friendly sizes. A new algorithm known as TruFilm focuses the available bandwidth on rendering complex portions of the scene while reducing the data for simpler areas, producing what the company believes is a small video file without introducing visible color or resolution drops.
Internet-based movie and TV show rental and store company VUDU may be planning on offering high-definition downloads that are equal in quality to Blu-ray movies, according to a Wednesday a
iTunes 8 will be the first version of Apple's desktop software to allow HD purchases, if a further leak from Digg head Kevin Rose proves accurate. A purported excerpt from the upgrade notes to the software mentions users having the option of downloading TV episodes in "HD quality," suggesting the software will be the first from Apple to offer any kind of purchasable HD content outside of the Apple TV and that HD will extend beyond the movie-only options available today.
VUDU today set out to best Apple TV and other competitors in the networked media hub field with two features meant to draw in more movie viewers. The company is the first to offer digital movie renewals and will let customers pay a discounted price to either finish watching a movie or to watch it again; any customer that has already started playing a title can pay 99 cents (standard-definition) or $2 (HD) within a week of first playing the movie to watch it again, even if their normal playback time has already expired.
Vudu, the maker of a self-named video streaming set-top, has released a new upgrade for its system called the Wireless Kit. The add-on enables users to download movies and TV shows via wireless Internet rather than an Ethernet cable, a factor which may be crucial given the distance of many TVs from routers and computers. Competitors such as the Apple TV and the Roku already have Wi-Fi.
Netflix is cooperating with four other device makers beyond LG to develop network set-top boxes, the company has said while discussing its latest financial results. The movie rental agency had originally announced just its LG partnership in January but now says that three "major" companies are also developing media hubs that will bring the Netflix Internet movie streaming service to HDTVs. A smaller fourth company is also involved.
Sony's anticipated PlayStation 3 video store could be available as soon as this summer and with wide support, sources tell the LA Times. The console maker is allegedly in talks with multiple major studios and would open the store with a mixture of full-length movies and TV shows. No information has yet been supplied as to which companies are likely to be onboard or whether Sony will offer any videos in HD.
Blockbuster today is subject to rumors which claim the movie rental house is developing its own networked media hub. Similar to stand-alone devices such as the Apple TV or the Vudu, the unnamed project would let users watch Internet-streamed movies on TV and would take advantage of Blockbuster's union with Movielink to supply the content, with an unnamed electronics maker assembling the hardware itself. The device could be announced as early this month, though it may not be available until at least May.
Vudu, the creator of its namesake set-top box, has announced that its basic version is dropping in price by over $100, to reach $295. The cut takes effect today, and anyone who bought the device at its regular price within the last 30 days is entitled to a $100 movie credit. Vudus allow users to rent or buy standard- and high-definition videos from their TV, downloaded via the Internet; purchases cost between $2 and $20, while rentals are $1 to $4.
NBC Universal may be making conciliatory gestures to Apple as part of an effort to revitalize its business, according to a new report by the Financial Times (free trial or paid subscription required). In addition to cutting back on pilot TV shows and other practices that hurt the studio's costs, the network is said to have "patched up relations" with its momentary rival, which it accused of delivering pennies per sale for iTunes video sales, providing just $15 million over the last 12 months of NBC's time on the Apple-run store.
VUDU today unwrapped the VUDU XL, an extra-high capacity version of the company's movie streaming and rental device. The company is hesitant to provide exact storage but indicates that the new model can hold a full 500 standard-definition movies, allowing it to serve as a stand-in for many users' whole DVD collections; the claim suggests 500GB of internal drive space. It also improves home automation with network-based setups and better compatibility with universal IR remotes that control multiple devices. The XL is capable of outputting surround sound and should ship in February for $999.
People buying certain Sharp TVs can receive a Vudu box for free, the latter company has announced. As part of a bundle running through January 5th, people who buy an AQUOS LCD can also get the Vudu set-top system, which is further tied to a $50 movie credit. Vudu estimates that the deal is worth approximately $449, but there are some catches: the TV must be 42 inches or larger, and 1080p-capable.
Hollywood studios are taking a chance on the Vudu set-top box by granting the service the right to distribute the first of many major movies simultaneously with the official DVD release. The Bourne Ultimatum will be available Tuesday for rent or purchase, in standard and high definition. Universal Pictures is one of a few studios that have agreed to sell high definition content through the Vudu box, though there are not many titles currently available, in contrast to the 5000 standard definition titles that Vudu offers. Vudu sells the set-top box for $400, with rentals ranging from $1 to $5.
