June 4 - 12:10pm EDT   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. [full story]

May 13 - 2:15pm EDT   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. [full story]

May 12 - 4:20pm EDT   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). [full story]

May 5 - 4:50pm EDT   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. [full story]

April 7 - 9:05am EDT   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. [full story]

March 27 - 3:45pm EDT   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. [full story]

March 25 - 7:45am EDT   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. [full story]

March 16 - 4:20pm EDT   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. [full story]

March 6 - 3:20pm EST   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. [full story]

March 3 - 11:55am EST   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. [full story]

February 24 - 8:10am EST   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. [full story]

February 12 - 11:55am EST   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. [full story]

February 9 - 8:50pm EST   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. [full story]

February 5 - 2:00pm EST   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. [full story]

January 26 - 4:55pm EST   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. [full story]