From Hulu and Lulu to Vudu…
One of my big complaints about Comcast ON DEMAND is the limited movie selection. AppleTV takes forever to download. And I’ve never signed up for Netflix because I watch movies on impulse. Enter Vudu. It’s a $400 box that allows you to watch 5,000 movies instantly, at the touch of a button. So how does it store that many movies on a 250GB drive? It doesn’t, really. It stores the first few seconds of each movie, which allows it to play instantly while streaming the rest in real-time via a fast internet connection and a peer-to-peer network with other Vudu boxes. How fast? When you visit Vudu.com, it asks you to check your bandwidth. Cable modems are recommended, although my Verizon DSL passed the test. Movie rentals are $2-4 over a 24-hour period (my Comcast movies are $4), and you can also download to own. Vudu upconverts movies to 16×9, but true high-def isn’t available… yet. Sounds cool, eh? Check out David Pogue’s positive review in the NY Times. And what about that smokin’ remote…
