Vudu Debuts Movies-on-Demand Set-top With 5,000 Titles

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 6, 2007 - 9:13am.

Santa Clara, Calif. - Vudu on Wednesday introduced its movie-on-demand service, which includes a $399 Internet-connected set-top box and a selection of over 5,000 movies.

Vudu has licensed films from Disney, Fox, Universal, Paramount, New Line, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate, as well as from many independent distributors.

The service begins downloading a film as it plays, can use peer-to-peer technology to speed downloads using other Vudu boxes, and can provide near-HD quality on a television; the company also plans to eventually offer true HD movies.

Movies can be rented for between $1 and $4 each, or purchased outright for between $5 and $20 -- at which point the film is stored permanently on the device's 250GB hard drive.

The company said many new DVD releases will be available on Vudu for the same price within 48 hours of their release.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Vudu enters an increasingly crowded market that includes cable and satellite TV video-on-demand systems, online DVD rental services like Netflix, PC-based movie download services like Movielink and CinemaNow, and competing devices like the Xbox 360 and Apple TV.

"Vudu is being introduced in an area that's had some tough history," Parks Associates analyst Kurt Scherf told Reuters. "It's been clear that the movie-on-demand model via the Internet has so far underperformed Hollywood studios expectations."

The device and service were reviewed by New York Times technology columnist David Pogue in the paper today.