The Complete Vudu Review

Vudu has been around for about a year and a half now, and the unit's operation and the content have both improved considerably since the early reviews.

I've been fascinated with the technology for a long time and finally got my hands on one.

Vudu represents one of the best in a relatively new class of internet appliances: the IMB (Internet Movie Box). By appliance I mean it reliably does one thing, no programming, tweaking, and it doesn't crash.

The box allows users to browse a wide selection of Vudu stocked movies. All you have to do is select "Purchase" or "Rental" (if available) and click "Play." Once a movie starts you can do the same things you can do with a DVD: pause, stop, fast-forward/reverse. It’s actually easier and more foolproof than a DVD player.

With a broadband connection of 2 Mbps, it delivers instant viewing of SD content. It also delivers instant HD content (1080p/24, 1080i, 720p) with a 4+ Mbps connection.

Basic Specs

The box is available in two versions: the basic consumer Vudu box and the Vudu XL, which is intended for the custom channel.

The rear connections are standard. The F connector is for a small remote control antenna (which can be remotely located). There is a micro-switch to select 480i or 480p for the analog outputs. The 100Base-T Ethernet connection should be directly connected to the home network switch.

The consumer model contains a 250GB hard drive, enough for about 50 movies. Vudu XL contains a 1TB hard drive, enough for about 200 movies. It can also integrate with products from companies such as Crestron, NetStreams and Control4.



The box has a fairly standard set of A/V outputs. Features include:

• Video outputs: HDMI v1.1, Component, Composite, S-video
• Video resolutions: HDMI - 1080p/24, 1080i, 720p; analog outputs - 480i/480p
• Ethernet: 100Base-T
• USB intended for future support of an external drive

Vudu claims the component output will be upgraded to deliver higher resolutions, up to 1080p via a "software change." Not clear if this can be done remotely or if it would require a new box.

Setup

A customer must first set up an account on the company's Web site and add money to the account — similar to most prepaid cell phones. As movies are rented, the account is debited, and there are no monthly fees. The Web site can also be used to manage the account and view rented and purchased titles.

Once the box is unpacked and plugged into a broadband Internet connection, it goes through a brief on-screen configuration. It "pairs" with the remote, checks for a good Internet connection and tests the connection speed.

The box does its own download speed test and uses this speed to estimate download times:

• 4 Mbps — instant
• 2 Mbps — SD instant, HD delayed two hours
• Less than 2 Mbps — SD delayed two hours and HD delayed four hours

I found that even with a 2 Mbps connection, most HD start times for popular movies were less than 20 minutes. The delay is to insure that once the movie starts, it won't be interrupted because the download couldn't keep up.

Once the test is done, you can go to the Network Settings>Bandwidth Limit screen and lower the download speed. But there seems to be no way to reset it or run the test again. I suppose you might want to lower the speed if movies are routinely being interrupted.

I would recommend doing this test (configuring the box) at about the same time the customer typically watches movies. I did the test at a bad time and the box said I had a 2 Mbps download speed even though I consistently get 4 Mbps.



Vudu then proceeds to update its software. When that's done, you see the main Vudu screen and the box immediately starts to download stuff.

The company claims the unit pre-downloads the first few minutes of the most popular movies to give the viewer a "head start."

It does this using a sort of proprietary "peer-to-peer" technology to download content from not only the company's servers in California, but other Vudu boxes that already have it. It's a totally unique approach.

Operation and UI

The only controls are on the remote, which is one of the nicest things about this product. Finally someone spent some serious time creating a remote to rival something made by Apple. It takes a couple of minutes to get used to the simplicity of it.

After spending many years trying to figure out stupid remotes with more than 50 little rubbery buttons that are ill-labeled, ill-positioned and too tiny to be of any practical value, the Vudu remote is a pleasure to use.

Not only does it fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, it only has 5 buttons and the vertical scroll-wheel (for navigation and selection). Each is logical in what it does and where it's placed.

The only two controls you need when a movie is playing are the pause/play and the scroll-wheel. As soon as you move the scroll-wheel, you get a "location bar" on the bottom of the screen.

Scrolling the wheel takes you forward and backwards at a speed that matches your wheel movement.

Vudu's main menu contains five options:

• Most Watched
• New on Vudu
• My Vudu
• Explore Catalog
• Info & Settings

Explore Catalog gives you several options for choosing a movie: Explore Genres, Explore HD, Explore TV, After Dark (adult content), Search by Actor or Director and Search by Title. The After Dark option is only there if the customer has "activated" that option on their account on the Web site. Naturally, I activated it.

Selecting a movie brings up a screen containing the movie details: cover art, cast, director, synopsis, star-rating, studio and run time. From here, you can click to watch a movie preview if it has one (most seem to). You can also click on the director or actor names and browse other movies they are in.

Integration

Vudu XL can be controlled by third-party solutions from Crestron, NetStreams and Control4. I assume this is over the Ethernet connection.

This may be a plus, but since the Vudu remote is the easiest remote to use in the entire industry I've ever seen, and way easier than any integration system touch-screen interface, who would want to replace it? Let the "integration system" select the box as a source if necessary, then let the user at the remote.

Network configuration is simple with a screen that will allow setting a static IP address. It should not be necessary to open any ports on the home router since all communications I observed was initiated by the box (opening any required ports).

Content

Vudu has partnered with major studios and 18 independents with a selection of more than 6,000 movies, mostly in SD and about 380 in HD and/or HDX. They do have a lot of very old obscure movies (mostly westerns). Prices, which seem to be set by the studios, seem fairly consistent across similar services.

They have the same issues other services do with rentals (imposed by the distributors):

• Must start watching within 30 days
• Must finish watching in 24 hours

Some older movies have 48-hour viewing times. And some movies are "eligible for extended viewing times" for usually less than a dollar.

Vudu also puts a random selection of $0.99 rentals on the Explore Catalog screen. They also recently began offering movies in a new proprietary format called HDX, which offers a higher bandwidth, less compressed version of HD content.

It's intended to give much better resolution on larger displays, particularly in action scenes. It looks very good, although it's hard to compare it with regular HD movies. The downside is longer download times. Even with a 4+ Mbps connection, downloads can take 1-2 hours to start.

Purchased Movies

Purchased movies can't be transferred to any other media. Even if you could, they're encoded in a proprietary format so they have to be watched from the Vudu box.

The USB port on the back of the unit is supposed to allow for additional storage in the future. Vudu claims owners "may archive movies in the Vudu Vault, i.e., transfer owned titles to a secure storage area on Vudu’s servers to free space on your hard drive for additional purchases. Archived titles will still appear in My Movies and may be downloaded again at any time with no additional charge. Archiving is available for movies from select studios and all TV shows.”

I couldn’t actually figure out how to do this.



Currently, if you delete a purchased title, you can't get it back and if the box fails, the movies are not retrievable. This is kind of scary. But since the company tracks customer purchases, they have each customer's purchasing history. According to Vudu, they plan on selling a "lifetime warranty" on purchased content.

The Download Experience

Unlike other Web-based movie services like AppleTV, Vudu chose to keep most of what appears on the screen (cover art, menus, descriptions, even parts of the movies) downloaded in the box. The advantage is a more instantaneous response. The disadvantage is all this stuff has to be downloaded "in the background."

It takes 2-3 days after the unit is configured for much of the cover art and description to fill in. After about two weeks, I rarely encountered a blank cover.

When I first downloaded an SD movie shortly after connection and configuration, it took about 20 seconds for the movie to start.

After about 24 hours, each following SD download started instantly. The unit does a trick to help this. Once you select a movie to rent or buy, the box begins to download even before you select "watch now." I presume it quits if you back out.

When I selected an HD movie, actual start delay times ranged from about 15 minutes to 30 minutes. A less popular HD movie I selected reported a start time of 1 hour and 30 minutes. Customers can pre-order movies from the Vudu Web site from any computer and it will download directly to the customer's box.

This implies that Vudu tracks the IP address of all its customers (and keeps track of IP changes). Since the box is constantly sending packets to the Vudu company servers, this is no problem.

Like all download purchase/rental services, you don't get the benefits of a physical DVD. No subtitles, extras, commentaries, menu or scene selection (not really necessary with the remote thumb wheel that will take you through the movie quickly).

But on the plus side, there is no annoying pre-movie ads, trailers, other junk. Once you hit "play," you're immediately presented with the feature presentation.

Internet Communication Issues

I did some network testing with Vudu in a typical home data network behind a high-quality commercial router. It was not configured with any type of QoS to favor the Vudu box. I used a packet sniffing program with a laptop connected to the same cable the box was using.

The unit is constantly sending and receiving packets even when it's off. The processor is constantly running, constantly transmitting and receiving small UDP packets (40-60 bytes) to and from IP addresses all over the U.S. I'm guessing this is information on who has what content, shared cover art, descriptions, etc. It also occasionally sends and receives short TCP packets from the Vudu servers in California.

But occasionally when off, it starts downloading at >500Kbps while simultaneously uploading between 200-300 Kbps, again to random IP addresses. This is a lot of stuff.

Is it supplying movies to other Vudu boxes? This seems odd since I don't own any movies. Maybe the movies I rented are not really deleted, just unavailable to me again but available for sharing with other boxes.

When I do rent a movie, the box immediately begins to receive a steady 2+ Mbps stream of UDP packets (to ports 8100 and 8101 - ports not registered to Vudu) from about a dozen different locations around the country. None I saw originated from Vudu servers, but that might be due to my limited sample.

Each time I downloaded a movie, the originating IP address was different and scattered all over the U.S. Their Web site claims they use ports 8100-8199 and 13200-13299, although I observed other UDP ports outside this range.

In order for the peer-to-peer network to work correctly, of course, the box needs to always be connected and plugged in.

What effect does this upload have on other services in the home, especially VoIP? Certainly it subtracts from other services.

During times of high speed uploads (up to 300Kbps) this could cause a problem, especially with DSL connections. If the customer is using VoIP, I would switch to a router that allows QoS settings on outbound traffic and give VoIP the highest priority.

Download Sensitivity

I wanted to see how the box behaved in a heavy load condition. To do this I first started downloading a movie to AppleTV while simultaneously downloading several MPG and flash videos on another computer.

While the download bandwidth was heavily loaded, I started an obscure Vudu movie (one that might not already be preloaded). I expected to see at least a slight delay and perhaps a freeze or two. But I didn't notice any difference.

Assuming the Vudu downloads were getting equal priority with the other downloads, it would have restricted Vudu to about 750 Kbps. Interestingly, the iTunes movie did freeze several times.

Security Issues

The unit is always on and always sending and receiving data. Maybe because I teach home network security and know what techniques the bad guys use, this gives me the creeps.

I've never been comfortable with peer-to-peer technologies that are not in my control — with people all over the world I don't know getting content from my computers. No one seems to care about it because no one has a clue what really could be going on.

The good news is the Vudu box has limited functionality (so far). The bad news it that it's attached to the rest of the network.

Given the constant traffic to and from the unit, I'm not going to be surprised when some cleaver hacker figures out how to "spoof" themselves into the network and retrieve other peoples movies and load dummy content.

No, it's not something to lose sleep over, but I think the customer should be aware of what's going on. If I owned one, I would definitely put it (and any other Internet peer-to-peer device) on an isolated VLAN.

The Bottom Line

Vudu is the coolest box I've seen. Definitely a buy.