vudu

Ah, Earth Day. Known for bicycling, recycling, and celebrating cycles of life. On Earth Day 2010 the cycle of the year's most anticipated home video release began with the availability of "Avatar" on Blu-ray and DVD, in addition to the major pay-per-view video services. Vudu and Sony's PlayStation Network are the only major streaming/download services to carry the HD version at launch (sorry, Amazon VOD and QRIOCITY), so if you want to watch "Avatar" in HD at home, you'll have to buy one of those two futuristic files or risk being branded a Luddite to actually get the physical Blu-ray.

We scoped all three HD versions of the film in our test lab with an eye toward picture quality. Better yet, since the Blu-ray won't be available in 3D until next year, we thought this would be a good chance to give the 2D-to-3D conversion system on Samsung's 3DTV another shot. Short of creating our own version post-production, it's the closest we'll come for now to seeing Neytiri leap off the screen and onto our laps.

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Netflix is cruising. The cable guys are catching on. Wal-Mart just rumbled in.

The Web's video-on-demand sector is filling up fast with some serious heavyweights. If Apple wants to make a mark in digital video that even vaguely resembles the one it made in music, perhaps the company should start treating Apple TV as more than just a "hobby." That's Apple's attitude toward the streaming-media device, said Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who spoke at a conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

This doesn't seem to be a good time to toy with online … Read more

The Vudu video service is soon to be a Wal-Mart brand, as news broke late Monday that a deal had been struck between the two companies. We also talk fuel cell growth, Apple purging the App Store of "overtly sexual" iPhone apps, and how Amazon has just been listed as the most-trusted brand in the U.S. by Millward Brown's latest consumer survey. Tune in to get the full stories.

Today's stories:

Wal-Mart to buy Vudu video service

Intel alliance to invest $3.5 billion in U.S. tech

Fuel cell vehicles to number 2.8 million by 2020… Read more

Streaming-video service Vudu will soon be a service of the world's largest retailer, Wal-Mart confirmed late Monday.

Wal-Mart has agreed to buy Vudu for an undisclosed sum, and the deal is expected to close within the next few weeks. The New York Times first reported the story Monday morning when the two companies began to tell their TV manufacturing and film studio partners that the deal was set to go.

Vudu has a catalog of 16,000 video titles that can be downloaded to several different brands of TVs and Blu-ray players, either as a rental or purchase. Wal-Mart … Read more

Add the LG BD390 to the growing list of products that will soon offer built-in Vudu support.

The flagship LG Blu-ray player will become the first disc player to include Vudu functionality via a free firmware upgrade due later this month. The upgrade will effectively offer the same basic functions as Vudu's standalone BX100 set-top box. That gives users access to Vudu's streaming library of movies, which can be purchased or rented on a per-title basis (there's no monthly fee). Vudu has set itself apart from other Internet-on-demand providers like Netflix, Amazon, Blockbuster, and Apple by stressing … Read more

Ok, but just to be clear, when I say it's time for me to get a pimp, what I MEAN is that it's time to get a PMP -- a portable media player. That is, perhaps, an iPod Touch. Anyway, you'll understand. In other news, the MPAA is trying to clamp down on your analog hole and break your DVR all at the same time and Apple's Snow Leopard is having a rough landing ... apparently because of the picture on the box.

Mitsubishi's upcoming line of Unisen LT-249 LCD TVs were already notable for being the first flat-panel TVs with built-in soundbar speakers. But now the 46-inch and 52-inch models have a second bragging point: built-in support for Vudu. When the TVs hit retailers later in September, they'll have nearly all of the same streaming video features available in the Vudu BX100 set-top box. That includes access to YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and Pandora online streaming as well.

For Vudu, it's the second such hardware partner in as many months to offer the on-demand video service embedded into TVs (LG … Read more

About a month ago, LG announced it was adding Vudu's streaming movie functionality to its suite of NetCast services, and as of Tuesday, that functionality is officially available. We still have the LG 47LH50 on hand, so we fired it up and were immediately asked to update the firmware. After a short wait, we rebooted the TV and the Vudu icon was available.

We took it for only a short test drive, but Vudu on the 47LH50 felt nearly identical to the experience you get on a dedicated Vudu set-top box. We've seen some reports that LG's … Read more

Vudu's Internet video-on-demand service will be coming to select LG TVs in August. The service will effectively embed the functionality of the Vudu BX100 set-top box into the televisions, obviating the need for connecting an external box to access the Vudu's lineup of movies and TV shows, hundreds of which are available in HD video and 5.1 Dolby surround sound.

Vudu had previously announced a deal with Entone earlier this year, but the LG deal offers a more mainstream and widely available avenue for the company as it shifts from a standalone hardware maker to a video … Read more