Vudu's HDX upgrade delivers the best downloadable video quality to date

(Credit: Vudu)

Last week, we told you about Vudu adding a new "HDX" video quality tier to its video-on-demand box. Unlike the 1080p HD downloads already available on the box, HDX 1080p significantly ramped up the bitrate, offering considerably better picture quality. We've had a chance to check out portions of three HDX movies--Lord of War, surfing documentary Step into Liquid, and The Chronicles of Riddick--and the result was extraordinary. Simply put, Vudu's HDX represents the best Internet-delivered video we've seen to date.

The films exhibited excellent detail, and even high-motion action scenes were free of the solarizing and blockiness often noticeable in competing "high-def" content available on Apple TV and the Xbox 360. About the worst we could say was that the films exhibited visible film grain and some softness. But we did head-to-head comparisons on Liquid and War to their Blu-ray counterparts, and the discs tended to show similar instances of graininess in the same scenes as well--so the softness and grain were inherent in the source and not, as far as we could tell, an issue with the encoding. (Likewise, we consider the preservation of a certain degree of film-induced graininess to be preferable to excessive edge enhancement.)

Also, much like Blu-ray movies the Vudu HDX files are in 1080p/24 format. They preserve the native 24-frame-per-second rate of film, which should be great news for film buffs with displays, such as many 120Hz LCDs and Pioneer's Kuro plasmas, that can accept and properly display 24-frame material. Conversely, some displays can't accept 1080p/24 at all, so owners of those displays with a Vudu will have to choose the 1080i output instead.

Blu-ray still holds the edge, but Vudu HDX is the first downloadable video that noticeably outclasses standard DVDs. Many will also find that it's better than the on-demand HD offerings from their cable and satellite providers. Audio quality was also excellent. Many films offer full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround that many listeners will find to be on par with DVD soundtracks.

The catch, of course, is that the HDX movies aren't available immediately--you'll need to queue them up and wait several hours before viewing. (Thankfully, you can manage this remotely by logging into Vudu's Web site. Start a download to the box while you're at work, for instance, and it should be ready to go when you're at home.)

We've upgraded our Vudu review in light of the HDX upgrade--and the growing competition from such products as Apple TV and the Roku Netflix Player.

Read the CNET review of the Vudu BX100.

Does the improved video quality--and the $200 movie credit--make you any more likely to buy the Vudu versus, say, Apple TV? Share your thoughts below.

[scaught78]

Tempting, but with Comcast's download caps, I think I will stick with my Blu Ray player.

[jaydyess]

Scaught78, that was going to be my comment...I have Comcast as well, and their transfer rate limits seem to make devices like this impractical. Does anyone know how much bandwidth one of these movies takes up to transfer?

(Dear Lord, please send FIOS our way...)

[dave brunner]

Please keep in mind that (1) download is crapy compared to instant streaming over the public internet. (2) That just because video is 1080p does not mean it's Blu-Ray. (3) Vudu is a 1 trick pony (4) Vudu uses names that are similar to other brands (5) I would never do pay per view when I could do subscription. (6) John Falcone does not know the IPTV industry well enough if this is the best quality he's seen in the entire industry. (7) P2P will kill our bandwidth cap's (8) Vudu requires harddrives and the harddrives are to small to hold all the movies I would want. (9) Vudu has no live tv, music, radio, photo, etc... as a service. (10) Does not have the wide range of content that I want, hence it's not on demand instantly either.

David Brunner

[OscarWeb]

Why is downloading crappy compared to instant streaming? Unless your connection can sustain an average of 9Mbps, then this is not going to happen with HDX. No one said this was Blu-Ray quality, but it's the closest that the average consumer can probably get to over the Internet. Whether or not Vudu is a 1-trick pony remains to be seen. Considering how more and more people are moving to instant or near-instant viewing, when you want, where you want, using the Internet for movies and other content, it also remains to be seen whether or not Blu-Ray itself is a 1-trick pony. Players should be far less than $400 by now, yet the majority are not. This will not change with the new generation of Profile 2.0 players that are just appearing on the scene, and discs are still expensive as well, prerecorded or not. What names does Vudu use that are similar to other brands? David Pogue also wrote an article about the same thing last week and he was also thoroughly impressed with the quality, with a bit more technical details on the new "format". If you're so against downloading and are so pro-streaming, why do you even care how large the hard drive is?

[extirpator]

@ OscarWeb, First off I think his point about downloading vs instant streaming is about that fact this requires 7 hours of download time vs lower quality instant streaming offered by cable on demand systems. I'm sorry, but when the Wife says, "lets watch a movie," she doesn't mean in 7 hours. I would rather spend 15 minutes driving to my local video store and picking up a blu-ray disk than spend 7 hours of precious Comcast bandwidth downloading a one time watch. At best with the current cap one can expect to get around 8 movies per month with this system.

Secondly Blu-ray players are below $400, in fact there are blu-ray players now for $200. The problem is most people want higher end features on the basic budget players, and that's going to take another year or two to happen; however, at the same time the current $200 budget players should drop in price to around the $100 mark at which point some people will say things like, "Players should be far less than $200 by now..."

[BenFlavoredCandy]

For the vast majority of people out there, downloading HD movies with Vudu will not touch a 250gb bandwidth limit. Check out an article from cnet a few weeks back where Peter Glaskowsky runs the numbers. He calculates about 100 hours of HD content per month: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13512_3-10031116-23.html?tag=mncol;txt

[dave brunner]

P2P uses excessive amounts of bandwidth. The Vudu box is a mini server so it's uploading and downloading 24 hours per day. That's what put a real drain on your bandwidth bil!!!

David Brunner