Vudu casts its spell on Hollywood

A Silicon Valley start-up hopes to turn America?s televisions into limitless multiplexes, changing the landscape of the home entertainment business.
The New York Times

The story "Vudu casts its spell on Hollywood" published April 28, 2007 at 4:00 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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One of the best articles I have read in a long time

Excellent in depth article that uses Vudu as an example of where we are upto generally with Video On Net, or not, as Vudu are betting.

Whilst they may be using different technology to Apple TV, is the end result any different??

Both require a set top box and both offer movies over on the TV screen...

Can Vudu beat Apple to the punch?? Will it come down to branding?? And if so, unlike the Apple Ipod, is there anything sexy about owning an Apple set top box that should worry Vudu??

In my opinion, early bird catches the worm.....if Vudu have everyone signed up but the pope.....they may end up with a monopoly ..Apple Tv would be wise to make friends in Hollywood a little faster.

[paulsecic]

Too many boxes

Most people don't want boxes & wires all over the house. Maybe
they could intergrate with Dish & cable.

[Stating]

Give Me A Computer In The Living Room

What I want in the living room is a small profile full-fledged computer hooked up to a large LCD monitor. I can put one together for $550. With that combo, I can watch DVDs, watch dowloaded movies from various providers, listen to my MP3 collection, listen to streaming audio, watch streaming video, including Google Video, answer a Skpe phone call, do Skype video, or do Yahoo Chat. I can do multiple activities simultaneously because the the full-fledged multi-tasking operating system and windowed GUI support this natively. This approach seems to yield a much more useful entertainment device and one that will not be obsolete quickly.

I dislike yet another provider like Vudo gleefully selling a closed-end system that only does what they decide it does, and only does one thing in a stove-pipe fashion. With a computer running Windows or Linux I am the one in control, not some 2-bit vendor.

Regarding Apple TV, I think it is ironic that this box does not even include a TV tuner. Why make the customer go out and buy an LCD TV when they could simply buy a monitor for much less money and use the tuner in an Apple TV? An LCD TV costs about $300 more than simply an LCD monitor. That price difference would pay for an Apple TV.

[Had_to_be_said]

I am curious...

How, exactly, are YOU "...in control", ...if your computer is running "Windows" (since its, both, PROPRIETARY, and CLOSED-SOURCE)..?

I think this is an especially relevant question now that, with "Vista" (its DRM, its hardware-peculiarities, and its inbuilt control-mechanisms), any "control" or "innovation" (regarding such "media"), outside of Microsofts "vision", is so seriously constrained.

But, youre right, we do need a NON-PROPRIETARY solution to the integration of "computers", and "Media".