Vudu, A First Impression
Having recently acquired a new Internet-enabled Blu-ray player, I signed up for an account with Vudu, the Walmart-owned online streaming service. I have been a long-time Netflix user. This Blu-ray player included bundled apps for both Netflix and Vudu, and included a $5.99 credit for Vudu, enough to get one free HD movie. These are my first impressions for this service, and my basis for comparison is Netflix, as I have a good deal of experience using their streaming service.
The selection on Vudu appears quite good, with many new releases. New releases through Netflix are provided via their mail-in DVD service, and the streaming selections are limited. But of course, this is reflected in the price. With Vudu, you pay for each selection you view. The price is, I think, reasonable and comparable to pay-per-view offerings on cable and satellite.
Vudu has three steaming quality offerings: SD, HD, and HDX. For my purposes, my Internet connection was well within the spec for HD. With Netflix, my service is HD quality as well.
I found the user interface to be quite satisfactory. The web site interface and the Blu-ray app are nearly identical, which is nice. You can rent a title using the web site and add it to your "My Vudu" list, then you have 30 days in which to view your title. Titles may be added via the app just as easily. Once you start viewing the title, you have 24 hours to watch it as many times as you like. According to the documentation, you can view on the Blu-ray app, online in a web browser, or on an iPad. I watched on TV using the app. I tried using my web browser, but the site said that viewing was "not supported". I am not sure if that was specific to the title, or because I use Linux. The latter may well be the case, as I can't watch Netflix in my browser for that reason. I will note that the title I tried was a 3D title, so that may be the cause as well.
Streaming quality is probably at the top of my list in evaluating such a service. I have always found Netflix to be flawless in this regard. I'm sorry to say, however, that Vudu let me down here. For a two-hour movie, Vudu lost connection three or four times; once while the movie was playing, and the other times when I paused. Upon pausing, and leaving the movie paused for a few minutes, the screen went to an error message indicating that the network connection was lost. The message said that it would re-connect as soon as possible, but that never happened. I had to completely re-start the app in order to get the title playing again.
Even more disappointing, when the connection dropped out and I got the app re-started, it didn't remember where the title left off. It re-started part way through the movie, but at times as much as 30 minutes behind where service was interrupted. The app includes a function to jump to a chapter, but in trying to use that feature, the network connection drops out. I found that feature useless. In order to get back to where it left off, I could only use fast-forward to get there.
Overall, I'll rate my experience a "D+"; partially because the title interrupted several times, but mainly because of the difficulty in getting the title re-started when that happens. When it works, it's nice. And it works well, for the most part, as long as you don't pause (something I will do several times during a movie). But pausing is definitely a problem.
Of course, this is based entirely on a single viewing experience; one I had for free as a promotion included with my new Blu-ray player. Had I paid six dollars for this experience, I would definitely be contacting their customer service for a refund. For the same price, I can view offerings from DirecTV Cinema flawlessly.
I will use this service again, on the off-chance that the problems I experienced were a rarity. But the next time I use the service, I'm paying. And if the experience is poor, I won't be paying again.
As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. For me, Vudu didn't make a good one.