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Walmart to purchase Vudu

Three years ago, Walmart partnered with Hewlett-Packard to provide movie and television program downloads. This venture was canned within 10 months’ time. Now that video streaming has become much more widely accepted, Walmart appears to be leveraging what market share Vudu has to get back in the game.

Vudu launched in 2006 and has since gained partnerships with most Hollywood studios, as well as many independent providers, but they have also blown through most of their venture capital and have been looking for a buyer. With big players such as Netflix, Sony, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Best Buy competing for the online video market, Vudu has been struggling to keep up. The Walmart acquisition makes for a good match, bringing the quality-leading service (Vudu) with the market-leading retailer.

At the CES expo earlier this year, Vudu announced many new hardware partners and a new app service. It will be interesting to see how Walmart will leverage Vudu within their consumer electronic products from various manufacturers. The retailer has exclusive products made for them from companies like Sony; it makes sense they will add the Vudu app to the exclusive products at a lower price point than the competition. Walmart has been focusing on electronics every aggressively for the past few years, so they do have the ability to make a huge play into the video streaming market.

It seems one of the factors holding Vudu back was the hardware costs considerably more than comparable products. Walmart has the ability to subsidize the hardware for market penetration.

Because online media is “in the cloud” we’re not asked to make a commitment with one provider over another. The hardware prices have come down so much, or is included within HDTVs or Blu-ray Disc players, that even a hardware investment is negligible.

Netflix Watch Instantly to get surround sound

If for no other reason than I spent all of last weekend sitting on my sofa with a chest cold, I sure have been using my Netflix instant queue an awful lot lately. The video quality has been improving, and the high-definition video content looks very comparable to HD cable (like Heroes, for example, which is available the following day after it first airs on NBC), but I have been missing out on surround sound. Netflix currently provides only stereo audio on streaming video. While the timing of this development hasn’t been confirmed, it will be some time this year.

Netflix uses the Microsoft Silverlight video player, which supports up to 1080p video and 5.1 surround sound audio. Netflix is on task to add surround sound and closed captioning this year, but unfortunately 1080p video will have to wait for now. It had previously been announced plan that Netflix would add 1080p video this year, but later claimed that was a mistake. Video now peaks at 720p with a 5Mbps internet connection.

YouTube Rentals now available

This past Friday, YouTube and Sundance Film Festival made five full-length motion pictures available for online viewing as a paid rental. This is just the beginning of the future for YouTube Rental.

The rentals are available at YouTube Movies at a cost of $3.99 each. You will be required to open a Google Checkout account, if you haven’t already. When you select a movie to play you will be prompted to pay. A simple log in is all you need and your account will be billed.

The initial Sundance Film Festival movies will only be available through January 31st. They include three world premiers from this year’s festival, and two favorites from last year. The titles include: Children of Invention, Homewrecker, The Cove, Bass Ackwards, and One Too Many Mornings.

Watch this instructional video on how to rent movies on YouTube:

Sony introduces network media player

Most of Sony’s 2010 model HDTVs, and all of their 2010 BD players, include what they call BRAVIA Internet Video. Connected to a broadband internet, the devices will instantly stream movies, videos, music and more from Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, Slacker Internet Radio, Pandora, NPR, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and many more.

Coming in September, Sony will offer the SMP-N100 network media player which provides their BRAVIA Internet Video platform in a simple set-top box. With a suggested retail at $149, the device will feature DLNA, USB, built-in WiFi, DivXHD, and HDMI and component video outputs. The box will be about the same size as the AppleTV.

Sony’s new Blu-ray player line

Blu-ray Disc (BD) is commonly referred to as a “Sony” format, yet they have trailed behind other manufacturers in providing cutting-edge features. This is partly because Sony in so inwardly focused they rename universal features for their products. But 2010 bodes well for the Sony BD players.

Three new players will be coming starting in March to replace the three existing models. The basic model is the $199 BDP-S370 and features a new quicker start-up, all high-definition audio codecs, DVD upscaling, SACD for the first time in a Sony BD standalone player, DLNA, Gracenote, BRAVIA internet video streaming, and is WiFi ready (requires USB device).

The next level is the $249 BDP-S570 which adds on-board WiFi, and IP video scaling.



The flagship model comes in at $299 and is the BDP-S770. This is player supports 3D content, and receives a backlit remote.

An interesting feature the new models receive is an iPhone/iPod Touch app which enables control of the player from the hand held device. This app also features the disc’s cover art and other information, plus the ability to search for internet videos.

The BRAVIA Internet Video connects to Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, YouTube, Slacker Internet Radio, Pandora, NPR, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and Sony’s own online store.

Update: Here’s a video from Sony demonstrating the new BDP-S570:

Vudu adds apps

This year’s CES expo has certainly been well for Vudu. Not only has LG announced a Blu-ray Disc player with Vudu and a 250GB hard drive, and new partnerships with Sharp, Mitsubishi, Vizio, Toshiba and Sanyo forged, but they’ve also improved their service for their users.

Vudu Apps is a platform these stated manufacturers may add to their hardware, much like the Yahoo! Widgets we’ve seen on TVs last year. The user can chose amongst the apps to install on their own device, while manufacturers can deny certain apps at their discretion.



There are over 100 apps already available. The more popular apps include:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pandora
• Dailymotion
• Picasa
• Flickr
• The New York Times
• Associated Press
• NBC Nightly News
• DiggNation

It seems Vudu is becoming a very serious competitor in the streaming video market. With last year’s introduction of 1080p video, true 5.1 Dolby surround sound, the addition of the Criterion Collection movie library, and Rotten Tomatoes, they truly have an enviable service.

Vudu now embedded in LG HDTVs

With online streaming services becoming more and more ubiquitous, Vudu’s set-top box was being left behind. Now a partnership with LG Electronics will expand their potential market and allow them to compete with the likes of Amazon Video On Demand, Netflix, and YouTube.

The LH50 series LCD flat panel televisions and PS80 series plasma displays receive a software upgrade allowing download of Vudu content in high-definition, including high bitrate 1080p/24fps video. These TVs are already compatible with Netflix, YouTube, Yahoo! Widgets, and Flickr.

While converging technologies is generally a good thing, I would rather see these streaming capabilities in an A/V receiver with NAS support. Another concern is with so many services provided, you’re on a hunt every time to find which service provides what titles – or you have an overabundance of the same title from many sources. One company feels this has has a solution and I’ll write about it soon.