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Review: Vudu Movie Service (Part 5: The Final Installment)

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I purposely waited until Macworld Expo for the final installment of my Vudu movie service review. After rumored and now confirmed movie rentals available in the iTunes Store and on the AppleTV, the online movie landscape has drastically changed. Vudu has a great idea and is fairly easy to set up. It’s a very convenient service but has some bad and ugly points.

Unfortunately for Vudu, the second rendition of the AppleTV attacks Vudu’s weaknesses. I complained that movies on Vudu stay on Vudu. Not so with AppleTV where you can move content to your Mac, your PC, your iPod, or iPhone. AppleTV continues to tap into other content sources like your iTunes, iMovies, and iPhoto and also displays online content from YouTube and Flickr.

A lustery black Vudu box goes for $399 and $999 for the HD focused XL model. The alpine white AppleTV goes for $229 for a 40-GB model and $329 for 160 GB.

Then there are the intangibles benefitting Apple. Like the sprawling iTunes ecosystem where you can find iTunes gift cards just about anywhere. With Vudu, your own credit card transactions are the only way to go. You can’t receive gifted movies or capitalize on discounts with Vudu.

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And the relationships. Do you care or know which movies belong to the various movie studios? Me neither. Steve Job understands this and has forged relationships with all the major studios so your favorite movies are available in iTunes and AppleTV. These relationships are also how some DVD discs now include digital versions of the movie for immediate playback.

So while I think Vudu is still a good service, very recent announcements by Apple might lead to the downfall of Vudu.

If you’re not an Apple fan and want to give Vudu a try, check out the 50% off discount offered by Hawaiian Telcom, and you also get the bundled goodies. Or you can buy a VUDU Box direct from Amazon.

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