VUDU has some really serious content issues – of the 5,000 advertised titles there’s little to rent. Their movie library if filled with titles one would find on a Hong Kong street corner or flea market. Laughable, amateurish, appalling movies that look like they’re been shot in someone’s basement. Much of the catalog is purchase only. New releases are not available to rent for 3-4 weeks, if ever. Quite a few older titles that have been staples at Blockbuster, or gathering dust at a the local supermarket, are purchase only.

VUDU moderators are blocking forum posts critical of the product.

“Vudu relies on a peer-to-peer network system for faster downloading. So, essentially, this company is using your bandwidth to help it save money it would have otherwise spent on its own servers and bandwidth.” – Walt Mossberg, WSJ

“Plenty of the movies are pure filler. They range from no-name horror cheapies (“San Franpsycho” or “Night Fangs,” anyone?) to superniche flicks like “The History of Texas Longhorns Football” and “Yoga for Depression and Gastro-Intestinal Disorders.”

Another reason: Vudu’s catalog is a victim of what Hollywood calls distribution windows. After a movie leaves theaters, it becomes available through other channels in a strict order: (1) hotels and airlines; (2) DVD; (3) pay-per-view television; (4) movie channels like HBO and Starz; (5) TV and everywhere else.” – David Pogue, NYTimes

“The average consumer, as long as he or she doesn’t have true control over downloads thanks to technology such as digital rights management, is going to have a hard time justifying an expensive set-top box when it has neither the channel-surfing capabilities of a TiVo digital video recorder nor the low to nonexistent price of a DVR provided by a cable television company.” – ZDNet

“That doesn’t count for much when you can’t get “the right movie, right now”. The studios don’t want to rent new releases, because they make more off sales… VUDU sucks and there is no reason to believe they will get better.” – Keith Ohlfs, User Experience Architect, VUDU Inc. 11/24/07

My extended review: http://theillustratedconservative.blogspot.com/2007/11/vudu-pointless-disappointing.html