If you select the film and go to the "More Info" tab in its description, you can see what the sound encodings are. Hanna is in DD+ for all quality levels; The Incredible Hulk is in "basic" DD5.1 for HDX and HD and DD2.0 for SD.

I started playing the HDX preview of Hanna (excellent film, by the way) and I did get DD+ from my player (Panasonic DMP-BDT110); as advertised The Incredible Hulk was DD5.1.

Michael,

I appreciate your response. I haven't noticed this information in description, will check when I get home.

Is majority of titles on Vudu encoded as DD or DD+?

Is majority of titles on Vudu encoded as DD or DD+?Well, I haven't checked all of them :D. My guess would be that all or most of the newer titles would be in DD+. You should consider switching to a player which can convert DD+ into regular DD5.1 for output over S/PDIF. I'm a bit shocked that your Sony can't--surely it must be able to handle all of the "advanced" audio on BDs and turn them into basic DD5.1 or DTS for S/PDIF output; I'd expect for it to be able to do the same for the audio on its streaming sources. My BDT110 and PS3 can do it (not sure about the PS3, since before I had this AVR it was converting those formats to multi-channel LPCM).

I've come across a couple of weird titles where you got DD+ on the HD encoding but not on the HDX and stuff like that. I can't remember what they were.

Im sorry, I haven't read this thread in a while. Can someone give me a quick rundown of the "cons" to buying a Vudu STB compared to a streaming device that happens to have Vudu?

Considering picking up a used Vudu box.

Im sorry, I haven't read this thread in a while. Can someone give me a quick rundown of the "cons" to buying a Vudu STB compared to a streaming device that happens to have Vudu?

Considering picking up a used Vudu box.

I no longer own a Vudu box, but IIRC:
1. its HDMI 1.2 port could not output DD+ audio, just DD. (Any box with HDMI 1.3 can handle DD+. I am looking at LG's ST-600.)
2. However, this wasn't as bothersome as the pronounced black crush. (The box had no picture controls.)

So do the Vudu STB's decode DD+ and output PCM? That's what I'd prefer anyway (stupid DVDO Edge bitstream dropouts).

Do they stream and download or only download? (HDX)

So do the Vudu STB's decode DD+ and output PCM? That's what I'd prefer anyway (stupid DVDO Edge bitstream dropouts).

Do they stream and download or only download? (HDX)I don't think that the VUDU STBs stream at all--they play-while-downloading, or play from a download on their HDDs. They originally wouldn't do play-while-downloading for HDX, which was 10 Mpbs before streaming (9 Mbps 3-bar highest bit rate encoding streamed). From the VUDU User's Guide (http://www.vudu.com/docs/VUDU_User_Guide_v2.0.pdf):
Instant playback of standard definition movies requires a bandwidth of 2.0 Mbps (Megabits per second), usually advertised by ISPs as 3.0 Mbps. instant playback of high-definition titles requires 4.0 Mbps. HDX titles require a full download before playback begins.Looking at that manual, the implication is that they always convert to DD5.1, though the source is DD+ 5.1:
Audio Format
Source: Dolby® Digital Plus
Out: Analog Stereo, Stereo PCM, Dolby Digital

Ok, thanks for the info guys.

I don't think that the VUDU STBs stream at all--they play-while-downloading, or play from a download on their HDDs. They originally wouldn't do play-while-downloading for HDX, which was 10 Mpbs before streaming (9 Mbps 3-bar highest bit rate encoding streamed). From the VUDU User's Guide (http://www.vudu.com/docs/VUDU_User_Guide_v2.0.pdf):
Looking at that manual, the implication is that they always convert to DD5.1, though the source is DD+ 5.1:

I have three of the BX100 boxes. The last time i checked they were streaming titles. But it's been many months since I've used them so maybe they switchd back to download only.That would be surprising but I don't know At one point I had to reboot it to one version and I could download titles and then I had to reboot to another version to stream the titles.

But either way it's HDMI version is below HDMI 1.3 so it is incable of streaming the advanced audio codecs.

And actually it's about time i unplug those boxes to lower my power usage. They have been powered up but have not been used since I use teh VUDU application on my Boxee Boxes now.

Well, I haven't checked all of them :D. My guess would be that all or most of the newer titles would be in DD+. You should consider switching to a player which can convert DD+ into regular DD5.1 for output over S/PDIF. I'm a bit shocked that your Sony can't--surely it must be able to handle all of the "advanced" audio on BDs and turn them into basic DD5.1 or DTS for S/PDIF output; I'd expect for it to be able to do the same for the audio on its streaming sources. My BDT110 and PS3 can do it (not sure about the PS3, since before I had this AVR it was converting those formats to multi-channel LPCM).

I've come across a couple of weird titles where you got DD+ on the HD encoding but not on the HDX and stuff like that. I can't remember what they were.

Well, I just checked some of them and you are mostly right. However, there is a lot of newer titles encoded with regular DD 5.1 or even stereo. The older titles are stereo rather often.

As far as upgrading player - I was thinking I need to finally break down and upgrade receiver. But now that I see only some of the titles are encoded as DD+ upgrading just to be able to play them in 5.1 would be irresponsible, so I think I will make do with what I have now.

I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.

I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.I can't verify every platform, but the VUDU app is identical on both my Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and the PS3. It's their VUDU 2.0 interface (http://blog.vudu.com/2011/01/wait-does-vudu-look-different-to-you-today/) which they rolled out in January. I have no idea what it's written in--could well be BD-J.

It looks the same on my PS3, Boxee Box, LG BD player and my VUDU BX100.

I can't verify every platform, but the VUDU app is identical on both my Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and the PS3. It's their VUDU 2.0 interface (http://blog.vudu.com/2011/01/wait-does-vudu-look-different-to-you-today/) which they rolled out in January. I have no idea what it's written in--could well be BD-J.

It looks the same on my PS3, Boxee Box, LG BD player and my VUDU BX100.

Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.

Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.

Maybe, but it looks identical on my LG 55LW5600 LCD display as well.

Well here is a food for thought: devices other than Blu-ray players probably do not support BD-J. So they probably have to use other SDK-s for those.

As I understand it, BD-J is a standard used only for Blu-ray discs and has nothing to do with streaming.

As I understand it, BD-J is a standard used only for Blu-ray discs and has nothing to do with streaming.It was used to implement the Netflix disc for the PS3 (see this (http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3693)) when a lengthy timed exclusivity agreement with Microsoft prevented native console Netflix players from being introduced to competed with the one on the Xbox 360.

Though it's there primarily for implementing fancy menus for video discs, nothing prevents the environment from being used for other purposes.

Anyone know which BD players support Vudu 3D titles? I see on Vudu's site that the most expensive LG and an older Sharp are listed, but I expect this can't be up to date since the other models in the LG family are basically the same without the hard drive. Also, some tech postings on the Vudu forums are answering questions about a Samsung player and 3D titles and there is no Samsung listed.

I am amazed how good Vudu application is on my Sony BDP-S460 player. Whoever designed/wrote it clearly put a lot of thought into it. It is easily the best if you compare it with Amazon or Netflix applications on this player. Especially the reviews, both from Vudu community and Rotten Tomatoes.

Does anybody know if Vudu app looks the same across all devices/players? What is it written in? All BD players support Java AFAIK so it may be Java.

My understanding is that VUDU writes the app themselves for all of the boxes that they run on. Hence the consistent look and feel across multiple devices.

NF on the other hand makes the hardware manufacturer responsible for writing the app with the manufacturer selecting one of several APIs that NF supplies. NF does certify the app that the manufacturer writes. Hence the different UI across devices for NF. NF is switching to HTML5 as the common denominator to build upon so in the future the UI for NF should become more consistent over the next few years.

Is Boxee the best stand-alone box that supports Vudu at this point? Any other options?

Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.

Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.

Sort of: select movies will stream with Dolby’s bandwidth-friendly Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 audio.


Why can't they just do Dolby True HD and/or DTS HD. Its still not lossless if its "dolby digital plus", no matter how many channels.

Why can't they just do Dolby True HD and/or DTS HD. Its still not lossless if its "dolby digital plus", no matter how many channels.Because the lossless encodings aren't scaleable like DD+. For instance, Netflix 5.1 sound is 384 Kbps DD+ and it sounds pretty sharp and a lot better than their stereo. DD+ on BDs is typically encoded at 1.5 Mbps. The lowest bit rate 5.1 True HD encoding I see listed at blu-raystats.com is 926 Kbps (16-bit, 48 KHz sample); all the rest are 1100 kbps and up. The lowest bit rate 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that I see is 1500+ kpbs, also 16 bit, 48 KHz. The bit rate of a lossless encoding is going to depend upon the quality and complexity of the source and get very high (fairly commonly 2-4 Mbps and higher, generally not affordable in a streaming encoding.

I dunno--maybe VUDU's already spending a lot of bits on their DD+, but I doubt it.

Vudu announced today that they will begin streaming in 7.1 surround.

I guess I need to dig a couple more speakers out of my garage. :)

Because the lossless encodings aren't scaleable like DD+. For instance, Netflix 5.1 sound is 384 Kbps DD+ and it sounds pretty sharp and a lot better than their stereo. DD+ on BDs is typically encoded at 1.5 Mbps. The lowest bit rate 5.1 True HD encoding I see listed at blu-raystats.com is 926 Kbps (16-bit, 48 KHz sample); all the rest are 1100 kbps and up. The lowest bit rate 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that I see is 1500+ kpbs, also 16 bit, 48 KHz. The bit rate of a lossless encoding is going to depend upon the quality and complexity of the source and get very high (fairly commonly 2-4 Mbps and higher, generally not affordable in a streaming encoding.

I dunno--maybe VUDU's already spending a lot of bits on their DD+, but I doubt it.

They're not. I could show you an analysis of a couple of 5.1 movies that I downloaded. It's definitely NOT 384. It's lower. I'd say its about 256...maybe 192.

They're not. I could show you an analysis of a couple of 5.1 movies that I downloaded. It's definitely NOT 384. It's lower. I'd say its about 256...maybe 192.384 Kbps is what Netflix says that they're using for 5.1 tracks (64 or 192 for stereo, depending upon available bandwidth--see the postscript at the end of this (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) Netflix blog entry). I haven't heard any exact figures on what rate VUDU encodes their surround sound at.

384 Kbps is what Netflix says that they're using for 5.1 tracks (64 or 192 for stereo, depending upon available bandwidth--see the postscript at the end of this (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) Netflix blog entry). I haven't heard any exact figures on what rate VUDU encodes their surround sound at.


But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.

But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.

The stereo tracks that I've encountered on Vudu are MUCH better than the 5.1. I'll show some analysis when I have a second.

But there stereo tracks are pcm which is uncompressed which is much worse at 64 or 192kbs than using DD+ lossy compression at that bitrate.I find it impossible to believe that 64 Kbps stereo PCM would be at all listenable and 64 Kbps sound is all the PC ever gets. It emerges from the players as PCM, but I think that the players convert it. Three years ago, when they published the "Encoding for streaming (http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html)" blog entry, they were using stereo WMA; certainly all of the players would have to decode that into PCM or DD:
Today, we cannot use WMDRM to deliver AC3 or DD+ audio, which means that only stereo (delivered via WMA) is available. PCs and Macs decode the WMA, and CE players also transcode to PCM for digital connections to receivers.The disc-based PS3 player responded to the DISPLAY button with the same overlay that you'd get for most other video from the PS3 and it said that the sound was DD2.0. Of course, most AVRs and televisions can deal with bitstreamed DD2.0, but they may choose to output it as PCM over digital audio connections anyway.

TiVo and Xbox output Dolby for Netflix stereo but I'm sure that they're both still getting stereo WMA. My PC outputs it as DD, but it could probably convert PCM into that.

I find it impossible to believe that 64 Kbps stereo PCM would be at all listenable and 64 Kbps sound is all the PC ever gets. It emerges from the players as PCM, but I think that the players convert it. Three years ago, when they published the "Encoding for streaming (http://blog.netflix.com/2008/11/encoding-for-streaming.html)" blog entry, they were using stereo WMA; certainly all of the players would have to decode that into PCM or DD:
The disc-based PS3 player responded to the DISPLAY button with the same overlay that you'd get for most other video from the PS3 and it said that the sound was DD2.0. Of course, most AVRs and televisions can deal with bitstreamed DD2.0, but they may choose to output it as PCM over digital audio connections anyway.

TiVo and Xbox output Dolby for Netflix stereo but I'm sure that they're both still getting stereo WMA. My PC outputs it as DD, but it could probably convert PCM into that.
My TiVos have always output PCM for Netflix(which is only available in stereo on TiVo). For Amazon they will output DD for 5.1 titles and pcm for stereo titles. My roku2 outputs pcm for the stereo content on Netflix and DD+ for the 5.1 content.
I figure if it's in DD for the stereo content then it should stay in DD if it's also bitstreaming the 5.1 DD+.

I did notice recently that every channel on FiOS is using DD. FOr stereo , mono, music channels etc. At one point they were using pcm for the SD channels but maybe they switched to DD to save some bandwidth over the hundreds of SD channels they have.

EDIT: I checked my 360s. They also output PCM from Netflix. Netflix is only stereo on the 360. The 360 dashboard audio is in DD though.

EDIT: I checked my 360s. They also output PCM from Netflix. Netflix is only stereo on the 360. The 360 dashboard audio is in DD though.Yeah, you're right--I hadn't checked when I said that. It's also true that TiVo outputs PCM. Still, I can't believe that 64Kbps stereo PCM would be listenable (the only thing you can get on the PC) and it actually sounds decent. They were sending WMA sound to TiVo and everything else in the beginning and AFAICT TiVo and Xbox are still using that same set of encodings, inasmuch as the peaks in their bandwidth usage curves are identical and unlike everything else that I have. I don't see any reason why they would have changed from using encoded sound to PCM, when it could only affect a great decrease in sound quality.

I did notice recently that every channel on FiOS is using DD. FOr stereo , mono, music channels etc. At one point they were using pcm for the SD channels but maybe they switched to DD to save some bandwidth over the hundreds of SD channels they have.

Most satellite/cable services use AC3 or MP2. MP2 can't be bitstreamed to receivers so it's always decoded to PCM.

No broadcaster would use PCM, as most SD channels are only 1-3Mbps to begin with.

Still, I can't believe that 64Kbps stereo PCM would be listenable (the only thing you can get on the PC) and it actually sounds decent.

Indeed, it has to be a compressed format.

To determine the bitrate of a PCM stream you just take the sample rate * the bit depth * the number of channels.

48000 Hz * 16-bit * 2 = 1,536,000 bps = 1.5Mbps
44100 Hz * 16-bit * 2 = 1,411,200 bps = 1.4Mbps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_bit_depth#Calculating_values

Knowing the bitrate and the number of channels, there are two unknown variables. We do know that with no compression, you're essentially looking at two mono channels. Meaning each channel would be 32kbps. Yeah right!

Even unlistenable-quality mono PCM audio is greater than 32kbps.

8820 Hz * 4-bit = 35,280 bps = 35kbps

how's the 3d on Vudu? i find the "3d" available on comcast on-demand unwatchable compared to real bluray 3d if that is any kind of reference point

I think on Friday they "briefly" had "Margin Call" at DVD release prices or $4.99 for 720p so I was all set to watch it that night and the price was "Still in Theaters" at $7.99 for 720p.

I think on Friday they "briefly" had "Margin Call" at DVD release prices or $4.99 for 720p so I was all set to watch it that night and the price was "Still in Theaters" at $7.99 for 720p.

I'd still watch for $7.99. I think I'll check it out.

Because the lossless encodings aren't scaleable like DD+. For instance, Netflix 5.1 sound is 384 Kbps DD+ and it sounds pretty sharp and a lot better than their stereo. DD+ on BDs is typically encoded at 1.5 Mbps. The lowest bit rate 5.1 True HD encoding I see listed at blu-raystats.com is 926 Kbps (16-bit, 48 KHz sample); all the rest are 1100 kbps and up. The lowest bit rate 5.1 DTS-HD MA track that I see is 1500+ kpbs, also 16 bit, 48 KHz. The bit rate of a lossless encoding is going to depend upon the quality and complexity of the source and get very high (fairly commonly 2-4 Mbps and higher, generally not affordable in a streaming encoding.

I dunno--maybe VUDU's already spending a lot of bits on their DD+, but I doubt it.

Well unless and until they can equal the lossless tracks on blue-ray disks, streaming will remain a secondary option for me.

384 Kbps is what Netflix says that they're using for 5.1 tracks (64 or 192 for stereo, depending upon available bandwidth--see the postscript at the end of this (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) Netflix blog entry). I haven't heard any exact figures on what rate VUDU encodes their surround sound at.

I don't want a company encoding tracks any different than what the studio puts out. Why are they encoding anything? Leave it alone and provide exactly what is on the disks. If the bandwidth isn't there, don't pretend its "real" 7.1.

I don't want a company encoding tracks any different than what the studio puts out. Why are they encoding anything? Leave it alone and provide exactly what is on the disks. If the bandwidth isn't there, don't pretend its "real" 7.1.Fine, but it ain't gonna happen any time soon. The lossless sound on BDs is often encoded at a higher bandwidth than Netflix's HD video; use of them would double the size of the stream and probably lower the number of people with network service fast enough to use it to a fraction of those who can use it now.

BTW, Netflix hasn't "pretended" that any of their sound is 7.1--it's 5.1 channel DD+ (a relative handful of BDs have been published with it anyway and I'd wager that very few people have set up 7.1 speaker systems in their homes). A/V-ophile quality video and audio isn't available in streaming video yet, and if that's what you require it's not for you.

how's the 3d on Vudu? i find the "3d" available on comcast on-demand unwatchable compared to real bluray 3d if that is any kind of reference point

It is very good. I only go for the HDX (1080p) versions, but it looks great to us.

The 99 cent deal for Halloween flicks is pretty good. I can't see any difference in the 480p vs 1080p versions when watching the 2 minute previews. Some are only available in 480p but those also look good for the most part.

This (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/walmart-rolls-out-digital-movie-downloads-with-vudu-to-go/). Apparently it will now be possible to download rentals from VUDU (PC only, I guess--maybe PS3), allowing customers with sub-streaming-speed network service to use VUDU. It will also be handy for travellers--they should make iOS and Android versions of their player and allow downloads of rentals into tablet memory.

This (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/walmart-rolls-out-digital-movie-downloads-with-vudu-to-go/[/url). Apparently it will now be possible to download rentals from VUDU (PC only, I guess--maybe PS3), allowing customers with sub-streaming-speed network service to use VUDU. It will also be handy for travellers--they should make iOS and Android versions of their player and allow downloads of rentals into tablet memory.

This has been available since the last update that also included 7.1 audio. I tried it on a couple of movies on my PS3 and it didn't work. The movies downloaded fine but would only playback the first 18-30 seconds, at that point playback just stopped and wouldn't go any further. That was a while back so maybe they've worked out the bugs, I may give it another shot.

PS3 downloads work fine for me. At first the wording of the update made me think that it was only for movies you "own" but sure enough, my rental worked too. The article linked above notes that it's for both on PS3, but only for purchases on PC. For my HDX purchase it gives me the option to download their app and then the SD version.

For PS3 rental downloads, it auto-deletes the file once your viewing period is expired, which could either be a convenience or an annoyance depending on how you look at it. If you don't manage to watch it all in time and decide to pay for another rental, you've gotta use up more bandwidth to grab it again.

I hadn't heard about it until their announcement today--I think that they just issued a PR. I read about it in some tech blog and then got piece of e-mail this afternoon (I see that I also got a tweet about it from their VUDUFans Twitter account). It's difficult to find any detailed description of how it works are what the limitations are. The e-mail has a little panel that says "VUDU To Go--download to your computer, watch later" with a link labelled "Show Now", which when you click it jus4t takes you to film selection on VUDU's web page. If they don't let you download rentals to PC (ala Amazon, Zune, CinemaNow, etc, etc), they're idiots; that's a major boon to travelers and something that they should work on allowing on tablets. Wireless Internet on airplanes, when available, is expensive and too slow for video streaming.

I'm not sure, but I suspect that the Kindle Fire is going to support downloading Amazon Instant Video into it (though it has miniscule internal memory--6GB out of 8GB available for local storage--and no memory card slot).

EDIT: I just downloaded the PS3 upgrade and rented the 99 cent movie of the day (Goodfellasto check it out. (Hadn't upgraded VUDU on my PS3--I generally only watch VUDU on my Panasonic BD player given that it draws about 1% so much power as my launch model 60GB PS3 and, having no fan, is always silent). The little note displayed when they ask you to accept the upgrade makes it sound as though you can only download purchased things, but it's obviously wrong.

This (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/walmart-rolls-out-digital-movie-downloads-with-vudu-to-go/[/url).

That link didn't work for me in Firefox 3.6. I tracked down the article at the source (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/walmart-rolls-out-digital-movie-downloads-with-vudu-to-go/) but it turns out I should have just examined the above link text. There's an extra "[/url" at the end messing things up.

That link didn't work for me in Firefox 3.6. I tracked down the article at the source (http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/walmart-rolls-out-digital-movie-downloads-with-vudu-to-go/) but it turns out I should have just examined the above link text. There's an extra "[/url" at the end messing things up.Fixed. I usually check those--sorry.

This has been available since the last update that also included 7.1 audio. I tried it on a couple of movies on my PS3 and it didn't work. The movies downloaded fine but would only playback the first 18-30 seconds, at that point playback just stopped and wouldn't go any further. That was a while back so maybe they've worked out the bugs, I may give it another shot.

This happened to me on the Vudu box that I own. I always have them downloaded and then watch later because I can't get internet speed higher than 3.0. Last download rental I did buffered a couple minutes into the movie and I ended up watching it in regular HD. I was pretty pissed.

For most Android devices they may wait until the Android 4.0 devices ship because the NDK has example source for streaming video where you can insert your own decryption code.

EDIT: I just downloaded the PS3 upgrade and rented the 99 cent movie of the day (Goodfellas) to check it out.My download of this on the PS3 played just fine, BTW (though I haven't finished it yet). It weighed in at 9.6 GB, for an average of 8.77 Mbps over 146 minutes (if that 9.6GB is billions of bytes (gigabytes), 9.41 Mbps if its 2^30th bytes (gibibytes)).

If I log into VUDU on the PC, it sees that I have the film rented, but if I try to play it it doesn't offer to download it, just to stream it in SD. This may be because I already downloaded it to another device. Inasmuch as you can only play it in SD on a PC, the motive to download it isn't as strong, but it would still be nice to do that for travellers (though if I was traveling with a laptop, I'd prefer to load up with 720p stuff from Amazon or Zune).

I see VUDU is coming to the Xbox360! Later in December

http://www.examiner.com/console-gaming-in-national/xbox-360-tv-adds-vudu-and-mlb-tv-reveals-release-schedule-for-all-content

I don't know how I missed it when I looked at it yesterday.

I see under "Coming Soon" that Vudu is going to have a some more HBO series available.

Couple weeks ago i rented sanctum 3D on Vudu for PS3. i have a panny 58VT25. The movie played well for about 30 mins but would stop to buffer every 5mins thereafter. We stopped it as our patience started to wear thin.

I have Rogers 25mbps down service, whole house is wired with cat5e gigabit, i dont understand why this would happen. I hope maybe rogers or possibly vudu was having rare problems that night.

Anybody else have any problems or success streaming 3D on HDX?

Thanks

Couple weeks ago i rented sanctum 3D on Vudu for PS3. i have a panny 58VT25. The movie played well for about 30 mins but would stop to buffer every 5mins thereafter. We stopped it as our patience started to wear thin.

I have Rogers 25mbps down service, whole house is wired with cat5e gigabit, i dont understand why this would happen. I hope maybe rogers or possibly vudu was having rare problems that night.Note that you now have the option of downloading HDX titles to the PS3 (or SD or HD). Full HDX is 9 Mbps so a 2 hour film should consume about 8 GB. It might take a while (if you're getting your full 25 Mbps down, it'd be 43 mins).

Before they added this recently (they call it VUDU to Go) it was a weakness versus Zune Video, which can be either streamed or downloaded to an Xbox. Now people who flat out don't have the bandwidth to stream HD or HDX (like common 2-3 Mbps service) can download and get the full monty :). You can also load up your laptop for trips (they need to get that working for tableets).

I picked up the Panasonic DMP-BD75 as a spare Blu-ray player and VUDU streamer. It was a Gold Box Deal (last Wednesday) for $70 with a $10 Amazon credit. It arrived late yesterday but I had a chance to quickly set it up to watch Cowboys and Aliens using the $6 credit from VUDU. I put it into my equipment rack and plugged in the ethernet cable. This is a very basic player with no wireless capability and HDMI only for picture and sound although it does provide analog video and audio outputs. No component and no optical or coaxial output. I plugged the HDMI cable into my Denon receiver that supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA. Powered it on and went through the Easy Setup. It tested the LAN connection for one minute and showed a consistent speed of over 9 Mbps and deemed it ready to show HDX movies. I started up the movie and was pleased for the first few minutes until it stopped to buffer. Then it played for another minute or two and stopped again to buffer. It kept repeating this behavior for several minutes and finally VUDU asked if I wanted to lower my resolution to HD but I kept trying to make HDX work. I finally gave up and ended watching the movie in HD, actually a decent picture but clearly a step down from HDX. During both HDX and HD my Denon receiver's blue light was illuminated and the front panel showed Dolby Digital Plus so the sound was stellar. Not really sure what to make of this experience since I have been using my Roku XD for streaming Amazon and Netflix without any real problems. It was a Friday night so maybe there was a lot of traffic on my internet node. I'm planning on testing Netflix on the Panasonic tonight.

Addition: You can't use this player for Amazon streaming at this time.

I picked up the Panasonic DMP-BD75 as a spare Blu-ray player and VUDU streamer. It was a Gold Box Deal (last Wednesday) for $70 with a $10 Amazon credit. It arrived late yesterday but I had a chance to quickly set it up to watch Cowboys and Aliens using the $6 credit from VUDU. I put it into my equipment rack and plugged in the ethernet cable. This is a very basic player with no wireless capability and HDMI only for picture and sound although it does provide analog video and audio outputs. No component and no optical or coaxial output. I..................


Starting in January 2013, no BD players will be made with any analog outputs. Personally I've preferred to have only HDMI outputs on my devices for years. But they typically have the legacy analog , and optical/coaxial outputs which I haven't needed in a long time.

I picked up the Panasonic DMP-BD75 as a spare Blu-ray player and VUDU streamer. It was a Gold Box Deal (last Wednesday) for $70 with a $10 Amazon credit. It arrived late yesterday but I had a chance to quickly set it up to watch Cowboys and Aliens using the $6 credit from VUDU. I put it into my equipment rack and plugged in the ethernet cable. This is a very basic player with no wireless capability and HDMI only for picture and sound although it does provide analog video and audio outputs. No component and no optical or coaxial output. I plugged the HDMI cable into my Denon receiver that supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-MA. Powered it on and went through the Easy Setup. It tested the LAN connection for one minute and showed a consistent speed of over 9 Mbps and deemed it ready to show HDX movies. I started up the movie and was pleased for the first few minutes until it stopped to buffer. Then it played for another minute or two and stopped again to buffer. It kept repeating this behavior for several minutes and finally VUDU asked if I wanted to lower my resolution to HD but I kept trying to make HDX work. I finally gave up and ended watching the movie in HD, actually a decent picture but clearly a step down from HDX. During both HDX and HD my Denon receiver's blue light was illuminated and the front panel showed Dolby Digital Plus so the sound was stellar. Not really sure what to make of this experience since I have been using my Roku XD for streaming Amazon and Netflix without any real problems. It was a Friday night so maybe there was a lot of traffic on my internet node. I'm planning on testing Netflix on the Panasonic tonight.

Addition: You can't use this player for Amazon streaming at this time.

How did the HDX video quality look when it was working properly? How does this quality compare to Blu-ray 1080p24 content, assuming you have a very high end display tat is capable of rendering all the super fine details from Blu-ray? I would like to do streaming but always feel I would be leaving some image quality on the table by streaming, and if I want the true experience I have to rent the Blu-ray. But I'm wondering if that thinking is flawed or justified. Thanks.

I tried watching a few 3D trailers from the service on my Samsung 3D plasma. The black levels looked wrong - they were too high (blacks looked like brightness was set too high).

I can say with certainty though that my set is calibrated correctly including the brightness level in 3D. And this is not an issue when watching 2D trailers from the service, or when watching 3D movies from my Blu-ray player. Only an issue with the 3D trailers. I did not try the paid streaming 3D content yet but I'm assuming if the issue is there with the trailer it will be there with the movie too (which is why I haven't bought any yet!).

Thanks!

How did the HDX video quality look when it was working properly? How does this quality compare to Blu-ray 1080p24 content, assuming you have a very high end display tat is capable of rendering all the super fine details from Blu-ray? I would like to do streaming but always feel I would be leaving some image quality on the table by streaming, and if I want the true experience I have to rent the Blu-ray. But I'm wondering if that thinking is flawed or justified. Thanks.

While 3 bar HDX(9Mb/s MPEG4) is not BD quality, it is very good. Your average user would not be able to tell a difference. But AVS does not have average users.

I have no problem watching a movie from VUDU 3 bar HDX(although there is a big difference between 1 bar and 3 bar HDX). certain movies I will watch from VUDU(and Xbox Live), some I will rent the BD, and some I will purchase the BD. And there are still others that I will just watch from Netflix streaming in HD

while i thought the overall PQ was very good, i was surprised to see Hangove 2 cropped on VUDU. is it normal for them to crop 2.35:1 movies? i know they didn't do that with Inception.

I tried watching a few 3D trailers from the service on my Samsung 3D plasma. The black levels looked wrong - they were too high (blacks looked like brightness was set too high).

I can say with certainty though that my set is calibrated correctly including the brightness level in 3D. And this is not an issue when watching 2D trailers from the service, or when watching 3D movies from my Blu-ray player. Only an issue with the 3D trailers. I did not try the paid streaming 3D content yet but I'm assuming if the issue is there with the trailer it will be there with the movie too (which is why I haven't bought any yet!).

Thanks!

i tried some 3d trailers on VUDU and thought the 3d was terrible, bad black levels and ghosting everywhere.

while i thought the overall PQ was very good, i was surprised to see Hangove 2 cropped on VUDU. is it normal for them to crop 2.35:1 movies? i know they didn't do that with Inception.

I've observed this before with some titles on Vudu. I'll typically use the 2-minute preview feature to check before actually purchasing a title.

i tried some 3d trailers on VUDU and thought the 3d was terrible, bad black levels and ghosting everywhere.

Yes! That is exactly what I am talking about. Who could watch that without complaining to the company and I wonder why it hasn't been corrected.

The xbox live app is up (guessing only for those in the preview program). From what I can see there is no HDX option to rent.... just SD and HD (at 4.99 for movies vs the 5.99 HDX usually commands).

My tomato bw statistics also say this where the vudu preview will use about the half the bw compared to a zune 1080p test.
Screengrab of a 2 min zune preview vs a 2 min vudu preview: https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=31ce101fb287e0b9&resid=31CE101FB287E0B9!2821&parid=31CE101FB287E0B9!2820 (zune is first followed by vudu)

The app is one of the better ones layout and UI wise but is still behind the zune app in terms of layout/design. Don't see many on xbox using this app in its current form.

Starting in January 2013, no BD players will be made with any analog outputs. Personally I've preferred to have only HDMI outputs on my devices for years. But they typically have the legacy analog , and optical/coaxial outputs which I haven't needed in a long time.
Will the optical/coax audio also be deleted, or even analog audio? I thought it was only analog video that would be prohibited.

The xbox live app is up (guessing only for those in the preview program). From what I can see there is no HDX option to rent.... just SD and HD (at 4.99 for movies vs the 5.99 HDX usually commands).

My tomato bw statistics also say this where the vudu preview will use about the half the bw compared to a zune 1080p test.
Screengrab of a 2 min zune preview vs a 2 min vudu preview: https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=31ce101fb287e0b9&resid=31CE101FB287E0B9!2821&parid=31CE101FB287E0B9!2820 (zune is first followed by vudu)

The app is one of the better ones layout and UI wise but is still behind the zune app in terms of layout/design. Don't see many on xbox using this app in its current form.

Thanks for the heads up. Assuming you have a super high speed and reliable internet connection, which service would give a better HQ picture - zune or Vudu (even if on another system like a PS3 or internet TV aoo)? Does Zune support better quality audio than DD?

Zune 1080p and VUDU HDX are very comparable, to my eyes (I really wish that msgohan would get his hands on an Xbox at least temporary so he could get some screen grabs of Zune for comparison). One difference is that there is only SD and HD for Zune--you'll get 1080p if there's sufficient bandwidth on your connection to the servers to sustain it. Consequently if 720p would suit you just fine (or you're watching on a 720p monitor), there's no slightly lower priced limited-to-720p PQ tier.

I was surprised that MS was letting VUDU on their platform, since the service is very similar to Zune Video; the lack of HDX support in the player makes sense in that context. If you own some VUDU titles the player on Xbox will let you watch them in a room where the Xbox is the only device with that capability. Personally I don't watch video on consoles anymore. I watch Netflix and Amazon on my Roku 2 XS and VUDU on my Panasonic BD player.

I wonder how much of a cut MS gets for each VUDU rental?
Walmart has made great strides since buying VUDU in getting on many many devices than I ever thought would have been possible. Vudu has come a longs ways since I first got it four years ago.

Vudu has come a very long way in getting on more devices and the xbox is another good one to be on but w/o the hdx option the only people I see using it are the ones already invested in vudu on other devices.

That said I will switch very quickly if they are the first ones to bring us a more expensive buffet style plan. I really thought zune would have this service already since they have the zune music pass but still nothing from them.

The first company to charge me $30-40 but give me new dvd/bd releases (even if there is a limit on how many rentals you get each month) and day after tv shows will get my money going forward. Seems like its a 3 horse race currently (netflix, zune and vudu) but I could see apple coming in at the last second and "getting it right" like they have a knack of doing.

while i thought the overall PQ was very good, i was surprised to see Hangove 2 cropped on VUDU.

Pretty sure it's opened up since it's Super35.

while i thought the overall PQ was very good, i was surprised to see Hangove 2 cropped on VUDU. is it normal for them to crop 2.35:1 movies? i know they didn't do that with Inception.

This is not typical. Most 2.35:1 movies are proper OAR on VUDU. Not sure what happened with this one.

Pretty sure it's opened up since it's Super35.No--it's definitely zoomed. I just compared side-by-side with the disc.

Darn, that's doubly stupid of them then.

Darn, that's doubly stupid of them then.

It's probably not VUDU's fault. They just run whatever transfer the studio gives them. In this case, Warner must have sent them the 16:9 reformatted transfer for cable broadcast, rather than the letterboxed home video transfer.

You can ask in their forums. They should be able to get it looked at.

How did the HDX video quality look when it was working properly? How does this quality compare to Blu-ray 1080p24 content, assuming you have a very high end display tat is capable of rendering all the super fine details from Blu-ray? I would like to do streaming but always feel I would be leaving some image quality on the table by streaming, and if I want the true experience I have to rent the Blu-ray. But I'm wondering if that thinking is flawed or justified. Thanks.

Your thinking is not flawed, Blu-ray is still the best quality-wise. But as aaronwt replied VUDU 9Mbps HDX looked great (while it lasted) projected on my 120" screen but once it switched to HD quality the image downgrade was quite noticeable and more like DVD. If I had been watching on my 50" plasma set the change may have been less noticeable but not sure since I generally don't watch movies on the smaller set. I have visited the VUDU forum and see that buffering issues are common even with super-fast internet connections. I still have a $10 credit with VUDU and may try another HDX movie sometime. Does anyone know if VUDU has different streams for different devices (like Netflix) or it is one common stream for all?

Does anyone know if VUDU has different streams for different devices (like Netflix) or it is one common stream for all?Netflix doesn't really have different streams for different devices; they have an evolution of encodings and some devices are still using the older ones. They started out with WM3 then segued into VC-1 with WMA sound, then to AVC with DD2.0 sound (5.1 DD+ surround and closed/soft captions available on limited set of titles). The new stuff is specifically set up for adaptive streaming (smooth transition between lower bit rate, lower PQ encodings and higher bit rate, higher PQ ones as available bandwidth on your connection fluctuates); it also separates out sound and captions so that they can offer different versions for the same title.

I don't think that anything uses the WM3 set anymore and they probably no longer update it. Most devices still use VC-1 and very small but growing set of devices implement support for 1080p, 5.1 sound and captions.

But to answer you question I don't think that VUDU multiple sets of encodings, since they controlled firmware on their original players and nothing much has changed, feature-wise, since embedded devices showed up.

I've never had a single buffering issue when streaming HDX from VUDU over Comcast in Boston. I really think that this is an internet provider (perhaps local) issue, not a VUDU issue. Even when you pay for high-speed internet, a lot of ISPs don't deliver what they promise.

Netflix doesn't really have different streams for different devices; they have an evolution of encodings and some devices are still using the older ones. They started out with WM3 then segued into VC-1 with WMA sound, then to AVC with DD2.0 sound (5.1 DD+ surround and closed/soft captions available on limited set of titles). The new stuff is specifically set up for adaptive streaming (smooth transition between lower bit rate, lower PQ encodings and higher bit rate, higher PQ ones as available bandwidth on your connection fluctuates); it also separates out sound and captions so that they can offer different versions for the same title.

I don't think that anything uses the WM3 set anymore and they probably no longer update it. Most devices still use VC-1 and very small but growing set of devices implement support for 1080p, 5.1 sound and captions.

But to answer you question I don't think that VUDU multiple sets of encodings, since they controlled firmware on their original players and nothing much has changed, feature-wise, since embedded devices showed up.
Is it really using DD for the 2.0 encodes? I don't think any of the devices I use for Netflix regularly send out DD for the 2.0 tracks. They only send out pcm. Even when the devices send out DD 2.0 for other sources that have it, it's only 2.0pcm for Netflix.

As far as the buffering issues with VUDU, many people have had success by changing their DNS Ip addresses(Like using google or Open DNS). I know in my case it made a big difference with all the streaming services. They all start much quicker now and any buffering issue is extremely rare. This is in comparison to my normal FioS DNS servers. They occasionally had a buffering issue, but the content typically took a little longer to load as well.

Is it really using DD for the 2.0 encodes? I don't think any of the devices I use for Netflix regularly send out DD for the 2.0 tracks. They only send out pcm. Even when the devices send out DD 2.0 for other sources that have it, it's only 2.0pcm for Netflix.The old disc-based PS3 player was subject to the SEL key info overlay and it said that it was playing DD 2.0. They certainly do not stream PCM. The stereo audio bit rate is either 64 Kbps or 192 Kbps (see the bottom of this (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) Netflix blog post)--PCM at either rate would be unlistenable (IMO 64 Kbps stereo MP3 is unlistenable :D). They may be using some sound encoding which isn't commonly supported by AVRs as audio on an HDMI video stream.

Your thinking is not flawed, Blu-ray is still the best quality-wise. But as aaronwt replied VUDU 9Mbps HDX looked great (while it lasted) projected on my 120" screen but once it switched to HD quality the image downgrade was quite noticeable and more like DVD. If I had been watching on my 50" plasma set the change may have been less noticeable but not sure since I generally don't watch movies on the smaller set. I have visited the VUDU forum and see that buffering issues are common even with super-fast internet connections. I still have a $10 credit with VUDU and may try another HDX movie sometime. Does anyone know if VUDU has different streams for different devices (like Netflix) or it is one common stream for all?

Thanks. I wonder if on a high end display with a pristine (5 star video quality) Blu-ray whether there would be a discernible difference between it and a 9Mbps HDX feed. And if so, whether the difference would be negligible.

Most of the world is going streaming now and it seems like us high end video and audiophiles are getting left behind. At least give us HD audio capabilities... I wonder if that is on the horizon.

I've never had a single buffering issue when streaming HDX from VUDU over Comcast in Boston. I really think that this is an internet provider (perhaps local) issue, not a VUDU issue. Even when you pay for high-speed internet, a lot of ISPs don't deliver what they promise.

Hello interesting I have an oppo 93 constantly buffers with HDX and a panny 210 never buffers with HDX vudo. been on phone constantly with oppo in fact they are exchanging player, Use Comcast Central Jersey and signal very strong. Both hardwired to my netgear router. any suggestions I think it is the oppo will see if it doess on the new one comming today. HDX is pretty neat big diff from HD.

Hello interesting I have an oppo 93 constantly buffers with HDX and a panny 210 never buffers with HDX vudo. been on phone constantly with oppo in fact they are exchanging player, Use Comcast Central Jersey and signal very strong. Both hardwired to my netgear router. any suggestions I think it is the oppo will see if it doess on the new one comming today. HDX is pretty neat big diff from HD.

The OPPO 93 is the player I also use. Never had a problem with it. Perhaps a DNS setting issue, as aaronwt suggests?

Thanks for the reply. What i find weird is i download content from my newsgroups all the time and never have any hicupps. 10gb + files at 3.8mb's a sec.... no dropouts or slowdowns at all. I will try again, but i feel it was probably vudu's problem. Remember, the 3d movie played fine for the first 30/40mins...

Note that you now have the option of downloading HDX titles to the PS3 (or SD or HD). Full HDX is 9 Mbps so a 2 hour film should consume about 8 GB. It might take a while (if you're getting your full 25 Mbps down, it'd be 43 mins).

Before they added this recently (they call it VUDU to Go) it was a weakness versus Zune Video, which can be either streamed or downloaded to an Xbox. Now people who flat out don't have the bandwidth to stream HD or HDX (like common 2-3 Mbps service) can download and get the full monty :). You can also load up your laptop for trips (they need to get that working for tableets).

The OPPO 93 is the player I also use. Never had a problem with it. Perhaps a DNS setting issue, as aaronwt suggests?

I have changed the dns numbers as per oppo still buffered. Just hooked up the new one already frozw on pandora. changed the dns on that and will try vudu tonight. Love this player shame but love vjdu hdx and panny does it well so I might go for the integra 50.3 better streamer and sacarifice the sacd and pick up a used sacd over hdmi player. crazy I know but it should work. will work with oppo tech again first they are great people there.

The old disc-based PS3 player was subject to the SEL key info overlay and it said that it was playing DD 2.0. They certainly do not stream PCM. The stereo audio bit rate is either 64 Kbps or 192 Kbps (see the bottom of this (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) Netflix blog post)--PCM at either rate would be unlistenable (IMO 64 Kbps stereo MP3 is unlistenable :D). They may be using some sound encoding which isn't commonly supported by AVRs as audio on an HDMI video stream.

I just don't understand why they won't bitstream it if it's in DD. And if they are using something not supported by AVRs, why not switch to DD since the 5.1 tracks are using it.

I have changed the dns numbers as per oppo still buffered. Just hooked up the new one already frozw on pandora. changed the dns on that and will try vudu tonight. Love this player shame but love vjdu hdx and panny does it well so I might go for the integra 50.3 better streamer and sacarifice the sacd and pick up a used sacd over hdmi player. crazy I know but it should work. will work with oppo tech again first they are great people there.

Try changing the DNS in your router. This is what I did on my network. I didn't change anything in the individual devices.

Try changing the DNS in your router. This is what I did on my network. I didn't change anything in the individual devices.

I hate to fool with my router everything else works fine my router is a net gear N300 wnr3500l I oul not even know how to do it not too computer savy like some of you guys . Last night I rented a movie in HDX from vudu there were several buffers finally it went home screen would not play told me to play at HD. I turned off the oppo and went to the panny 210 and it played perfectly. This is my second oppo I changed the DNS to 008.0008.0008 just as oppo advised with the other did not help. Puzzled. ? If everything else would do the same I would be comfortable it was my comcase or something else in my system Its only the oppo. My panny plasma streams well both my computers and my Onkyo 3009 etc. I really hate to give up the oppo but I really get nuts with things when they do not work as they should. For the Oppo would I need a stronger router or a way to boost the signal even if that would help. Sorry to drag on.

I hate to fool with my router everything else works fine my router is a net gear N300 wnr3500l I oul not even know how to do it not too computer savy like some of you guys . Last night I rented a movie in HDX from vudu there were several buffers finally it went home screen would not play told me to play at HD. I turned off the oppo and went to the panny 210 and it played perfectly. This is my second oppo I changed the DNS to 008.0008.0008 just as oppo advised with the other did not help. Puzzled. ? If everything else would do the same I would be comfortable it was my comcase or something else in my system Its only the oppo. My panny plasma streams well both my computers and my Onkyo 3009 etc. I really hate to give up the oppo but I really get nuts with things when they do not work as they should. For the Oppo would I need a stronger router or a way to boost the signal even if that would help. Sorry to drag on.

Is anyone else with the Oppo reporting the same thing, or does it only seem to be affecting you?

Q: Do the 2min movie samples stream in plain jane DD or in full DD+? (Because they just added the Vudu app to the new WD TV Live today and none of the 2min streams I've tried are DD+, I think it's a bug in the app).

The Xbox VUDU app just launched. No HDX resolution and I'm sure that it doesn't bitsream DD+. Perhaps the lamest VUDU implementation I've used, though understandable, given that its in direct competition with the Zune Video marketplace.

The Xbox VUDU app just launched. No HDX resolution and I'm sure that it doesn't bitsream DD+. Perhaps the lamest VUDU implementation I've used, though understandable, given that its in direct competition with the Zune Video marketplace.

I've seen it speculated a few places (maybe here too) that the limitation is the silverlight app platform all these apps are written on do not support 1080p yet and would eventually get updated but who knows since you would think the zune app would use the same framework and does 1080p now. Their hd quality is not very impressive on xbox with this first version.... roughly netflix or hulu hd.

The Xbox VUDU app just launched. No HDX resolution and I'm sure that it doesn't bitsream DD+. Perhaps the lamest VUDU implementation I've used, though understandable, given that its in direct competition with the Zune Video marketplace.

My understanding is that the software toolkit that Microsoft released to partners does not support 1080P yet. That's why both the Netflix and VUDU apps are limited to 720P. But to Mike's point, turning on that feature would result in lost business to the Zune marketplace.

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to throw this out there, VUDU does not support downloading to the WD Live Hub....I was disappointed by this because during the certification process I was told it would be able to do downloads of films purchased on the service, and I made my purchase based on that info...When certification was finalized, they decided not to support downloads to the device at all....

I don't understand why they would certify a device designed for local storage and not support it's use?

I just happened to be on the phone with the tech guy at Vudu, because my original box is dieing, and I wanted to see what my options are. I ran across this last post and asked him about the Live Hub ability to download movies, for storage on the drive, and he said it should work. You might want to call them and see what is going on, and I will wait, before I buy the WD to replace my Vudu box, to hear how this comes out.

I just happened to be on the phone with the tech guy at Vudu, because my original box is dieing, and I wanted to see what my options are. I ran across this last post and asked him about the Live Hub ability to download movies, for storage on the drive, and he said it should work. You might want to call them and see what is going on, and I will wait, before I buy the WD to replace my Vudu box, to hear how this comes out.

I was told by a Tier 3 tech that downloads to the Hub were a no go, he talked to the certification team and they told him it was not supported....To prove further, if you have the VUDU box, there is a tab in MY VUDU that says "HDX for download", SD for download, etc......There is no such tab in the VUDU UI of the Live Hub...That is what prompted me to call support and I got the bad news....Other services allow downloads, however(CinemaNow, Blockbuster) but they don't have the quality of VUDU.....The Hub is a replacement for my original VUDU box.....

you may want to contact them again to make sure IMO.....

OK Don, I trust most people on AVS, way more than something a tech support guy might tell me, and you actually have the Live Hub, so I will pass on this device, until they get that resolved. Another thing I don't like about it, is the lack of a digital audio out, that is separate from the HDMI. That omission makes it difficult for me to integrate with my setup.

For now, I will stick with the Netgear Neo TV NTV200, which is pretty slick (I have one) and very cheap, but lacks a hard drive. No sense in paying extra for the HD unless it is useable.

OK Don, I trust most people on AVS, way more than something a tech support guy might tell me, and you actually have the Live Hub, so I will pass on this device, until they get that resolved. Another thing I don't like about it, is the lack of a digital audio out, that is separate from the HDMI. That omission makes it difficult for me to integrate with my setup.

For now, I will stick with the Netgear Neo TV NTV200, which is pretty slick (I have one) and very cheap, but lacks a hard drive. No sense in paying extra for the HD unless it is useable.

About the digital out, are you referring to optical? If so the Hub does have digital optical out....I currently use it to feed my Harman Kardon reciever, w/ digital audio pass-thru via optical, and it works great.....

Happy hollidays to all

Just thought I would give an update to those that are interested. A few posts back I explained my issues between th oppo and streaming HDX Vudu. Well first I have to support the Oppo has great customer service opinions of those on the form (They Do) I dealt mostly with Derek Hope I spelled it right. real nice guy. Some of the other Companies should use him as a shinning example. Mostly JVC and Onkyo. He exchanged my player. The new player originally had the same buffering probglem as my original. I spoke to him He suggested changing the cabel modem. Instead of that I had myk service increased to its highest amount. First it speeded up my computer operation greatly. But the oppo still buffered on Vudu. I changed the DNS lastlly to 008 still buffered than I added the 008 to the DNS 2 also rebotted my cahel modem and when I was back on line the firmware was available so I did that over the net and Started to watch a VUDU rental in HDX to my amazement no buffering. Watched another last night No buffering. Great I do not have to replace it as I do love the Oppo all it does and The absolutely wonderful customer service. So add me to the Oppo fan club with honot please. Those of you who have not been on that form there are a couple of super people on there just keep helping everyone out Bob and Bill especially.

About the digital out, are you referring to optical? If so the Hub does have digital optical out....I currently use it to feed my Harman Kardon reciever, w/ digital audio pass-thru via optical, and it works great.....

You are right!! I missed that, thought it was not there. I may have to try this device. Also heard back from Vudu and they are aware of the download issue and are working on it. :)

Happy hollidays to all

Just thought I would give an update to those that are interested. A few posts back I explained my issues between th oppo and streaming HDX Vudu. Well first I have to support the Oppo has great customer service opinions of those on the form (They Do) I dealt mostly with Derek Hope I spelled it right. real nice guy. Some of the other Companies should use him as a shinning example. Mostly JVC and Onkyo. He exchanged my player. The new player originally had the same buffering probglem as my original. I spoke to him He suggested changing the cabel modem. Instead of that I had myk service increased to its highest amount. First it speeded up my computer operation greatly. But the oppo still buffered on Vudu. I changed the DNS lastlly to 008 still buffered than I added the 008 to the DNS 2 also rebotted my cahel modem and when I was back on line the firmware was available so I did that over the net and Started to watch a VUDU rental in HDX to my amazement no buffering. Watched another last night No buffering. Great I do not have to replace it as I do love the Oppo all it does and The absolutely wonderful customer service. So add me to the Oppo fan club with honot please. Those of you who have not been on that form there are a couple of super people on there just keep helping everyone out Bob and Bill especially.

Good to see you got your problem with the Oppo resolved although I'm not sure from your telling whether it was the firmware update or the DNS change. Have you tried changing your DNS back to its original settings to see if the firmware change did the trick?

Good to see you got your problem with the Oppo resolved although I'm not sure from your telling whether it was the firmware update or the DNS change. Have you tried changing your DNS back to its original settings to see if the firmware change did the trick?

the original setting was not a viable solution the 0008 over 0008 is working and I thinkj that with the resetting of the cabel modem is what worked. I gues the increased signal might have helped although I think i would not keep it but my internet speed has increased enough that I am keeping it. I also think the original unit might have or have not had some issues. Thanks for your response.

I just happened to be on the phone with the tech guy at Vudu, because my original box is dieing, and I wanted to see what my options are. I ran across this last post and asked him about the Live Hub ability to download movies, for storage on the drive, and he said it should work. You might want to call them and see what is going on, and I will wait, before I buy the WD to replace my Vudu box, to hear how this comes out.

Just get an LG BD630 on the cheap and continue enjoying the experience. It will also allow you to stream multichannel for Netflix.

You are right!! I missed that, thought it was not there. I may have to try this device. Also heard back from Vudu and they are aware of the download issue and are working on it. :)

Glad it worked for you......When you say you heard back from VUDU, may I ask who sent the response? Was it D. Hatman? or was it a response via phone? I ask because I was told he asked one of the the techs on the certification team will the download ability be supported later and they said "probably not"......So maybe with the response you got, they may be changing their ways concerning this.....I hope so....They have quite a few titles to own in HDX that I would buy in a heartbeat....Universal has been added as a studio to allow some of their catalog to be owned in HDX, in addition to Fox, Paramount, independents, Lionsgate, and Sony...Warner and MGM are the only holdouts...

Just get an LG BD630 on the cheap and continue enjoying the experience. It will also allow you to stream multichannel for Netflix.

The Hub does multichannel Netflix as well.......

I have a number of Vudu streaming devices, I just don't have a download capable device replacement for my original Vudu box. Right now, the Hub is the only one that looks worthwhile.

I have a number of Vudu streaming devices, I just don't have a download capable device replacement for my original Vudu box. Right now, the Hub is the only one that looks worthwhile.

Well it is IMO, even if you use it as storage for your own media outside of online services......

I signed up for Vudu and registered the XBOX so we got $4.99 in credits. My wife wanted to watch Orange County so I found it but it was only in SD. We watched it and it didn't look so hot. I know it was only in SD but most every Netflix movie I've watched in SD looked better than it did. I hope the HD looks a lot better.

I signed up for Vudu and registered the XBOX so we got $4.99 in credits. My wife wanted to watch Orange County so I found it but it was only in SD. We watched it and it didn't look so hot. I know it was only in SD but most every Netflix movie I've watched in SD looked better than it did. I hope the HD looks a lot better.You should have insisted on watching something available in HD so you could test it. Before watching any title in HD or SD, you might want to view the 2 minute sample to give you an idea of what PQ will be like (the trailer is always in SD I think). You may want to wait for a 99 cent movie of the day that you want to see--for 99 cents you can watch those in SD or HD (or HDX if you device supports it which the Xbox doesn't).

My wife wanted to watch Orange County though. I did watch the SD preview while she was making a drink before the movie. She doesn't care if it's in HD, SD, PPD, YD or whatever. She just wanted to watch Orange County so that's what we watched. ;)

Vudu arguably (definitively?) is the best streaming quality out there. I believe every movie has a two minute sample for free, so you should definitely check out the HD and HDX samples of a few to check it out.

I rarely rent from Vudu though due to the price, but they runs daily 99 cent movie and usually have some kind of genre on sale in their "collections" section as well (like a bunch of horror movies for cheap during October, for example) as well as some other specials here and there.

Our 1080P Vizio tv in the bedroom has Vudu and I've never registered the tv for it so next time I'll probably use it since I should be able to see HDX unlike the xbox which is stuck at a maximum of HD (720P).

One thing I forgot was that the XBOX has screwed up black levels with videos now since the last dashboard update. That could be a big part of the problem too.

I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special on VUDU last night from one of my Boxee Boxes. Picture quality was excellent plus it was in 5.1 DD+.
I'm glad I got those $14.97 in credits from my three Xboxes. But until they get HDX on the Xbox, I won't consider using VUDU on it except for the rare occasion I watch SD from VUDU. Typically the SD quality on VUDU is very good.

I watched the Doctor Who Christmas special on VUDU last night from one of my Boxee Boxes. Picture quality was excellent plus it was in 5.1 DD+.
I'm glad I got those $14.97 in credits from my three Xboxes. But until they get HDX on the Xbox, I won't consider using VUDU on it except for the rare occasion I watch SD from VUDU. Typically the SD quality on VUDU is very good.

I have multiple XBOXes too. Can you explain how you can get multiple credits? I'd like to try the service too but it seems I will need a few credits to do so in case there is some bad quality etc.

I have multiple XBOXes too. Can you explain how you can get multiple credits?

Ditto. I already got $4.99 from registering my PS3, but I thought it was for creating an account, not registering the device....

If I can get another $4.99 credit for registering my XBOX, I'll just do that and use the credit to rent something on my PS3.

I have multiple XBOXes too. Can you explain how you can get multiple credits? I'd like to try the service too but it seems I will need a few credits to do so in case there is some bad quality etc.

I already had a VUDU account set up. I just started the VUDU app on the first box and logged into VUDU with my account info. Then it gave me the credit right away.
The VUDU account is linked to the gamertag. With my other two Xboxes I just had to start the VUDU app with that gamertag already loggeed on and then the credits popped up.

I got a credits for my PS3, Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and my Xbox, in that order, all registered to the same account over a period of about a year (11/10, 3/11 and last week). The first two were $5.99, the price of most recently released-to-disc rentals in HDX. It makes sense that the Xbox credit was $4.99; given no HDX, that's the most it can cost to rent any released-to-disc movie (some pre-release and still-in-theaters titles cost more). Sad if they've changed that to be the normal promotion amount.

my Xbox was the first new device i did NOT receive the credit for - odd

I got a credits for my PS3, Panasonic DMP-BDT110 BD player and my Xbox, in that order, all registered to the same account over a period of about a year (11/10, 3/11 and last week). The first two were $5.99, the price of most recently released-to-disc rentals in HDX. It makes sense that the Xbox credit was $4.99; given no HDX, that's the most it can cost to rent any released-to-disc movie (some pre-release and still-in-theaters titles cost more). Sad if they've changed that to be the normal promotion amount.

It's still $5.99 for HDX capable devices. I got $4.99 for my 360s, and the next night I got $5.99 each for a couple of other devices that are HDX capable.

It's still $5.99 for HDX capable devices. I got $4.99 for my 360s, and the next night I got $5.99 each for a couple of other devices that are HDX capable.

So create a Vudu account on my Samsung, then log in from my X360 and I'll have another credit added even though its the same account?

So create a Vudu account on my Samsung, then log in from my X360 and I'll have another credit added even though its the same account?
I alreeady had an account I just had to login to it. When a new device is added to my VUDU device list I get the credit.

When I use VUDU, I exclusively rent HDX format. I've noticed on a number of older catalog titles that aren't available on Blu-ray (most recently Bad Influence) that the signal comes through at 1080p at 60 Hz, not 24 fps. Newer titles, especially those also available on Blu-ray, will come through as 1080p24.

This seems odd to me. 1080p60 requires more bandwidth to stream, and well as adding 3:2 Pulldown, and offers no benefit at all.

I'm wondering if these files have been deinterlaced from 1080i sources, or (even worse) upconverted from 720p. Does anyone have more info on this?

When I use VUDU, I exclusively rent HDX format. I've noticed on a number of older catalog titles that aren't available on Blu-ray (most recently Bad Influence) that the signal comes through at 1080p at 60 Hz, not 24 fps. Newer titles, especially those also available on Blu-ray, will come through as 1080p24.What do you mean "come through"? Emerge from your device? My guess is that they're streaming 30 fps or 24 fps and your device is outputting 60 fps if it receives 30 fps. Again, just a guess--I don't know for sure. Netflix has stated that they stream shot-to-video content at 30 fps.

When I use VUDU, I exclusively rent HDX format. I've noticed on a number of older catalog titles that aren't available on Blu-ray (most recently Bad Influence) that the signal comes through at 1080p at 60 Hz, not 24 fps. Newer titles, especially those also available on Blu-ray, will come through as 1080p24.

This seems odd to me. 1080p60 requires more bandwidth to stream, and well as adding 3:2 Pulldown, and offers no benefit at all.

I'm wondering if these files have been deinterlaced from 1080i sources, or (even worse) upconverted from 720p. Does anyone have more info on this?

The VUDU encodes are in 480P24, 720P24 and 1080P24(maybe there are xxxp30 encodes too). Depending on your box and content it will output at 1080P24 or 1080P60. As well as 720p60 and 480P60.

I'm using an OPPO BDP-93 Blu-ray player, connected to a Lumagen Radiance processor, connected to my projector. The Lumagen reports receiving a 1080p signal at 59.94 Hz on some VUDU HDX movies. Blu-rays on the same player will register as 1080p at 23.98 Hz in the Lumagen.

Perhaps the OPPO player will not output 24 fps for VUDU and forcibly applies 3:2 Pulldown, but I'm pretty sure that newer movies I've streamed report as 23.98 Hz in the Lumagen.

I don't think I've ever received a 24P HDX Vudu movie. My Anthem D2 always reports receiving 59.94. This is through a Panasonic BDP310. Blu-ray movies output 24P through the same player.

Perhaps the OPPO player will not output 24 fps for VUDU and forcibly applies 3:2 Pulldown, but I'm pretty sure that newer movies I've streamed report as 23.98 Hz in the Lumagen.

I also asked this question in the BDP-93 thread in the Blu-ray Players forum. Someone there tested the "2-minute previews" for a few new releases on VUDU, and found them to output as 1080p60 as well. I may be mis-remembering ever getting 1080p24 from VUDU, or I may have been using another device at the time.

At this point, I believe that the Blu-ray player is disabling 24 fps output for VUDU and adding 3:2 Pulldown. I can't imagine that VUDU is streaming these from the source at 60 Hz. There's just no reason to waste that bandwidth.

I don't think I've ever received a 24P HDX Vudu movie. My Anthem D2 always reports receiving 59.94. This is through a Panasonic BDP310. Blu-ray movies output 24P through the same player.

Can anyone confirm receiving VUDU at 24fps on any other device?

I only output my VUDU movies at 1080P24 from any of my VUDU enabled devices. But that is a setting I select in each device. VUDU reps have said in the past that their encodes are 480P24, 720P24, and 1080P24.

EDIT: I guess I can't count my 360s in that 1080P24 statement(and my PS3 is the last device I want to use for VUDU), But I also don't plan on using the 360 for my VUDU titles until they enable HDX content.

I only output my VUDU movies at 1080P24 from any of my VUDU enabled devices. But that is a setting I select in each device. VUDU reps have said in the past that their encodes are 480P24, 720P24, and 1080P24.

Which devices?

EDIT: I guess I can't count my 360s in that 1080P24 statement(and my PS3 is the last device I want to use for VUDU), But I also don't plan on using the 360 for my VUDU titles until they enable HDX content.

I fired up my PS3 last night and tested the "2 Min. Preview" for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It also output at 60 Hz, not 24 fps.

Which devices?



I fired up my PS3 last night and tested the "2 Min. Preview" for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. It also output at 60 Hz, not 24 fps.

The PS3 won't output at 1080P24 from VUDU. It's something they need to fix.(if I remember correctly, but I also have not messed with my PS3 in a while. It is my last choice to use for viewing content)

I know my Boxee Boxes will output 1080P24, my LG BD player, and my old VUDU BX100 boxes too

The PS3 won't output at 1080P24 from VUDU. It's something they need to fix.(if I remember correctly, but I also have not messed with my PS3 in a while. It is my last choice to use for viewing content)

I know my Boxee Boxes will output 1080P24, my LG BD player, and my old VUDU BX100 boxes too

I asked OPPO about the frame rate issue, and they responded that it's a limitation of the Flash-based VUDU app in the player that it will only output at 60 Hz. The PS3 and some other player apps must have the same limitation.

It's probably not VUDU's fault. They just run whatever transfer the studio gives them. In this case, Warner must have sent them the 16:9 reformatted transfer for cable broadcast, rather than the letterboxed home video transfer.

For what it's worth, Crazy Stupid Love has also been altered from 2.35:1 to 16:9 on VUDU. This is another Warner title, so something must be up with Warner Bros. providing non-OAR transfers.

For what it's worth, Crazy Stupid Love has also been altered from 2.35:1 to 16:9 on VUDU.

I'm so puzzled by this. VUDU has positioned themselves not as an "all you can eat for $8" provider, but as someone who is offering a premium experience at a per-viewing price.

Must be the Wally-World influence. But to me it is VUDU's "fault" (not Warner), because ultimately VUDU is the company responsible for the "premium" experience at a premium price.

I'm so puzzled by this. VUDU has positioned themselves not as an "all you can eat for $8" provider, but as someone who is offering a premium experience at a per-viewing price.

Must be the Wally-World influence. But to me it is VUDU's "fault" (not Warner), because ultimately VUDU is the company responsible for the "premium" experience at a premium price.

It's only VUDU's fault if VUDU asked Warner to give them the 16:9 transfer (as, for example, HBO specifically requests 16:9 transfers from all of the studios). If VUDU asked for the standard OAR transfer and Warner gave them the 16:9 version anyway, there's nothing that VUDU can do about that, except not offer that movie for rental to their customers, which will of course hurt their bottom line.

I've already reached out to some of my contacts at VUDU to find out what's going on here.

I asked OPPO about the frame rate issue, and they responded that it's a limitation of the Flash-based VUDU app in the player that it will only output at 60 Hz. The PS3 and some other player apps must have the same limitation.

Hmm. I got a somewhat different response from Oppo today regarding the 60Hz/24Hz issue:
We convert 24Hz to 60Hz in the player. As for allowing for Source Direct (1080p/24Hz in and out) this is something that we are in discussions with VUDU, but it something that we can't guarantee will be added to a future firmware release.

And here's Vudu's take, also today:
The 60hz conversion is most likely a setting on the player. Most HD devices allow you to adjust the refresh rate. The information I have found on the Oppo player suggests there is a problem with refresh rate when the player is manually set to 24hz and the refresh rate on the TV is set to 120hz.

I have followed both up seeking clarification.

Update from Oppo:
This issue may be a requirement of our licensing with VUDU, may not be supported by the decoder, and/or is not supported by the Marvell QDEO. This is why we are discussing this issue with VUDU. If they say that we can do 1080p/24Hz, then we can begin working with MTK (the decoder manufacturer) and Marvell (the video processor supplier) to see how we can enable 24Hz Output for VUDU.

It makes absolutely no sense for Vudu to impose such a restriction--reducing the desirability of the service. If it does come from Vudu, it must be required by the content owners.

It makes absolutely no sense for Vudu to impose such a restriction--reducing the desirability of the service. If it does come from Vudu, it must be required by the content owners.

Content owners don't give a crap what frame rate their movies are displayed at, if they even understand what that means in the first place (which is doubtful). The back-and-forth between OPPO and VUDU sounds like a lot of passing the buck. This is a technical issue with the VUDU app in these players, and nobody wants to claim responsibility for it.

Is anyone bothered by the black level in the Vudu 3D movies? I find it is WAY to high and washes out the picture, and I can't watch it. I do not have this issue with their 2D content, and all my other 3D content including broadcast and blu-rays does not have this issue either.

DD+ now bitstreams on WD TV Live. You can force 24p so there you go.

Is anyone bothered by the black level in the Vudu 3D movies? I find it is WAY to high and washes out the picture, and I can't watch it. I do not have this issue with their 2D content, and all my other 3D content including broadcast and blu-rays does not have this issue either.

This appears that this may be an issue specific to playback on the Samsung PN63C8000 plasma and similar models. Is anyone successfully playing back 3D on this or similar Samsung while having their normally inky black levels or are you seeing elevated blacks?

Content owners don't give a crap what frame rate their movies are displayed at, if they even understand what that means in the first place (which is doubtful). The back-and-forth between OPPO and VUDU sounds like a lot of passing the buck. This is a technical issue with the VUDU app in these players, and nobody wants to claim responsibility for it.

I was just anticipating the usual excuse: "The studios made us do it."

I've told the story on this forum before but once when I rented an indie film on DVD I was perplexed why the film was cropped 4:3 and the extras widescreen. I wrote the distributor and was surprised to quickly get a reply back from the DVD producer saying that the studio gave them the movie file and the director supplied the extras. That's how screwball this gets.

Not sure if this is the best thread to put this in but I signed up for vudu last night because my panasonic DMP-BDT110P says it supports it.

So, i logged in on the panasonic 110 and did the "test" connection thing. It said my connection was OK to use the HDX (or whatever the highest option is). Since my wife was watching a "chic flick" type movie I just chose regular HD. Into the movie it kept buffering so much that it gave a message saying it had to switch to SD.

Maybe comcast was having a bad night but I can't imagine what the issue was. Nothing else was using my internet connection. Anything else I can look at before I try again?

Not sure if this is the best thread to put this in but I signed up for vudu last night because my panasonic DMP-BDT110P says it supports it.

So, i logged in on the panasonic 110 and did the "test" connection thing. It said my connection was OK to use the HDX (or whatever the highest option is). Since my wife was watching a "chic flick" type movie I just chose regular HD. Into the movie it kept buffering so much that it gave a message saying it had to switch to SD.

Maybe comcast was having a bad night but I can't imagine what the issue was. Nothing else was using my internet connection. Anything else I can look at before I try again?

Sounds somewhat similar to my Panasonic BD75 player experience with VUDU last month.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=21361034#post21361034

Maybe it's a Panasonic thing. After my initial VUDU visit I haven't been back to their website, but now that I have added a WD TV Live streamer perhaps I'll retry their service since I still have a $10 credit there. Other people with Comcast don't seem to have a problem with VUDU but may have a different device. My internet provider is TW Roadrunner.

Not sure if this is the best thread to put this in but I signed up for vudu last night because my panasonic DMP-BDT110P says it supports it.

So, i logged in on the panasonic 110 and did the "test" connection thing. It said my connection was OK to use the HDX (or whatever the highest option is). Since my wife was watching a "chic flick" type movie I just chose regular HD. Into the movie it kept buffering so much that it gave a message saying it had to switch to SD.

Maybe comcast was having a bad night but I can't imagine what the issue was. Nothing else was using my internet connection. Anything else I can look at before I try again?

On occasion, it helps to "shut down" your CABLE modem and wait 30 secs and then turn it back on a few minutes before you begin viewing. Seems to clear the transmission, but not a guaranteed fix, just a possible help.

Maybe comcast was having a bad night but I can't imagine what the issue was. Nothing else was using my internet connection. Anything else I can look at before I try again?Well, it was a Friday night; other than common holiday vacation periods (like the Christmas break), weekend nights is when I'd expect the heaviest use of local network resources and VUDU's servers to happen.

The PS3 won't output at 1080P24 from VUDU. It's something they need to fix.(if I remember correctly, but I also have not messed with my PS3 in a while. It is my last choice to use for viewing content)

I know my Boxee Boxes will output 1080P24, my LG BD player, and my old VUDU BX100 boxes too

I selected 24p output for my WDTV Live Hub with VUDU and it shows in my BenQ projector info dialog as 24p

A few pages back, I complained about the audio compression on Vudu. Here's a visual analysis.
This is from the most recent HDX movie that I rented, where I could hear severe compression artifacts. There's nothing above 14000:
http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7470/vudu.png
By comparison, here's a 192kbps MP3.
http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/7946/mp3y.png
That one hovers between 14000 and 16000. Granted, they're two different codecs but they are still similarly compressed and have horrible sound quality.

Vudu SERIOUSLY needs to step up their audio game or stop trying to promote their aural qualities. They're clearly compromising to deliver better visuals.

Vudu SERIOUSLY needs to step up their audio game or stop trying to promote their aural qualities.

Whenever I read complaints about Vudu, I immediately think Wal-Mart!

Can anyone "in the know" comment on the relationship between Vudu and its parent? I wonder if the (presumed) morons at Wal-Mart can't resist meddling and screwing things up?

Whenever I read complaints about Vudu, I immediately think Wal-Mart!

Can anyone "in the know" comment on the relationship between Vudu and its parent? I wonder if the (presumed) morons at Wal-Mart can't resist meddling and screwing things up?

SInce Walmart bought VUDU, they have expanded into many more devices than I thought was possible in a short time. Overall, Walmart buying VUDU has been a good thing. They have more content than ever before.

But with the issue of overcompression, how many titles have people noticed this on? They have over 20K titles. Every streaming service in exisitence has issues with a certain number of their titles, and VUDU has never been an excpetion. VUDU in the past has been very good about fixing encoding issues when they had major problems. Of course it has to be brought to their attention.

What was the title that had overly compressed audio? I have several free dollars in credits that will expire in a few days. I can use them to check the title out.

SInce Walmart bought VUDU, they have expanded into many more devices than I thought was possible in a short time. Overall, Walmart buying VUDU has been a good thing. They have more content than ever before.

But with the issue of overcompression, how many titles have people noticed this on? They have over 20K titles. Every streaming service in exisitence has issues with a certain number of their titles, and VUDU has never been an excpetion. VUDU in the past has been very good about fixing encoding issues when they had major problems. Of course it has to be brought to their attention.

What was the title that had overly compressed audio? I have several free dollars in credits that will expire in a few days. I can use them to check the title out.

EVERY SINGLE TITLE that had 5.1 audio had bad compression. It's not prevalent with one studio over another. It's all of them. If you get a stereo soundtrack, it's much better.

Return to Paradise 5.1
Little Manhattan 2.0
Masters of the Universe 2.0
Summer School 5.1
He Said She Said 5.1
Live Free Or Die hard 5.1
Dolores Claiborne 2.0
Grosse Pointe Blank 5.1

I've captured all of them so I'm more than happy to post multiple screenshots.

FWIW, I'm not streaming. I'm actually downloading to one of the Vudu boxes.

EVERY SINGLE TITLE that had 5.1 audio had bad compression. It's not prevalent with one studio over another. It's all of them. If you get a stereo soundtrack, it's much better.

Return to Paradise 5.1
Little Manhattan 2.0
Masters of the Universe 2.0
Summer School 5.1
He Said She Said 5.1
Live Free Or Die hard 5.1
Dolores Claiborne 2.0
Grosse Pointe Blank 5.1

I've captured all of them so I'm more than happy to post multiple screenshots.

FWIW, I'm not streaming. I'm actually downloading to one of the Vudu boxes.

This is why I use VUDU strictly for dialogue based movies/dramas, documentaries, most comedies and other movies where sound is not a significant aspect or surround sound use is limited. However, for action, fantasy, thrillers, horror, pixar (and other animated titles), I use the disc rented from blockbuster.

In my view, until audio is streamed unimpeded and equivalent to blu-ray disc audio, VUDU is strictly for stuff like (looking at recent releases): "The Help", "Hangover Part II" and "Midnight in Paris".

I don't have a 7.1 dedicated theater in order to play movies with restricted audio. In fact, I would rather have 720p and full blu-ray type audio, than 1080p and restricted audio.

Sound is an integral part of the movie experience. VUDU needs to realize that.

This is why I use VUDU strictly for dialogue based movies/dramas, documentaries, most comedies and other movies where sound is not a significant aspect or surround sound use is limited. However, for action, fantasy, thrillers, horror, pixar (and other animated titles), I use the disc rented from blockbuster.

In my view, until audio is streamed unimpeded and equivalent to blu-ray disc audio, VUDU is strictly for stuff like (looking at recent releases): "The Help", "Hangover Part II" and "Midnight in Paris".

I don't have a 7.1 dedicated theater in order to play movies with restricted audio. In fact, I would rather have 720p and full blu-ray type audio, than 1080p and restricted audio.

Sound is an integral part of the movie experience. VUDU needs to realize that.

and with titles like Hangover 2 we aren't even getting OAR.

it's been a while, but when i rented Inception, the DD 5.1 was insanely compressed and the surround info wasn't even coming out of the right channels...

I have several free dollars in credits that will expire in a few days. I can use them to check the title out.Crap! I let the $5 credit I got for registering my Xbox expire (yesterday I think). Oh well :rolleyes:.

and with titles like Hangover 2 we aren't even getting OAR.

it's been a while, but when i rented Inception, the DD 5.1 was insanely compressed and the surround info wasn't even coming out of the right channels...

And with the recent addition of 7.1, i can't IMAGINE how compressed the sound is.

And with the recent addition of 7.1, i can't IMAGINE how compressed the sound is.

With those titles you mentioned. Were all of them being streamed in 3 bar HDX? I know video wise there is a huge difference between one bar HDX and three bar HDX. And with HD there a big difference between the HD streaming and HDX streaming. I know the video is greatly affected with the lower bitrates so maybe the audio is too.

With those titles you mentioned. Were all of them being streamed in 3 bar HDX? I know video wise there is a huge difference between one bar HDX and three bar HDX. And with HD there a big difference between the HD streaming and HDX streaming. I know the video is greatly affected with the lower bitrates so maybe the audio is too.

Again, read my post. No streaming. It was downloaded. I have a Vudu box.

Again, read my post. No streaming. It was downloaded. I have a Vudu box.

The VUDU box downconverts DD+ to standard Dolby Digital. Could that have something to do with it?

Sure, cuts the quality in half.

The VUDU box downconverts DD+ to standard Dolby Digital. Could that have something to do with it?Sure, cuts the quality in half.If it's anything like what happens with Netflix 5.1 channel DD+ played on the PS3 (from which it emerges as basic 5.1 DD) that is very true. It's like a thin echo of the bitstreamed DD+.

VUDU's DD+ has always sounded fairly decent to me without blatant compression artifacts. The equipment I'm listening to it through is pretty modest (Onkyo NR-TX509 and old Onkyo HTiB speakers) so higher end stuff might reveal its flaws.

Last night I compared Pirates of the Caribbean 4 on VUDU with 7.1 DD+ to the BD with 7.1 DTS-MA. Of course the BD sounded much better, but it had a 6Mb/s bitrate for just the audio with the video being around 30Mb/s (No idea what the averag is but everytime I looked at the bitrates they were around there with the video hitting much higher at times).

For what VUDU is, 9Mb/s total bitrate from MPEG 4 with DD+ audio it did sound good, but of course nowhere near what the BD was. And I would not expect it to. But I guess a better comparison for the audio would be to check out the DVD audio. If I get a chance I'll need to rent it from Netflix one day

The VUDU box downconverts DD+ to standard Dolby Digital. Could that have something to do with it?

Well now THAT is something. I had no idea. Thanks for pointing that out!!

That's enough to make me get rid of the box immediately!

Are there any choices for a "box" that would let me download (instead of stream) AND keep it at DD+?

Are there any choices for a "box" that would let me download (instead of stream) AND keep it at DD+?There aren't many, but they just announced the capability for non-VUDU-boxes about 2 months ago. I found a post by someone from VUDU (posted 2 weeks ago) about devices allowing download from VUDU here (http://forum.vudu.com/showpost.php?p=143781&postcount=4). It states that the LG 590, 690, VUDU box and PS3 can download titles and play later. (It further states that the PS3 can only download owned titles, but I've tried it out downloading an HDX rentals). The PS3 cannot bitstream DD+ from VUDU (or will not, inasmuch as it can do it from BDs); it will decode and convert it to multichannel LPCM, which sounds pretty good.

The LG units are BD players with 250GB drives for media storage. They ain't cheap but you can get a BD590 factory refurb for as little as $129+shipping (from Buy.com).

My freebie VUDU sound test is the two minute HDX sample of Rio, which is bright and punchy, with good spatial imaging. Again, not TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, but decent; I'd bet that it's superior to the 448 Kbps basic DD you'd get from a standard def DVD.

There aren't many, but they just announced the capability for non-VUDU-boxes about 2 months ago. I found a post by someone from VUDU (posted 2 weeks ago) about devices allowing download from VUDU here (http://forum.vudu.com/showpost.php?p=143781&postcount=4). It states that the LG 590, 690, VUDU box and PS3 can download titles and play later. (It further states that the PS3 can only download owned titles, but I've tried it out downloading an HDX rentals). The PS3 cannot bitstream DD+ from VUDU (or will not, inasmuch as it can do it from BDs); it will decode and convert it to multichannel LPCM, which sounds pretty good.

The LG units are BD players with 250GB drives for media storage. They ain't cheap but you can get a BD590 factory refurb for as little as $129+shipping (from Buy.com).

My freebie VUDU sound test is the two minute HDX sample of Rio, which is bright and punchy, with good spatial imaging. Again, not TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, but decent; I'd bet that it's superior to the 448 Kbps basic DD you'd get from a standard def DVD.


So the LG boxes are really my only option? And neither one has a problem with DD+?

So the LG boxes are really my only option? And neither one has a problem with DD+?I have no idea. There must be an LG BD590/BD690 thread in the Blu-ray Players (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=149) forum; ask whether they can bitstream DD+ there. (My Panasonic DMP-BDT110 can, but it has no storage other than external USB storage and SD cards--they ought to implement download to USB for it).

I have no idea. There must be an LG BD590/BD690 thread in the Blu-ray Players (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=149) forum; ask whether they can bitstream DD+ there. (My Panasonic DMP-BDT110 can, but it has no storage other than external USB storage and SD cards--they ought to implement download to USB for it).

I would hope they can bitstream the DD+. My old LG BD390 bitstreams the 7.1 DD+ from VUDU with no issues. So I would expect the new models to be able to do it as well.

I would hope they can bitstream the DD+. My old LG BD390 bitstreams the 7.1 DD+ from VUDU with no issues. So I would expect the new models to be able to do it as well.

Awesome. I had no idea that it did that. Thank you guys so much for telling me! That box is going on ebay tonight! :)

Last night I compared Pirates of the Caribbean 4 on VUDU with 7.1 DD+ to the BD with 7.1 DTS-MA. Of course the BD sounded much better, but it had a 6Mb/s bitrate for just the audio with the video being around 30Mb/s (No idea what the averag is but everytime I looked at the bitrates they were around there with the video hitting much higher at times).

For what VUDU is, 9Mb/s total bitrate from MPEG 4 with DD+ audio it did sound good, but of course nowhere near what the BD was. And I would not expect it to. But I guess a better comparison for the audio would be to check out the DVD audio. If I get a chance I'll need to rent it from Netflix one day

Why not give some people the option for streaming the highest quality audio, like they do with 1080p video? Make it available to stream for those that can handle the bandwidth. Otherwise, streaming will always be 2nd tier in my view.

My freebie VUDU sound test is the two minute HDX sample of Rio, which is bright and punchy, with good spatial imaging. Again, not TrueHD or DTS-HD MA, but decent; I'd bet that it's superior to the 448 Kbps basic DD you'd get from a standard def DVD.You will lose that bet. The advantage of DD+ is 7.1, DD is 5.1, DD+ is better than DD at low bit rates and is probably the reason IPTV providers have an interest in it. Roger Dressler of Dolby Labs (now retired) has covered this subject many times.

You will lose that bet. The advantage of DD+ is 7.1, DD is 5.1, DD+ is better than DD at low bit rates and is probably the reason IPTV providers have an interest in it. Roger Dressler of Dolby Labs (now retired) has covered this subject many times.

You're saying the only advantage of DD+ is the ability to have 7.1?

You're saying the only advantage of DD+ is the ability to have 7.1?No, DD+ has the advantage at low bit rates, i.e., 320, 256, 192 kbps. That makes it more attractive to IPTV providers. I would never use DD below 384 kbps and would prefer to use 448 kbps. I had our main ATSC broadcast channel set to 448 kbps and dialnorm set to –31dB.

Many (most) Blu-ray titles use 640 kbps for the DD tracks. Since most Blu-ray titles use Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio, it makes the DD+ vs. DD for them a moot point.

I rented Paranormal Activity 3 on HD using my 3Mb DSL connection. The picture quality seemed blotchy and washed out, but being that it looks like a low budget film I shouldn't expect to much. The audio was descent.

Awesome. I had no idea that it did that. Thank you guys so much for telling me! That box is going on ebay tonight! :)
Another option is the WDTV Live Hub....It streams DD+ audio from VUDU....I don't know about the WD Live SMP, though....The Hub has a 1TB HDD built in....VUDU does not allow downloads to it, though......

Another option is the WDTV Live Hub....It streams DD+ audio from VUDU....I don't know about the WD Live SMP, though....The Hub has a 1TB HDD built in....VUDU does not allow downloads to it, though......

Thanks but that kills my interest. I don't want to stream. I want to download. Otherwise, I could just use any blu player.

I signed up recently and on Tuesday evening put my $5.99 introductory credit toward renting "Drive" in HDX. I feared the worst when I got a "buffering" message just moments into the distributor logo at the very beginning, but fortunately that was the first and only such interruption.

My impressions are pretty good. The image from where we were sitting looked very good and the DD+ audio, whilst not as good as lossless, was pretty punchy and dynamic. From my admittedly limited experiences of streaming (I've seen some Netflix in SD & HD) right now Vudu is probably the closest thing to Blu-ray (from a technical standpoint) we're going to see in the short term so kudos to them for that. For the non-technical aspects of their service, I'm not so convinced...

Their range of films is very American mainstream-centric: great if you're only interested in the latest bangs & flashes that Hollywood musters up but what about all the other (usually better) films that are produced across the world?

I have done countless searches for a wide variety of titles and for the most part Vudu comes up blank. It should have a better range for a service that is promoting itself as the premium film viewer's experience.

This leads me to something else: price. To me, Netflix may not have the very latest content but provides real VFM with its a la carte approach. $6 for a HDX rental (or even $5 for HD) is a little steep IMO. I understand that these prices probably have more to do with the content owners than Vudu per se which makes me think they just don't get it.

I think I'll be using a combination of Netflix streaming with Blu-ray/DVDs for newer (or unavailable on streaming) content. As good as Vudu is from a technical standpoint, I just think it's a bit too expensive for anything other than very occasional use.

^ Pretty much nailed my thoughts. I love Vudu's quality, but it's a bit expensive for me to use more than occasionally.

But they do run a daily 99 cent deal (varying from new releases to older stuff), and usually they have a few "collections" that are cheaper (like in October they have a bunch of horror movies for 99 cents). So I do use it a couple times each month, but I rarely buy something full-priced.

For me, it's more of a supplement to Netflix, which is fine with me. I've said before there's not really an all-in-one service, so using a few different services is perfectly fine.

I signed up recently and on Tuesday evening put my $5.99 introductory credit toward renting "Drive" in HDX.

Drive is a good example of what's wrong with content providers and VUDU. I wanted to see it last week when I spotted it on their menu but it wasn't available until the release day this past Tuesday. Last week was when I MIGHT have sprung for the $6 rental but then Tuesday I get a Redbox alert that the DVD ($1) and Blu-ray ($1.50) of this film are available so guess where I go for this? I know this doesn't apply to your location in Wales but it does point out that VUDU would likely rent more movies if their prices for HD and HDX were lower by half...and an advanced screening would be better yet. My 2 cents.

Drive is a good example of what's wrong with content providers and VUDU. I wanted to see it last week when I spotted it on their menu but it wasn't available until the release day this past Tuesday. Last week was when I MIGHT have sprung for the $6 rental but then Tuesday I get a Redbox alert that the DVD ($1) and Blu-ray ($1.50) of this film are available so guess where I go for this? I know this doesn't apply to your location in Wales but it does point out that VUDU would likely rent more movies if their prices for HD and HDX were lower by half...and an advanced screening would be better yet. My 2 cents.

Well, that's the thing...Vudu doesn't require you to go to the kiosk (once to get it and once to return it) and also having to find it in stock. And of course being able to watch it in many cases a few weeks before you can get it at Redbox. You do pay for that convenience. Which may or may not be a big deal depending on your desire to watch new releases day-and-date and where your local Redbox is at and how well-stocked it is.

Also, $4-$6 has been the de-facto price for PPV or VOD for years. With rentals moving more towards that model, studios are trying to re-establish $4-$6 as the "normal" rental price while killing off or crippling Netflix and Redbox with delays and whatever other tactics they can come up with.

Problem is, Redbox and Netflix have already reset what a "normal" rental price is in the mindsets of most people. It's going to be hard/impossible to change that and get people back to thinking $4-$6 is a fair price for a rental, even if you can watch it a few weeks before it hits the cheaper services (the same reason they're not convincing me to go to the theater to pay a premium a couple of months before I can rent it).

I mean, I paid $4 for rentals from Blockbuster back-in-the-day, so it's not like that's really changed much....just moved from video stores to on-demand services at roughly the same price. But because of Netflix primarily, I now think that price is outrageous and for the most part, I refuse to pay it. I'll wait for it to hit Netflix, be it 28 days or 56 days or whenever it gets to their streaming offerings. I'm used to paying well less than a $1 now (average Netflix rental is around 60 cents per movie for me), so asking me to pay nearly 10x that much just isn't reasonable to me.

And Vudu does have some advanced screenings even before they hit the theater, but likewise, they're expensive (I've seen them from $12-$16). Of course, it's only expensive by rental standards, but cheap if you were planning on going to the theater to see it (even if my wife and I went to the theater, it would cost us more than that).

Their range of films is very American mainstream-centric: great if you're only interested in the latest bangs & flashes that Hollywood musters up but what about all the other (usually better) films that are produced across the world?

I have done countless searches for a wide variety of titles and for the most part Vudu comes up blank. It should have a better range for a service that is promoting itself as the premium film viewer's experience.

This is going to be a problem with any streaming service. VUDU actually has a much larger selection of 720p ("HD") and 1080p ("HDX") content than any other streaming option, certainly far better than Netflix.

Yes, there are blind spots, and foreign films are a big one, but VUDU has a very wide selection of indie films from small distributors. They are not all big studio blockbusters by any means.

You may find it frustrating to look for a specific title and not find it there. That's understandable. Some day, when you have some time to kill, try browsing through the catalog (there is a "Quality" sort option, so you can limit your options to HD or HDX if you want). You might be amazed at some of the obscure stuff you find in there, especially indie productions and classics that are very unlikely to be released on Blu-ray anytime soon.

All sensible comments; I can't disagree with any of them.

Drive hit Blu here at the same time. However, the combination of being eager to see it sooner than later and being keen to try out Vudu meant rather than wait for LoveFilm to send me the disc (no Redbox here, just a handful of Blockbusters left standing!) I'd use the credit Vudu kindly gave me.

I do appreciate some of the advantages Vudu has but in concurring with comments above, in the main I would rather wait until I'm sent the disc than shell out (the usual) Vudu prices. The 99c movie of the day offer is a good idea even the selection of late hasn't been any use to me. The pre-theatrical concept is interesting although it is understandably more expensive. As much as I'm eager to check out Ti West's "The Innkeepers", for $12 I think I'd rather wait a little bit...

Edit:

In addition to some of the comments posted whilst I was writing this post I would like to add that $12 is about the price of 1 cinema ticket in this part of the world, so I certainly don't regard it as unreasonable!

My local dealer was out to my house yesterday, looking at some ways to improve my HT experience. One of his comments was that VUDU was the best way to stream movies. I've done some research and it looks to be true, although more expensive than some other options (for the movies themselves), it allows the most immediate access to newly released titles at the best quality.
My question has to do with the delivery devices. I know many here use their blu-ray player or other multifunction device, but I have a decent Blu-ray I can use.
It looks like the least expensive alternative would be the RCA Wi-fi streaming media player they sell at Wallmart for $39. Does that work as well as something like an Oppo-93? Is there something else worth looking at? I would like it to be wireless.
The processor I'm looking at (Anthem MRX300) only has 4 HDMI inputs, so it may make sense to use something that is multi-functional.
I understand some Vudu devices can download movies instead of streaming, what are those options?
Thanks

It looks like the least expensive alternative would be the RCA Wi-fi streaming media player they sell at Wallmart for $39. Does that work as well as something like an Oppo-93? Is there something else worth looking at? I would like it to be wireless.
The processor I'm looking at (Anthem MRX300) only has 4 HDMI inputs, so it may make sense to use something that is multi-functional.
I understand some Vudu devices can download movies instead of streaming, what are those options?
ThanksI'd never heard of that RCA player (http://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-Wi-Fi-Streaming-Media-Player/17693168); I may just buy one for the hell of it to play around with. At $39, no big deal.

Currently, VUDU players which can download and store include the PS3 and a couple of LG BD players with built-in 250 GB HDDs for local media storage (BD590 and BD690). Of course, the original VUDU STB, discontinued over a year ago, also stores downloads, if you can find one.

I'd never heard of that RCA player (http://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-Wi-Fi-Streaming-Media-Player/17693168); I may just buy one for the hell of it to play around with. At $39, no big deal.

Currently, VUDU players which can download and store include the PS3 and a couple of LG BD players with built-in 250 GB HDDs for local media storage (BD590 and BD690). Of course, the original VUDU STB, discontinued over a year ago, also stores downloads, if you can find one.I saw that RCA player at Target in the $40 range as well.

I saw that RCA player at Target in the $40 range as well.

I see it at Walmart, sometimes it's $40 and sometimes it's $50. They also usually have a cheapo Magnavox Blu-ray player with built-in wifi that streams Vudu for $68. I've seen this item in two of my local Walmarts.

I was curious about this RCA media player, so I checked to see if anyone had uploaded a hands on review of it at youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGmycgxlHpI
The Netflix app is the old Ver 5 that was on the PS3. But the reviewer isn't too fond of the included remote.

My wife and I watched Sabrina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_%281995_film%29) (1995) last night on VUDU since it was their 99 cent Valentine's Day special. The HDX stream was flawless, the picture gorgeous and the sound was DD - this was on my WD TV Live streamer. A nice experience and well worth the buck.

My wife and I watched Sabrina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_%281995_film%29) (1995) last night on VUDU since it was their 99 cent Valentine's Day special. The HDX stream was flawless, the picture gorgeous and the sound was DD - this was on my WD TV Live streamer. A nice experience and well worth the buck.

It's coming out on Blu this year :)

I have a Gateway LT20 Netbook that plays DVD rips using Media Player Classic Homecinema just fine, and also works fine with Verizon Flexview. This week I tried using the Netbook with VUDUToGo on the train (no WiFi)and was quite disappointed. The audio was fine, but the video stuttered and couldn't keep up. The movie I had downloaded was SD. I also tried it with the (free) PAN AM pilot episode and the performance was the same- unwatchable!

The Netbook has a 1.6Ghz Atom processor, 1GB memory, and runs Win7 Starter SP1. This seems to match the Adobe AIR client requirements (installed with the VUDUToGo client). I'm running the Netbook in "High Performance" mode (not Power Saver or Balanced).

Anybody know how to "tweak" the client (or the Netbook) to get it to work with a Netbook? Would another GB of memory do the trick, or is this a processor issue?

--hourglass

Maybe because it's only a single core CPU. The last time I tried VUDU on my netbook it was fine. and that has a 1.2Ghz dual core CPU(no hyperthreading) I guess i need to check it out again.

I also run all my PCs, Laptops in balanced mode. Since if it needs more processing power, it will increase the speed. Although my Netbook always runs at 1.2Ghz since the CPU can't go to a lower multiplier.

Just watched some of the 3d trailors using my PS3, was impressed!

You will lose that bet. The advantage of DD+ is 7.1, DD is 5.1, DD+ is better than DD at low bit rates and is probably the reason IPTV providers have an interest in it. Roger Dressler of Dolby Labs (now retired) has covered this subject many times.In a recent discussion in another thread Roger Dressler stated that the difference in encoding efficiency of DD+ 5.1 as compared to basic DD 5.1 is generally 2:1. I asked if that meant that the 384 Kbps 5.1 DD+ sound streamed by Netflix was roughly equivalent to basic DD 5.1 at 768 Mbps and he confirmed that, but was doubtful that any service was streaming DD+ 5.1 encoded at 384 Kbps as that was a common bit rate used for encoding basic DD 5.1 for television broadcast. It took a few posts to convince him that Netflix was doing that (with some discussion to clarify the structure of DD+ and what its "core 5.1 encoding" is). Here are some relevant excerpts:

The reason to use DD+ is to save transmission bitrate. There is no particular advantage once it hits the AVR until or unless the DD+ steps beyond the capabilities of DD, for example by using much higher bitrates (like 1.0 Mbps) or 7.1 channel programs.So the 384 Kbps DD+ Netflix uses should be roughly equivalent to basic DD at what bit rate? It seems unlikely that the increased efficiency could be worth screwing over the many customers with older AVRs which can't decode DD+.There's approximately a 2:1 difference in efficiency. But DD at 384 kbps is standard broadcast quality (as in regular HBO DBS and cable services), which is already very good, so I'd be surprised to see that bitrate used for DD+. How do you tell the bitrate and codec being used?The 384 number comes from this blog post (http://blog.netflix.com/2011/03/netflix-lowers-data-usage-by-23-for.html) and the codec, well (http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/content/streaming-service/netflix-ps3.html)... :)So by that estimation, DD+ at 384 Kbps should approach the quality possible for basic DD at 768 Kbps?Yes, but Netflix is not going to do that.If indeed they are using 384 kbps for DD+, it should make for a very good result.
That's not to say that any of Netflix's 384 Kbps DD+ 5.1 encodings are necessarily superior to a corresponding 448 Kbps basic DD 5.1 encodings on DVDs, but at that bit rate they potentially could be.

To bring this back to the thread topic, has VUDU ever stated the bit rate of DD+ 5.1 as used in its streams (or DD+ 7.1 recently introduced for some streams)? EDIT: A VUDU engineer answered that question once in their site forums here (http://forum.vudu.com/showpost.php?p=19056&postcount=9); the answer was 256 Kbps. That was back in 2007, so that may well have changed since (EDIT: I was wrong--the post was from March of 2008). I'd certainly expect them to be using a higher bit rate for their newer 7.1 channel DD+ encodings.

Back in 2007 VUDU was only downloading the content and it was only SD at that time. They didn't offer HD until later. And then streaming is more recent.
I've had VUDU over four years now. Things have certainly changed a lot since I first got my VUDU boxes.

That's not to say that any of Netflix's 384 Kbps DD+ 5.1 encodings are necessarily superior to a corresponding 448 Kbps basic DD 5.1 encodings on DVDs, but at that bit rate they potentially could be.Is there a way to see what the actual bit rates are? Folks must understand bit rates can change with each title and subject to change with different encodes for the same title. With data caps implemented or being implemented I would say the IPTV providers are interested in lower bit rates, not higher.

I would think that if folks were really concerned about top quality sound (and pic) they would simply rent or purchase the Blu-ray disc. For sometime now most titles have been released on Blu-ray with Dolby TrueHD (http://www.dolby.com/us/en/consumer/technology/home-theater/dolby-truehd.html) and/or DTS HD-Master Audio (http://www.dts.com/consumers/sound-technology/blu-ray-audio.aspx). Both are lossless formats.

Disclaimer: I do own stock in Dolby Labs, this info is available in a personal summary that is linked in my signature line.

I was pretty impressed with my first VUDU watch. Put on Troll Hunter using my freebie, and found the video and audio to be excellent for streaming. I also liked that I could watch it again within 48 hours of first viewing.

I did get buffering on the second run through, but my internet connection has been flaky. Maybe I should step up to Time Warner's Turbo offering.

I also find that for the price, VUDU is worth the new releases and the HD experience. I just don't see the worth of comparing it to Redbox's $1 discs. Two very different markets (even though I use them both.)

I was pretty impressed with my first VUDU watch. Put on Troll Hunter using my freebie, and found the video and audio to be excellent for streaming. I also liked that I could watch it again within 48 hours of first viewing.

I did get buffering on the second run through, but my internet connection has been flaky. Maybe I should step up to Time Warner's Turbo offering.

I also find that for the price, VUDU is worth the new releases and the HD experience. I just don't see the worth of comparing it to Redbox's $1 discs. Two very different markets (even though I use them both.)

My first experience with VUDU was flaky too, buffering and kicked down from HDX to HD early in the movie "Cowboys and Aliens". After I swapped out the router (Linksys to Buffalo) the last 2 movies I have watched have been flawless. I am hard-wired so it wasn't a wireless problem, whatever issues I was having with the Linksys router weren't readily apparent. I also have the standard Road Runner plan 10Mbps down/1Mbps up which occasionally spikes higher early in the download.

I'm hardwired, too, with a D-link router. But all my computers have had some issues with internet with different routers, so something else is going on with mine.

Is there a way to see what the actual bit rates are? Folks must understand bit rates can change with each title and subject to change with different encodes for the same title. With data caps implemented or being implemented I would say the IPTV providers are interested in lower bit rates, not higher.Apparently some AVRs will tell you the bit rate of the sound stream they're processing, though not mine (it will tell me the format and the sample rate). I suspect that Netflix's sound encodings are CBR, but I can't prove it.

Netflix obviously wants to reach the largest group of customers for their streaming video service as possible and for that reason tries to keep the bit rate of their streams as low as they reasonable can, but 4800 Kbps 1080p video plus 384 Kbps for 5.1 sound is only 5.2 Mbps and you don't need network service any faster than 7 Mbps to stay ahead of that (6 might do it if available bandwidth on your connection to their servers is always rock solid). Not everyone requires their highest quality video and sound and the 192 Kbps stereo encodings are pretty good, with Pro Logic matrixed surround elements usually intact. Right now titles with available DD+ sound are a minor subset of their library, being only about 1000 (7% or so; about a third of their titles have available HD video encodings).

Certainly this doesn't compare with lossless audio on BDs. The name of the game in streaming is convenience, not maximum quality. I never said that Netflix's DD+ 5.1 sound was the best available, just that it was very good and possibly better than DD 5.1 on DVDs.

I'm not such an avid A/V-ophile as to require the finest quality from everything that I watch, and I can't afford the top spec equipment with which to enjoy it in any case. I want to see the big screen, big sound blockbuster special effects extravaganzas on BD first, but good-to-excellent quality streaming or downloads (ala VUDU, etc) are good enough for most things. Anything to keep from having to drag my lazy ass out to obtain a disc or even to walk across the room to find and insert one into a drive :D.

Anything to keep from having to drag my lazy ass out to obtain a disc or even to walk across the room to find and insert one into a drive :D.I always like when folks tell it like it is :). Came from a small farm in the south so a little physical work does not bother me, in fact, my Ph.Ds say I need to do more of it :o. Several years ago there was a commercial that showed a live human head on a pedestal because everything was automated and we had lost our need for mobility. It seems like that is the direction we, as humans, are headed. I love my toys, gadgets, remotes, pads, GPS, phones, etc. as much as the next person but in some areas I prefer some old fashion devices.

For rentals, I'd prefer streaming.

If it's something I'd like to keep, I'd rather have the disc. I like that Blu-ray players can do both.

Looking for a list of bd players that are currently able to play vudu 3d.

Does anyone know if Vudu 3d movies are in 1080p when using a PS3?

Does anyone know if Vudu 3d movies are in 1080p when using a PS3?I posted this in another thread where you were asking this--I'm reposting it just in case anyone else in this thread cares about the answer:Here's a statement from a VUDU engineer as posted to their forum on November 1st (here (http://forum.vudu.com/showpost.php?p=122292&postcount=6)) which confirms 720p only:
Yes, this is a PS3 limitation. They do not allow 1080P 3D for games, and VUDU is treated as a game. We are working on getting better 3D support from Sony.So only BDs played on the PS3 get 1080p24 for 3D; games and other apps get 720p60 for 3D.

Vudu being considered a "game" also explains why we're locked into 60Hz for 1080p and RGB color format.

Vudu being considered a "game" also explains why we're locked into 60Hz for 1080p and RGB color format.I don't know that VUDU is considered a game. There may only be one set of APIs available for construction of 3rd party applications, whatever they might be. Those APIs apparently do not expose all the same capabilities for video playback as are available for the BD player function. Who knows what the rationale for that is.

I check VUDU's 99 cent Rental of the Day fairly often. Today's offering is the 2011 remake of Footloose (70 % Rotten Tomatoes).

http://images2.vudu.com/poster2/209964-m

http://www.vudu.com/movies/#!content/209964

Does anyone think posting this is a good idea or is it too temporary to be of use? All comments are welcomed.

To bring this back to the thread topic, has VUDU ever stated the bit rate of DD+ 5.1 as used in its streams (or DD+ 7.1 recently introduced for some streams)? EDIT: A VUDU engineer answered that question once in their site forums here (http://forum.vudu.com/showpost.php?p=19056&postcount=9); the answer was 256 Kbps. That was back in 2007, so that may well have changed since (EDIT: I was wrong--the post was from March of 2008). I'd certainly expect them to be using a higher bit rate for their newer 7.1 channel DD+ encodings.

My ears tell me that whatever bitrate VUDU uses for DD+ 5.1, it does not sound anywhere near as good as a regular DD 5.1 on DVD or, of course, anywhere near the sound quality on blu-rays.

Which is why I limit streaming to films that are primarily dialogue based and documentaries.

If VUDU wants more money from me, they need to up the sound quality. There is no way I was going to watch Mission Impossible (Ghost Protocol) via VUDU. I waited for the blu-ray disc rental from block buster.

Does anyone think posting this is a good idea or is it too temporary to be of use? All comments are welcomed.

If you want to take that on, I'm sure someone will it useful. I personally won't, since I have it sent via text everyday. And it's prominent on their site and their Facebook page and their Twitter feed. But I know not everyone has a texting plan or uses Facebook or Twitter or wants to go to the site every day to check.

So in a nutshell, I'm sure someone would find it useful if you posted it here, but it's information easily found various other places. I would find the concept similar to posting the new releases from InstantWatcher every day here....why not just go to InstantWatcher?

My ears tell me that whatever bitrate VUDU uses for DD+ 5.1, it does not sound anywhere near as good as a regular DD 5.1 on DVD or, of course, anywhere near the sound quality on blu-rays.Someone from Dolby who worked on the DD+ encoding system stated in these forums that the old encoder was twice as efficient as basic Dolby, so even 256 Kbps DD+ has the potential to exceed the quality of 448 Kbps basic DD on DVDs; of course, it can't touch the lossless encodings usually used on BDs. Dolby recently announced a new DD+ encoder which exceeds that 2:1 efficiency without requiring new decoding firmware in DD+ capable AVRs and STBs.

Someone from Dolby who worked on the DD+ encoding system stated in these forums that the old encoder was twice as efficient as basic Dolby, so even 256 Kbps DD+ has the potential to exceed the quality of 448 Kbps basic DD on DVDs; of course, it can't touch the lossless encodings usually used on BDs. Dolby recently announced a new DD+ encoder which exceeds that 2:1 efficiency without requiring new decoding firmware in DD+ capable AVRs and STBs.

Perhaps the "potential" might be there, but there is something lacking, particularly on the low end, when it comes to VUDU streaming.

It basically sounds equivalent to cable TV in 5.1 -- perhaps a tad better.

Why doesn't VUDU implement a choice for the consumer -- those that have high bandwidth get better sound quality too.

Perhaps the "potential" might be there, but there is something lacking, particularly on the low end, when it comes to VUDU streaming.

It basically sounds equivalent to cable TV in 5.1 -- perhaps a tad better.

Why doesn't VUDU implement a choice for the consumer -- those that have high bandwidth get better sound quality too.Sounds tons better than that on my equipment. Not as good as BDs, but far, far better than DVDs or television. The MI: Ghost Protocol soundtrack was impressive--sharp imaging and lots of boom. Whatever.

If you want to take that on, I'm sure someone will it useful. I personally won't, since I have it sent via text everyday. And it's prominent on their site and their Facebook page and their Twitter feed. But I know not everyone has a texting plan or uses Facebook or Twitter or wants to go to the site every day to check.

So in a nutshell, I'm sure someone would find it useful if you posted it here, but it's information easily found various other places. I would find the concept similar to posting the new releases from InstantWatcher every day here....why not just go to InstantWatcher?

Fair enough, those same thoughts went through my mind. As an aside the 99 cent movie for today is Captain America.

I don't use any of those social networks so your comment about getting a text alert from VUDU is a surprise. There is nothing that I can find on the VUDU website that allows for that option. Do you have a link?

Fair enough, those same thoughts went through my mind. As an aside the 99 cent movie for today is Captain America.

I don't use any of those social networks so your comment about getting a text alert from VUDU is a surprise. There is nothing that I can find on the VUDU website that allows for that option. Do you have a link?Log into your Twitter account and follow "vudufans"; enable your account to text tweets to you and turn on mobile notifications for vudufans.

Following tweets by VUDU, Netflix and Amazon is the only reason I have a Twitter account. I also follow AmazonVideo and amazonappstore with mobile notifications enabled and get tweeted with the Amazon 99 cent movie of the day and free Amazon Android app of the day.

Log into your Twitter account and follow "vudufans"; enable your account to text tweets to you and turn on mobile notifications for vudufans.

Following tweets by VUDU, Netflix and Amazon is the only reason I have a Twitter account. I also follow AmazonVideo and amazonappstore with mobile notifications enabled and get tweeted with the Amazon 99 cent movie of the day and free Amazon Android app of the day.

That's exactly how I use Twitter (see, it can be useful and you don't have to get bogged down into the social aspect of it....heck, I haven't even logged onto Twitter for 6 months or so, since I only use it for text notifications of a few things).

Vudu seems to only post a few things each week (the daily 99 cent movie, the new releases, and they run a weekly photo contest at Facebook where you can win $5 credit for identifying screencaps, so they send Tweets when that contest starts each week). I think it ends up being about 10 texts a week, which is ok. Used to have Redbox set up that way, but they posted too much crap to their Twitter feed (in the neighborhood of 10-20 crap Tweets each day), but you can sign up for text alerts for the free code only through their site to only get those.

Thanks for the text tip guys. I did sign up for a Twitter account to get the alerts but it seemed like a hassle just for this one feature so I emailed VUDU support and they have forwarded the feature request (for a text alert) to the engineering dept. and hopefully it will show up some day on their website.

I'm kind of doubting that they'll add that when they're already tweeting the information and so many people already have Twitter accounts.

I emailed vudu and the only response I got was to say they would respond in 24 to 48 hours-and no they never did.

So I thought I would try here. I have had my vudu box unhooked for a long time......many months. In that time, I also switched from Time Warner to Fios and have a new router.

The vudu is saying it cannot resolve host and auto network set up does not work. I have no idea what to input if I want to manually set up the network. It is asking for network address, ip address, network mask, Gateway and DNS.

I have the router key, mac address etc. (all on the label on the side of the Fios router)

What do I need to input? Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks,

Judy

I have the new sony blu-ray player that can play the Vudu DD+ audio. The audio sounds the same to me between HD and HDX. I thought HDX was supposed to have better sound but maybe that changed with DD+ streams. I am trying to determine if HDX offers any advantage when you have a 720P display. Is the audio the same quality between the HD and HDX?

Is the audio the same quality between the HD and HDX?Often, but not always--check the "More Info" tab in a title's description, which will tell you what sound encoding you'll get with each video level.

I emailed vudu and the only response I got was to say they would respond in 24 to 48 hours-and no they never did.

So I thought I would try here. I have had my vudu box unhooked for a long time......many months. In that time, I also switched from Time Warner to Fios and have a new router.

The vudu is saying it cannot resolve host and auto network set up does not work. I have no idea what to input if I want to manually set up the network. It is asking for network address, ip address, network mask, Gateway and DNS.

I have the router key, mac address etc. (all on the label on the side of the Fios router)
Is it a standalone Vudu box? Are you sure it's physically seeing the network? Are there any notes in the manual or documentation on resetting the box to defaults?

Thanks, I went back to the beginning and started all over again. Resetting helped. The box downloaded the new software and I am up and running!

My experience was this:

I bought A Fish Called Wanda on Blu Ray and it said I could have $5 credit on Vudo so I downloaded Vudo for my PS3 and looked but couldn't find anything I was interested in. Or maybe you couldn't buy anything for $5 and I don't rent movies.

That's all.

Maybe I'll check back into it again someday.

-Brian

I bought A Fish Called Wanda on Blu Ray and it said I could have $5 credit on Vudo so I downloaded Vudo for my PS3 and looked but couldn't find anything I was interested in. Or maybe you couldn't buy anything for $5 and I don't rent movies.Yeah--that would be it. There's probably nothing to buy for $5 (or very little). Not renting a movie when it's free is pretty hardcore :D.

I rented "Chronicle" the other night but the audio was only Dolby Surround not 5.1 as listed. Not sure what was up with that. "God Bless America" which I rented last month played 5.1.

I rented "Chronicle" the other night but the audio was only Dolby Surround not 5.1 as listed. Not sure what was up with that. "God Bless America" which I rented last month played 5.1.Huh. It's listed as being DD+ for all resolutions.

Dolby Surround is listed for stereo, at least it used to be. So is it stereo DD+?

Dolby Surround is listed for stereo, at least it used to be. So is it stereo DD+?I'm referring to what's listed here (http://www.vudu.com/movies/#more_info/296206/Chronicle) on their site, "Dolby Digital Plus 5.1" for SD, HD and HDX. If it had to send stereo to your device for some reason, I'd expect it to have some flavor of DPL matrix surround intact.