We got one of these in and played around with it. what I'm wondering if this type of product will really take off or be a big dud? Basically, its a good version of pay per view with IMO a very premium price ($400 for the box and ~$4 for a new release rental). I personally don't see the huge value in this but what does everyone else think? We have members here who have spent quite a bit over the years on players, Kscape etc so I'm interested in the opinions of members here that tend to be more focused on higher end options like myself.

I think this product category has huge future growth especially if someone can do a Itunes + movies + television with a reasonable on demand service in one machine etc but I don't know if a movies only machine will work out. Obviously being a mostly online machine, it can advance to just about anything through software and the like but what about getting off the ground?

My mini review of the product:
-The picture quality seems decent but by no means outstanding or anything close to what a HT enthusiast has come to expect with blu-ray/HD-dvd. It seemed on par with a good dvd player.
In fairness, I didn't test this on a amazing tv, it was the 65" sharp LCD.
-The remote seems flimsy but its very easy and simple to use and 'brainless'
-the navigation menu onscreen is very fast, responsive and has a very good image quality
-Testing it with a so-so internet connection and it worked great as far as previews, buying movies, getting movies to play. I was impressed with how quick it worked, very suprising
- The setup and wiring is plain and straightforward, dumbed down for the very average consumer to say the least (Think bose setup if you have ever done one)
- It appears that when you buy a movie (most were 15-20$ each) you only get to store it on the unit(supposed to hold 100 hours of owned content). Personally, I find this to be very over priced compared to getting a physical copy of a movie at full (or more) retail pricing. Also, it is unclear what happens if the box dies (do you get to re "buy" the movies for free?).
- The on screen navigation was very easy to get used to and almost seemed to simple. According to one of their website reviews, it appears that a bulk of their employees worked for tivo in the past.

I also am somewhat interested in this piece. I'm just not sure of its value. No, that's not true, I'm sure. Its way overpriced. That said, the concept is cool, if the PQ is at least DVD quality, then it kills the Apple TV unit. More functionality should be available by firmware update. It seems like it would be absolutely necessary to expand the functionality for this to be successful. Its still way cheaper than a media server, its legal and its cool. IT won't sell big numbers unless it can do more. Netflix is still only 20 bucks a month with no upfront costs. $400 is pretty pricey to have instant access, plus the rental fee.
I know that they probably need to sell the boxes at this premium price, and they could still be losing on the hardware, but the general consumer doesn't want to spend $$ upfront for this type of thing. TIVO still loses money on the hardware, even with a proven winning product. How many of the HIDef series 3 TIVOs have sold? Not as many as they need to. At $800 bucks, plus 20-30 per month its too expensive for mass acceptance. The new under $300 HD TIVO has a greater chance to succeed, but even TIVO knows that the monthly charge is a killer. They are offering transfers to lifetime sub owners just to sell the boxes.
Anyway, the VUDU box looks pretty cool and the concept SHOULD sell and be popular, but I doubt that there are enough people willing to shell out 400 bucks upfront to make it a success.

Yikes, i thought about it some more: If you were to rent 100 new releases in a year, the cost of the unit + movies would equal to $8/each. That is pretty damn steep! that's almost renting about 2 movies a week, not a huge amount but not an unreasonably low amount of movies either.