Walmart buys Vudu streaming movie service
If you've been looking for a sign that streaming movie services are becoming mainstream, consider this: Walmart says it's acquiring Vudu, the streaming music service now available on a number of TVs and Blu-ray players. The service—which recently added an apps-style element that provides widget-based access to content such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and The New York Times, among others—enables broadband users who own a Vudu-enabled device to receive online content directly on their TVs without a PC.
According to a Vudu press release, the company has licensing deals with most of the major movie studios, offering a library of approximately 16,000 movies, including what they claim is the largest number of high-def, 1080p movies available anywhere.
In our tests, Vudu's proprietary HDX format was clearly the best-looking streaming movie format we've seen, and the only one with a 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus soundtrack. Vudu originally provided its services via its own settop box, but told us at CES that it was getting out of the hardware business now that more companies were offering Vudu-enabled TVs and Blu-ray players. At CES, Vudu said that it was adding Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, and Toshiba to its existing partnerships with LG Electronics, Mitsubishi, and Vizio.
—James K. Willcox