I have never taken on any of the other upstarts that seemed neat but also seemed destined for failure like Frox, Unity, DiVix, Voom, Sun Rocket etc. even though they all wined and dined me to support them.

I attended Vudu’s training with a very pessimistic attitude and mainly went to learn about it so I could discourage my customers from purchasing.

Why did I choose to “expose” myself by getting involved with Vudu? Mainly because they are doing things differently, have studio support and are the content leader, plus, they seem to be very responsive to change and innovation.

Your article is both interesting and disappointing as it leaves out quite a few details. Here is my take on some of them:

First, the business of Vudu laying off 15% of its workforce. This was a dirty rumor being spread around at CEDIA by scared competitors and I heard it often. According to Vudu, YES, they DID let go 17 (I think that number is correct) employees that were in jobs that were no longer needed at that stage of the game and hired more than that to replace them, mostly with sales and marketing types. BTW, Vudu still has some openings.

I can’t tell you if Vudu will be around next year or the next…..I hope so, but, even if they aren’t most people will be out anywhere from $99 – $1,299, depending on the model purchased and where purchased. That isn’t going to break the bank, and, any purchased content will still be available for viewing.

Second, you mention the Apple TV as it compares to Vudu. Although they will be viewed as competitors by many, there isn’t much competition when you compare the two. You seem to think that Vudu’s only advantage is more storage where it does have a huge advantage – 160mb on the Apple TV vs. 250mb OR 1tb on the Vudu.

What about the content? Apple TV offers only a small number of HD Movies, despite their blatant lie posted on their website of having more HD than anyone else. Vudu publicly posts that they have over 1,300 HD Titles and it appears that way (I haven’t counted them, but have done some quick filters to see what they have). These are ALL movies as they don’t yet offer the TV shows in HD.

Apple offers only a few hundred movies in HD, and, in fact, most of their 3,000 titles appear to be TV shows and not movies. I say “appear” because it is not easy to weed through their titles and they are quiet about things.

We do know that they did not meet their goals by listening to Steve Jobs occasional slip ups at Mac World. They targeted Vudu in January and said that they would have 1,000 movies (all resolutions) by the end of February. They were at 600 and blamed it on the studios. They also removed the count from their on-screen GUI with a new software release. Since then they have been tight lipped with news slipping out in October that they were still far behind their internal goals.

[b]Next, look at the technology: [/b]

Vudu is a much more robust system with a far better GUI (IMHO). The Apple TV GUI is slow and clunky by comparison (yes, we have sold and installed these for clients too).

Vudu has made constant improvements and enhancements (like the recent Vudu Labs announcement).

Vudu’s search and “drill down” features are the best available….want to see all of the movies that have a certain actor/actress, director, word in the title, etc. it is fast and easy AND you can get there from multiple ways.

Vudu offers weekly employee picks, and an assortment of collections (like holiday movies, featured actors/actresses, 85 movies honoring Warner Brothers 85th anniversary, etc.). These features help get people out of the rut of only watching the blockbusters, expanding their enjoyment of their equipment investment (good for my business!).

Vudu has the strongest and easiest to use Parental Control that I have seen. In addition, so children aren’t cheated from being able to view Bugs Bunny or other such titles w/o either having their parents select it for them or easing the parental control settings, they have added a NR Family rating to the traditional MPAA ratings. This is a flaw in Parental Control in most, if not all, other systems.

Vudu offers instant 1080p HD Movies compared to Apple’s 720p that is often delayed due to their client/server arrangement. As more people use their service, they either have to do major hardware upgrades OR the service gets worse and worse. Vudu’s peer to peer networking avoids this.

So, more storage, more content (HD and standard), higher resolution, better GUI, better Parental Control, better expandability and a company that can respond quickly to changes and enhancements. More than just a storage advantage!

Even with the Vudu Lab beta, the Apple TV still has the advantage of pulling pictures from your Mac or PC and offers an array of special effects….so, buy an Apple TV or iPod for that function and leave the movies to Vudu.