Missing key ingredients

[redwein]

Re: Missing key ingredients

To compete with real DVD rental, idea price should be close to a nice DVD player ($150-$200)

The price will go down over time but I'm not sure if it really needs to be compared equally with DVD rental on price. There is a giant difference between dealing with the hassles of physical media, both in rental and owning, and being able to watch movies instantly. For me, that justifies even the current price. But it's true that the lower the price, the more customers it will attract so Vudu needs to find the right price point to sustain their business.

[NA9D]

Re: Missing key ingredients

I didn't know Vudu just lower its price to $299 just 2 weeks after its launch. That's isn't a good sign, at least it tells us it wasn't priced right to start with and it didn't sell enough units as they wished.
Now $299 will boost some sales that's for sure. Yet for the long run, $299 is still too high. To compete with real DVD rental, idea price should be close to a nice DVD player ($150-$200)

No, it doesn't say anything. The price was lowered because of a coupon code that was released. It's simply temporary until October 23rd. The price on the website w/o the coupon code is still $399.

I notice you are disparaging Vudu quite a bit. I take it that you don't have a box and your goal then is to come in these forums and be what, disruptive?

As for your comparison to DVD players there's some major differences:

1.) HD Capable DVD players are more expensive than the Vudu. The Vudu can do HD.
2.) Non HD DVD players (and HD ones for that matter) don't have built in 250 Gig hard drives. Compare the price of the Vudu to other media players out in the market place (AppleTV, iPods, D-Link Media Lounge, TivoHD, Tivo Series 3, etc.) and you'll find that the price is very much in line with similar devices.

[timchen]

Re: Missing key ingredients

I notice you are disparaging Vudu quite a bit. I take it that you don't have a box and your goal then is to come in these forums and be what, disruptive?

Now that's just bad argument. Although I don't have a box, I am not here to discuss video quality either. I am here to see if there is enough reason for an individual to switch his video rental/owning habit. To find out that you need to hear neutral voice, not the voice of whom already own a box.

Now the fact is vudu lower its price, though a coupon or not. I believe the timing still tells us something. I feel sorry for those who bought it without coupon.

As a end user, I don't care if vudu box has build-in hard drive and DVD player has a DVD drive. Unless I can use the hard drive space for other purposes, I really don't care. Those are what takes to do business. Everything converts to money vs. feature here. Renting actual DVD disc needs a DVD player to play, vudu user needs a vudu box to watch movie. It's simple like that.

[NA9D]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Now that's just bad argument. Although I don't have a box, I am not here to discuss video quality either. I am here to see if there is enough reason for an individual to switch his video rental/owning habit. To find out that you need to hear neutral voice, not the voice of whom already own a box.

I hope you are open minded about the box. However, you seem to have made up your mind that Vudu is going to fail. If this is what you believe and you are trying to dissuade people from buying a box by being a "voice for the other side" I would reply that this isn't the place for that as this is a support site for customers and customers to be of Vudu.

Again, if you are open minded, that's great and I encourage you to continue to explore the options about the box.

I think the best people to find out from about the box and if you should get one are indeed those who have it. How can someone who has never experienced something say anything knowledgeable about it? If you have never tasted fillet mignon, would you ask someone else who has never tasted it either if it was good? If you are interested in trying a new restaurant in town, do you ask someone who's never tried it if you should go there? No, in both cases, you ask people who have experienced the food or the restaurant and get positive and negative feedback that way.

There's plenty of bloggers out there who have given negative publicity to the Vudu.

Now the fact is vudu lower its price, though a coupon or not. I believe the timing still tells us something. I feel sorry for those who bought it without coupon.

You know absolutely NOTHING about the timing of the coupon. I can't go into details about why the coupon was released as I am under NDA on a number of aspects, but it had absolutely ZERO, ZIP, NADA to do with the fact that boxes weren't selling. Your conclusion is just plain wrong.

As a end user, I don't care if vudu box has build-in hard drive and DVD player has a DVD drive. Unless I can use the hard drive space for other purposes, I really don't care.

Whatever. I want a large hard drive in my video storage device so it can hold the content I want.

Are you considering purchasing a box? What is your major objection to it other than the price of the box? Let's engage in a discussion of that but please don't come in here just to be a voice of negativity to try to scare people away.

[timchen]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Let's be open minded.

Did you read my other posts in another thread? The one I said Vudu should sell low cost USB key (instead of a expensive box) to enable user use their PC to watch rental movie? I also pointed out how Vudu can make content portable. Do those count as constructive suggestions?

There are feature I digg about Vudu like instant rental, yet there are things I don't like such as high initial cost for movie watching and non portability contents.

I don't think "Praise only, please!" is open minded.

Note: That's all I had to say, I won't be coming back for a while.

[Jim G]

Re: Missing key ingredients

I would agree the price of 399.00 might be a deal breaker for some people "BUT" I have a unit and t is really slick and to be able to stream movies and play almost instantly without any skipping is pretty amazing. For a version 1.0 product I think it is really nice.

I don't quite understand why some people say it is going to fail without even giving it a chance. Give em a break if you don't want one no one is making you get one. For a technology enthusiast I think it is great that someone is offering me another way to get my digital media. For those of us who love the digital age we should embrace a product like this.

I am sure VUDU is negotiating the best possible deal they can with the motion picture industry and we all know they are tough to deal with. The more ways we can get digital content and the more people that start wanting digital content will only help in getting Hollywood to see how we really want to receive our content.

They music industry finally woke up to the fact they could not stop illegal digital music downloading so they started offering legal music downloads. It has been a pretty big success for the music industry. Although they have not stop illegal downloads they are getting a piece of the digital pie now.

So the more people that get on board wanting streaming movies, and if the demand is great enough maybe we will start getting the ability to download a movie the day it comes out on DVD. Yes that day will come it just remains to be seen how long that will take. The demand will have to be there first and VUDU can only help in that effort

This is the future and I can only embrace it Sure there needs to be improvement's and I have confidence there will be. I also have confidence there will be enough people get on board to make VUDU as a company succeed.

To me it is a matter of convenience I don't like going to the video store and renting a movie If I cant get it on dish network or stream it on the internet I don't watch it. But most people don't see it that way "yet", but this is the future and more and more people will be adopting it.

I do think that VUDU will have to sweeten the deal to get people to grab hold of this and run with it.

I think that VUDU should offer free podcasts that would draw in some more. Video and audio podcasts are really starting to gain in popularity and there is lot of good content out there that is free. I watch a lot of them on my IPOD and Iphone but it sure would be great to be able watch them on my TV. Offering some free content would be a great big plus and the cost should be minimal to VUDU since it should only require a software upgrade. TIVO has started offering this content on the new boxes.


I would hope that TV shows would be coming soon and that will get more people interested. The $50.00 movie credit with a new box is a big plus.

Offering whole seasons of past and present TV shows would be something else I am sure will be added in the near future.

I think promoting the product more would help. Send a unit to Cali Lewis on Geekbrief TV to do a review on it. Try to get get some exposure on Twit.tv or some on revision 3 stuff. If you start offering podcast these guy will help you promote it.

So in closing I would like to say IMHO for a version 1 product I think it has lot of promise. It is far from perfect but it sure is pretty darn good.

Jim G

VUDU Evangelist

[Nded]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Welcome to the Vudu Forum Jim - great first post. I think you have a good intuition for what needs to happen in the market. Don't be too surprised if the many of the strategic actions you've suggested happen fairly soon

[RonV]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Jim,

Thanks for the post you make some great suggestions:

I think that VUDU should offer free podcasts that would draw in some more. Video and audio podcasts are really starting to gain in popularity and there is lot of good content out there that is free. I watch a lot of them on my IPOD and Iphone but it sure would be great to be able watch them on my TV. Offering some free content would be a great big plus and the cost should be minimal to VUDU since it should only require a software upgrade. TIVO has started offering this content on the new boxes

Some of the TV studios have setup their own VOD service that doens't require TiVo or any type of specialized hardware just the internet. I don't know what type of DRM they are going to use but NBC did state that they were angry that Steve Jobs was getting rich on the hardware while they were only getting a pittance for their content.

You may want to check out: http://www.hulu.com/

I think if done right the VUDU can do much better when the studios finally understand that people want what the old Qwest TV commercial used to have:

We have every movie, ever made, anytime...

But it will have to change to:

We have every movie, ever made, anytime, any place..

I would hope that TV shows would be coming soon and that will get more people interested. The $50.00 movie credit with a new box is a big plus.

Offering whole seasons of past and present TV shows would be something else I am sure will be added in the near future.

Yes we are all waiting for that feature. The demand is there and what the TV marketers see is that people don't want to watch TV shows on the PC. They want to watch them on the TV. Imagine that. I am sure that VUDU is working this since they are the only player right now that can guarantee the security of the content to the content supplier. This definitely can draw in the TV Studios.

[NA9D]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Jim,

I second what Ron and Ed said. Welcome to the forums and I like your "Vudu Evangelist" signature line. That's great.

It is pretty darn good for a 1.0 (OK, well now 1.1 ) product.

Lots more kewl stuff to come!

[redwein]

Re: Missing key ingredients

The demand is there and what the TV marketers see is that people don't want to watch TV shows on the PC. They want to watch them on the TV. Imagine that. I am sure that VUDU is working this since they are the only player right now that can guarantee the security of the content to the content supplier. This definitely can draw in the TV Studios.

I second that. Not only don't I want to watch anything on my computer, I don't want to "manage" any of my content on my computer, nor run my computer constantly as a media server. I want to be able to choose what I want to watch when I am sitting at the TV with a remote in my hand.

The only solution that I can imagine that would work better for me than a Vudu, or Vudu like, set top box, is something integrated into my Tivo. I could imagine merging the features of Vudu and Tivo and having a single box that combines them both. To some extent, the Amazon Unbox feature in Tivo is an attempt at that but we find the Vudu to be a much better experience when it comes to dealing with the movie content.

[waynesworld]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Bridging the computer room and the media room is a big challenge and no one company has nailed it on the head... just look at the AppleTV. Overall, I think Vudu has done the best job thus far for feature-length movie watching experience at home.

In terms of missing features, I would like to see:

(i) PC/Mac application to allow a Vudu box to connect to computers on the same network & draw on media files (displaying via the Vudu user interface on the TV set)

(ii) web-based and/or mobile based user interface to allow users to select movies and generally interact with their Vudu box when away from home

(iii) Implement the "more" button to allow for bonus material and director commentaries that are so popular in DVDs {at least this is my understanding of what that button does!}

[NA9D]

Re: Missing key ingredients

(ii) web-based and/or mobile based user interface to allow users to select movies and generally interact with their Vudu box when away from home

Version 1.1 has this capability with the Network Remote feature. People now just have to write a web based java app or something like that to interface to it. A command line app in Ruby has been released already.

(iii) Implement the "more" button to allow for bonus material and director commentaries that are so popular in DVDs {at least this is my understanding of what that button does!}

Would be nice. Would be good to have "chaptering" added as well...

[redwein]

Re: Missing key ingredients

I'm curious. Why would you need to interact with your Vudu remotely, given that movies are on-demand and play instantly. It isn't like I could put my Vudu in some "better state" by doing something to it while I'm not at home. If it's just to browse movies, then they could put that content on their website.

[NA9D]

Re: Missing key ingredients

Well, if you have a slower network connection, it would be nice to have the ability to remotely log on to the box, browse the catalog and start a download. You log in from work, find a movie you want and start downloading. By the time you get home, it is ready to roll...

That just one example my insomniac mind can think of...

[MaxH]

Re: Missing key ingredients

I'm curious. Why would you need to interact with your Vudu remotely, given that movies are on-demand and play instantly. It isn't like I could put my Vudu in some "better state" by doing something to it while I'm not at home. If it's just to browse movies, then they could put that content on their website.

I think there are some fancy-schmancy integrated home systems designed to work via TCP/IP. There's some discussion of it in this thread.