Cliff Notes:
Set top box industry hasn?t had a success since Tivo.
People want internet content on their TV.
Hardware lacking wifi, IR remote support, HDMI 1.3 and RS-232.
High market entrance cost @ $399
You don?t own the content, only paying to access it (just like itunes but you cant back it up like you can on itunes)
Let me give some background on myself. I have worked in the consumer electronics industry since 1999. I have seen many products trying to get into the homes across the US promising the next greatest thing.
Here are a few of my observations after reading the wsj, nytimes, gizmodo, crave, engadget, cnet (news.com), and forbes articles.
I saw movie beam try and fail miserable cause they just didnt have any good new movies to try. That is one of my problems when I tried vongo. Their selection just is not there.
http://3e-lab.com/blog/04/10/biz/von...ervice-review/
Now movie selection is not the key ingredient for set top box sales. Look at the apple tv that plays back free podcasts, youtube movies plus has the ability to buy movies/shows on the itunes store. They won't let out their sales numbers but it isn't exactly catching on like Tivo did in early 2000.
How is Vudu going to get into homes with just offering movie content? With the huge popularity of youtube; doesnt that show that people want to watch more than just movies at home now? Plus movies coming from the studios suck anyway for the most part. There are some really random videos with +1 million views.
What about Wifi?
From what I have read vudu is a hardwired device only. So the customer has to hard wire a network cable or add a wireless access point at the set top box. Not consumer friendly like the Apple TV and other boxes. Why wasn't wifi integrated directly?
No infrared remote support? WOW!
Take a step back and think about how many devices the average home has in one room. It has at least a TV, cable/sat box, and a dvd player. Three remotes now another is needed.
The saving grace for the average person that likes a simple life is a universal remote. All universal remotes can only talk in base IR code. They don't have the ability to talk in RF. They might talk from the remote to the base station at the equipment in RF but it is being converted from IR to RF then to IR.
The problem is that all the wealthy customers that have dedicated theaters can't use this device with their universal remote. They now need two remotes.
There is a niche category of the market for electronic devices. It is the custom install category. The great thing about custom shops is that they just tell the customer what they need and sell them the product. More times than not the customer has no idea of what products they just wrote a $400,000 check for but as long as it works they don't care.
Vudu doesn't play nice in the custom arena since it is only RF, doesnt have RS-232 support, and no HDMI 1.3 support.
According to the Vudu FAQ on billing:
"There are no monthly fees. You pay for content as you go. Our billing functions in the following way: When setting up your account, you provide a credit card and choose an amount ($20, $50, or $100 with $20 being the default amount) to charge the card and create a positive balance in the account. As you rent or purchase movies, the per-movie viewing charges will be debited from your VUDU account. When your account depletes to $0.00, the pre-selected amount is charged to your credit card and the account is replenished."
I really hope you can do all the billing through the TV interface. It would really suck have if it needed the person to login to Vudu to setup and put money on the Vudu account.
What is needed:
A do everything box. Combine DVR, slingbox, computer, plus the new Vudu service and now you have something worth talking about. Oh, have it only cost $99 bux because if you really want this product to spread the average customer isn't going to fork out more money for something that isn't a standard and they know will change by next year.
I don't doubt that the product quality is worth $399 but that is a high market entrance point when the person still has to buy the movies to rent.
With almost all movies costing $9.99-$14.99 the person can buy 25-40 DVDs and actually own them. That brings me to the other problem. If I get a Vudu and I buy movies. I don't actually have a physical copy, I am just paying for the right to access the movie at anytime. If the Vudu service goes belly up then I don't have access and all my movies are gone! Plus at least with iTunes I can back up the music I bought.
Movie studios still care about physical media sales. Vudu is second in line to get new releases. So you will need to wait to watch the new movie even though you could walk into a blockbuster or bestbuy and pick up the movie.
According to the journal there are 41 employees working at Vudu. Why don't more of them get in this forum and interact with us?
Wow, this turned into a much longer article than I thought. I am curious to hear some thoughts.
Set top box industry hasn?t had a success since Tivo.
People want internet content on their TV.
Hardware lacking wifi, IR remote support, HDMI 1.3 and RS-232.
High market entrance cost @ $399
You don?t own the content, only paying to access it (just like itunes but you cant back it up like you can on itunes)
Let me give some background on myself. I have worked in the consumer electronics industry since 1999. I have seen many products trying to get into the homes across the US promising the next greatest thing.
Here are a few of my observations after reading the wsj, nytimes, gizmodo, crave, engadget, cnet (news.com), and forbes articles.
I saw movie beam try and fail miserable cause they just didnt have any good new movies to try. That is one of my problems when I tried vongo. Their selection just is not there.
http://3e-lab.com/blog/04/10/biz/von...ervice-review/
Now movie selection is not the key ingredient for set top box sales. Look at the apple tv that plays back free podcasts, youtube movies plus has the ability to buy movies/shows on the itunes store. They won't let out their sales numbers but it isn't exactly catching on like Tivo did in early 2000.
How is Vudu going to get into homes with just offering movie content? With the huge popularity of youtube; doesnt that show that people want to watch more than just movies at home now? Plus movies coming from the studios suck anyway for the most part. There are some really random videos with +1 million views.
What about Wifi?
From what I have read vudu is a hardwired device only. So the customer has to hard wire a network cable or add a wireless access point at the set top box. Not consumer friendly like the Apple TV and other boxes. Why wasn't wifi integrated directly?
No infrared remote support? WOW!
Take a step back and think about how many devices the average home has in one room. It has at least a TV, cable/sat box, and a dvd player. Three remotes now another is needed.
The saving grace for the average person that likes a simple life is a universal remote. All universal remotes can only talk in base IR code. They don't have the ability to talk in RF. They might talk from the remote to the base station at the equipment in RF but it is being converted from IR to RF then to IR.
The problem is that all the wealthy customers that have dedicated theaters can't use this device with their universal remote. They now need two remotes.
There is a niche category of the market for electronic devices. It is the custom install category. The great thing about custom shops is that they just tell the customer what they need and sell them the product. More times than not the customer has no idea of what products they just wrote a $400,000 check for but as long as it works they don't care.
Vudu doesn't play nice in the custom arena since it is only RF, doesnt have RS-232 support, and no HDMI 1.3 support.
According to the Vudu FAQ on billing:
"There are no monthly fees. You pay for content as you go. Our billing functions in the following way: When setting up your account, you provide a credit card and choose an amount ($20, $50, or $100 with $20 being the default amount) to charge the card and create a positive balance in the account. As you rent or purchase movies, the per-movie viewing charges will be debited from your VUDU account. When your account depletes to $0.00, the pre-selected amount is charged to your credit card and the account is replenished."
I really hope you can do all the billing through the TV interface. It would really suck have if it needed the person to login to Vudu to setup and put money on the Vudu account.
What is needed:
A do everything box. Combine DVR, slingbox, computer, plus the new Vudu service and now you have something worth talking about. Oh, have it only cost $99 bux because if you really want this product to spread the average customer isn't going to fork out more money for something that isn't a standard and they know will change by next year.
I don't doubt that the product quality is worth $399 but that is a high market entrance point when the person still has to buy the movies to rent.
With almost all movies costing $9.99-$14.99 the person can buy 25-40 DVDs and actually own them. That brings me to the other problem. If I get a Vudu and I buy movies. I don't actually have a physical copy, I am just paying for the right to access the movie at anytime. If the Vudu service goes belly up then I don't have access and all my movies are gone! Plus at least with iTunes I can back up the music I bought.
Movie studios still care about physical media sales. Vudu is second in line to get new releases. So you will need to wait to watch the new movie even though you could walk into a blockbuster or bestbuy and pick up the movie.
According to the journal there are 41 employees working at Vudu. Why don't more of them get in this forum and interact with us?
Wow, this turned into a much longer article than I thought. I am curious to hear some thoughts.
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