Roku Vudu App Interface Rebuild

[trd365]

I liked it at first but after using it more, I prefer the old interface

Now you see why it's such a big deal.

[Capt-Cupcake]

I liked it at first but after using it more, I prefer the old interface

[Emissary35]

count me in the minority, but i kind of love it. looks very modern and sleeker. that other UI hadn't changed since like 2010 at least.

So because something hasn't changed in a long time that's a good reason for forcing an update that almost everyone hates? Even though the previous version functioned just fine? You love it because you think it looks 'modern and sleek'? The functionality of it is horrible, I don't care what it looks like when it's slower to scroll, shows less titles on the screen at a time forcing more scrolling and videos are blocked with player controls. It sounds like you are judging a book by its cover before you even read it. It blows my mind that anyone actually likes this update once they start using it. The app needs to be reverted back to the previous version immediately.

[boojitede]

count me in the minority, but i kind of love it. looks very modern and sleeker. that other UI hadn't changed since like 2010 at least.

[ploog]

My biggest issue is that you can no longer press the back button on the Roku remote to remove the player controls when they appear on screen. Every single time you begin playback of a video, the first 5 seconds of the movie or TV episode is dimmed and is blocked by the overlay with info on the top and bottom of the screen.
...
Change it so that if you press the Up or Down arrows on the Roku remote you can make the overlay appear and disappear at will. But we absolutely DO NOT need to see the controls popping up every time we start a video or resume playback! This totally SUCKS!!! No common sense at all by the app developers, it's like they are completely disconnected from reality because they don't understand how covering the video ruins the viewing experience!

Wholly agree*. Designed from a content viewing perspective, the controls should never display by default unless absolutely required. (e.g. Not needed when playing from start, not needed if using the quick instant replay button, or even for pause.)

But even absent any other improvement, the ability to quickly clear the controls display using the 'Back' button needs to be restored.


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* edit: Wholly agree Re: this feature and restoring the 'Back' functionality, at a minimum. My biggest issue, though, remains the shackled scrolling mechanism. (I'd think they need to view the display approaches under Spotlight and My Vudu differently, at least for My Movies, TV Shows and Lists. We don't need so much info for each thumbnail displayed on the top-level browsing view. And hitting 'Play' within "My" content should play the selected content, rather than its trailer.)

[Emissary35]

I really hate this new update, the look of the app is not an improvement, I liked what we had before. Scrolling down episodes in the TV list is slow, before it was much easier, this is not an improvement. My biggest issue is that you can no longer press the back button on the Roku remote to remove the player controls when they appear on screen. Every single time you begin playback of a video, the first 5 seconds of the movie or TV episode is dimmed and is blocked by the overlay with info on the top and bottom of the screen. If you fast forward, rewind, resume from being paused or skip with the chapter menu same thing! You will ALWAYS have 5 seconds of the video blocked by the stupid player controls!

I always hated this before on the old app as well, I thought it was unnecessary to have the controls popping up all the time without the user specifically calling for them with a remote button press, but at least in the old app you could press the Back button quickly and get the controls off your video! But now that no longer works because if you press the Back button on the remote it simply backs out of the video and brings you to the menu! So you have to sit there and wait for the stupid controls to time out and disappear on their own! In my opinion this makes watching anything now unwatchable, because if portions of the video are dimmed with controls covering it then it ruins the presentation, I consider that spam by the app! I can't believe Vudu did this and thought it was a good idea!

Vudu needs to update the app to stop the overlay of information and player controls from popping up automatically. All I want to do is press play from the menu, or resume from being paused and see NOTHING on my screen except for the video itself! Change it so that if you press the Up or Down arrows on the Roku remote you can make the overlay appear and disappear at will. But we absolutely DO NOT need to see the controls popping up every time we start a video or resume playback! This totally SUCKS!!! No common sense at all by the app developers, it's like they are completely disconnected from reality because they don't understand how covering the video ruins the viewing experience!

[ploog]

... and where does that put old Smart TV owners ?

Possibly still happily tooling along ... assuming their Smart TV models are a little older and so didn't (and possibly won't) receive this app update. My old TiVo boxes still have the old interface.

And I feel your pain Re: all the app struggles. I've found plenty of glitches and areas of pain, but I've been using a Roku Ultra ... so I'm grateful we'd updated our Rokus a while back. (Though I think I'll pull a couple of our older units out of storage to see what the experience is like.)

[EmilyApricot]

This ROKU VUDU app update has debilitated me. I had no trouble with the prior app, but the current app is very slow to load and usually can’t load my TV episodes to play at all. It seems to require more memory than my Roku Stick + (3810X) (2019) can handle. I am forced to use phone mirroring and the VUDU app on my phone. As for the new interface, I don’t hate it, but I can see what people are saying that scrolling large content blocks can take a long time without multiple rows on the screen. Also, My Vudu playlists, which I normally use, seem the slowest and least reliable to load. I am going to look into buying a new ROKU device with the latest specs just for this app, but there will be casual users not so dedicated, and where does that put old Smart TV owners ?

[Outspoken1]

I just sent this email to Vudu support: Anyone else having this problem?

"Your Vudu app update on April 30th for Roku devices needs work. The updated Vudu app is unable to play my UHD movies without spooling every minute (I timed the issue). This is a new problem - I had no issues streaming my UHD movies using the previous Vudu app on Thursday (April 28th). My streaming setup has not changed in three days - same fiber optic Gig Internet connection, same Roku's (Ultra and the Express 4K+), same 4K TVs, I am the only user as I live alone. Furthermore, I was able to stream the same movie (Avengers: Age of Ultron) in UHD using the Movies Anywhere Roku app. So this seems to be a problem with your recent update to the Vudu app.

This is very frustrating as I own roughly 50 movies that are not supported (licensing issues) on Movies Anywhere. This is why I try to use Vudu exclusively. I am a longtime Vudu supporter, so I hope you are able to recreate and fix this problem."

[ploog]

> Vudu just went from one of the best interfaces to one of the worst.

I can retrain myself on how to get to "My Vudu" content, and could probably come to accept even the limited 5 thumbnails view, and have found a few improvements in the new app (along with a few bugs) ... but the new scrolling behavior is flat-out disastrous.

Even on a low horsepower TiVo Roamio 4-tuner box, I can scroll through 1000 titles in My Movies in under 15 seconds by holding down the Channel Down button, with the handy, visible scroll bar on the right assisting in my alphabetic- or date-centric targeting.

With the new interface, it takes 1 1/2 minutes to scroll through 1000 titles, and requires continual release/re-press of the down-arrow button every 50 titles. The scrolling could even be considered straight-up broken given that you can't simply keep the down-arrow depressed to scroll through content; the next 50 titles aren't even polled and pulled-in until the down-arrow button is released.

VUDU did need to fix the scrolling behavior, but what was needed was improved hyper-scrolling ... to indicate the current alphabetic letter, release year or purchase month/year, depending on sort order, once hyper-scrolling mode was activated. The new VUDU app for Roku has effectively clamped a ball and chain on My Movies.

[Alan Smithee]

Why would they bother to beta test this and ignore most of the feedback?

Vudu just went from one of the best interfaces to one of the worst.

[mrewster]

Sorry to hear this Roku users. I've heard from others as well that it is terrible.

I just hope they leave the TV app as is. Overall, it is the most friendly & functional of pretty much all the streaming apps.

[Faydar]

Vudu has, or at least had beta testers prior to Fandango. I’m guessing maybe they don’t anymore; otherwise it would seem there would have been enough complaints to have derailed this launch.

The AppleTV app seems unaffected, for now anyway; but the Apple app has always been very limited - even without purchase / rent options.

I was a beta tester. My number 1 complaint was how slow it was to load and how the interface was laid out. Apparently they didn’t listen or just don’t care.

[HarryPotter]

Don't fix what's not broken. Old app was fine. Not perfect but fine. It didn't need an overhaul to this new garbage. It just needed some improvements. I'm sure our complaints will be ignored.

[jeremymc7]

Vudu has, or at least had beta testers prior to Fandango. I’m guessing maybe they don’t anymore; otherwise it would seem there would have been enough complaints to have derailed this launch.

The AppleTV app seems unaffected, for now anyway; but the Apple app has always been very limited - even without purchase / rent options.