As far as picture and audio quality, it is impossible to beat
Vudu in HD streaming business. And for that reason we're happy to see some of our favorite products like the LG
BD390 working with Vudu. We had a chance to catch up with Vudu at the LG's
CEDIA booth and ask them a few questions. Apparently there were a few changes to the encoding techniques necessary to transition from a disk based device to all streaming, including more profiles to adapt to different broadband connections. We have ot say that our overall initial impression was that the changes went off without a hitch. One question we didn't get answered though was whether or not the Dolby Digital Plus used in downloaded stream could be bitstreamed to an AVR via HDMI -- the original Vudu hardware could only output vanilla Dolby Digital -- but we were promised an answer. In other words you'll know as soon as we do, so in the meantime click through and enjoy the short demo.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt @ Sep 11th 2009 8:56AM
The picture of this tv is exactly why you don't buy a tv with a shiny bezel.
chumley @ Sep 11th 2009 12:39PM
+1. I hate shiny bezels, and I don't understand why they are so common. Form over function.
scyber @ Sep 11th 2009 2:15PM
Any details on what the bandwidth requirements are for vudu HD & HDX movies?
Ben @ Sep 11th 2009 2:16PM
You need between 2 and 10 Mbps to use the service. I believe the requirement for HDX is 9Mbps.
Fanfoot @ Sep 15th 2009 2:04AM
Yikes. 10Mbps. Hey I pay Comcast extra for their 8Mbps or whatever, and with their patented "speed bump" I can get 10Mbps for short bursts, but there is no way I could sustain that.
If Comcast can deliver HD using MPEG-2 over 15Mbps or less, why can't Vudu do it in 8Mbps using h.264?
Maybe if they're serious about this HDX stuff they need to ship players with flash memory or something to take the place of the hard drive in the original Vudu box or something... just to handle the buffering required if your internet connection isn't "up to snuff".
John Prince @ Oct 13th 2009 8:42AM
I am a little confused and frustrated by my new LG Blu-Ray Player and
the online video services it contains.
You Tube: fun, free, but the quality is really bad, lots of
blockiness, and it stops to buffer often painful.
NetFlix: Free for 2 two weeks – Not sure I will continue when I
have to pay. Again the quality is bad, it is blocky, it takes a long
time to start, when I fast forward it is weird and then it buffers for
30 seconds to a minute. Then some times the video stops and has to
buffer because it is “adjusting quality” and then it gets
Blocky...Frustrating is how I feel about NetFlix.
CinemaNow: This is a good quality but the problem is I have to pay
for videos. In fact I would say the quality is great it is better
than DVD and my Comcast service. I notice that it starts up fast and
I never had it “buffer” and I have never seen it “adjust
quality” picture is crisp. It would be great if this had free
content or subscription like Netflix.
Vudu: Again expensive. The picture quality is great but the video
constantly stops to buffer. I was unable to watch a single movie too
painful.
I assume all these services use HTTP (ergo buffering).
Why do most of these have buffering problems I thought all of these
service have dynamic bitrate?
Why is CinemaNow so much better ?
Are some adaptive streaming better than others?
Can you clear this up?
clifjmpr @ Oct 29th 2009 7:15PM
I've got Road Runner Turbo, with speeds clocking around 20Mbps at peak, over 10Mbps sustained. I've got the D-Link DIR-655 router 15 ft away from my LG BD390 player. If I check the signal on my computer (next to the player) I get ALL bars...full signal...and 20+Mbps download rate. Upload rate around 1.5Mbps.
The problem is that every VUDU HDX movie I try to watch stops...to...load...and...buffer...every...few...minutes. Not very exciting to watch some fantastic film only to have it halt randomly to buffer the next scene...kinda ruins a suspenseful movie. Doesn't appear to be my cable service, or my brand new BD390 player....so I guess I have to blame VUDU. Perhaps their servers aren't up to the task of serving HDX video yet?
I wish it worked. I'd actually pay $5.99 to get HDX movies at the house without having to drive to the video store...
Ben @ Oct 29th 2009 7:07PM
I suggestion you open a support case and see if they can pull your logs and determine the issue.