Who do? You do? Vudu Part 1
After unboxing the Vudu, I checked out the quick-start guide. The very first thing they tell you to do is slap the batteries into the remote. It melted in my hand (not literally melted, mind), which I’m guessing is due to its snazzy design. I’m hoping the experience of using Vudu is as elegant.
I wish I was a bit more zealous in my choice of a television set and had gotten High Definition stuff so I’d be able to use the HDMI cable, but composite it is. And as luck would have it, the set I do have comes with two video ports so I didn’t have to unplug my delicious Playstation 3 system.
The actual connecting of the Vudu to my TV and router wasn’t the hard part, rather it was finding set-up room to place the Vudu box. After a bit of rearranging stuff, I got the Vudu box in a nice spot. The main concerns were limiting cable visibility, which isn’t a big deal and the other was making sure the RF antenna wouldn’t be in the path of any moving items. It looks pretty thin and while it felt a little sturdy, I would guess that it’d take just a paperback book or something to either bend it or snap it.
The setup/initialization process for the system went by pretty fast, especially considering it needed to do a software update. I was also notified that the content already stored in the system was out of date and it’s in the process of updating the database, although this doesn’t prevent me from using the system and the first section I poked around in was the settings section, of course. There are parental controls so you can lock your kids out of the saucy stuff and the usual video and audio settings. There’s a network settings section that allows you to set DHCP or a static IP and you could even specify the Vudu to use less bandwidth. I’m kind of looking for an account management section but couldn’t find it. I’m not completely sure if I have to only use the web to manage my account but we’ll have to see or I’ll have to do some reading.
Prowling through the system is okay. The remote’s main navigation item is a scroll-wheel and it works well browsing through the various areas and drilling down. To drill down or “click” on an item, you can just press down on the scroll-wheel and in order to back a step, you hit a “back” button located near the scroll-wheel. I think room for improvement would be to incorporate an axis type scroll-wheel so you can nudge/tilt it for the back selection.
On to the display (which I don’t have screenshots of. 
). Besides the settings option, there are four other main options next to it called, “Find Movies”, “New on VUDU“, “My Movies” and “My Wish List”. Below this row of main options, there are a list of movies under the heading “Featured Movies”. Also, it seems that if you have rented a movie, it also lists that movie, or movies, in this area.
“New on VUDU” seems to list the recently added stuff (duh, eh? 
) and “My Movies” shows what movies I’ve rented or bought. I guess “My Wish List” shows stuff I’d like but isn’t out yet. I’ll make an assumption that whenever an item on my wish list becomes available, Vudu will give me a notification of some kind. Anyway, on to the ‘Find Movies” section.
“Find Movies” Seems to be the place where I’d frequent the most. It’s where I can look up movies by genre, title, actor or director, most popular or what’s coming soon. Like the main screen, there are several picture icons that list genre or show type. At the moment, these “Collections” are “Chilling Thrillers”, “Sci-fi Classics”, “As Seen On TV”, “When Men Were Men” and “No Business Like Showbiz!” I took a peek into “Chilling Thrillers” and “Sci-fi Classics” but can’t remember what I saw in them.
I tried doing a search on title and the method of inputting the title is similar to the input method on my Playstation 3 albeit with scrolling instead of using a directional pad. This is a little cumbersome but the selector moves pretty fast and as I key in letters, Vudu does a search in its database and pulls up guesses. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find “Minority Report” and got back to the main “Find Movies” screen and went by genre.
“Explore Genre” is pretty nifty. Instead of selecting either or, I can select multiple genres and Vudu will sift accordingly. Once I’m done choosing my genre, or genres, I can browse through the movies results. The first ever movie I selected as rent was Casshern. A Japanese live-action remake of the old anime. Once I confirmed I wanted to rent the movie, it was made immediately available, however I decided to take a break and eat dinner first. The movies you rent are stored on the box for 24 hours. You can watch it as many times as you want within that period. Once 24 hours pass, I’ll assume it’ll go poof. While, I most likely won’t ever need to quip about it, I think this 24 hour period isn’t a good idea. Some people may want to check out a movie but something comes up. They then may not be able to get to the movie until the next day and what if they can’t watch it until near the 24 hour mark? Will it cut them off? I think for the rental part, it be a good thing to assign slots. Customers can rent so many and not worry about having to watch it right away. I think the business model is summed up by the slogan “The right movie, right now” but I think it could be more.
But I’m not complaining, mind. For me personally, I’ve rarely encountered a moment that I had to stop watching a movie and wait till the following evening to resume watching it. And of course, I can see the Vudu box getting heavy action coming this weekend. It’s a long weekend for me and I’m sure I’ll be delving further and checking out just how spontaneous Vudu can be.
Anyway, that’s all for now. More later on the weekend! You know, I should have more pictures, but my cave just isn’t photogenic (which is all my fault).
Shout out thanks to Burt for giving me this opportunity to get dirty with new tech and Ryan for mentioning me.
