Vudu Box price permanently cut in half
updated 08:50 pm EST, Mon February 9, 2009
Vudu Box price slashed
Vudu, Inc. has permanently slashed the price of its media box, now offering the devices for $150. The company has progressively lowered the cost of its basic set-top box, dropping from $400 to $295 a year ago. A holiday promotion initially halved the price to $150, undercutting the Apple TV by $80. The basic Vudu Box also offers 250GB of storage, exceeding the 160GB capacity of the top-level Apple TV which costs more than twice as much.
"We are reaping the rewards of success in the retail channel over the holidays, lower component prices and higher movie revenues," explained Edward Lichty, the company's executive vice president of strategy.
Access to 1080p/24 content also provides a competitive edge over Apple's product which is limited to 720p resolution. Vudu owners can access over 13,000 titles, with 1,300 available in HD. An iPhone app launched last month allows users to choose titles from the mobile device, then automatically downloads the content to the Vudu Box.
Movie purchases are priced between $2 and $20, while rentals can cost between $1 and $4.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 1999
HD space and 1080p
On a screen smaller than 50", most people can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. http://reviews.cnet.com/720p-vs-1080p-hdtv/. And while a few of us out there might actually use more than half of 160GB hard drive whose content is mostly synced from a home computer (often a laptop), the rest of us aren't even close. So for most of us, buying an extra 90GB is like buying a car that can go even faster.
What really matters is how well the product works: how well it solves the problem of watching or listening to what I want, when I want. Unfortunately, since the original press release didn't mention that, you're writers didn't either.