The New York Times is reporting that both Walmart and VUDU have been informing Hollywood studios and CE manufactures of the deal today. While it hasn’t been officially announced (UPDATE: It’s official! Press release attached below), the acquisition is big news for the industry. As many of you know already, VUDU is a three year old internet movie streaming service who competes directly with Amazon On Demand, Blockbuster, Cinema Now, and Netflix. While VUDU may be the smallest of the bunch in terms of users, VUDU offers the best quality video experience, delievering content at 1080p HD with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound, and has the largest number of supported net-connected HDTVs right up there with Netflix. What’s more, VUDU recently added an Apps feature (pictured above) with video channels/services that competes, some might say, directly with Yahoo! TV Widgets and to an extent, Boxee. All in all, a smart move on Walmart’s part to make a bigger impact with their movie business and, perhaps, even their retail business through a custom Walmart store channel in the future. MORE »

The once counted out VUDU offering is now showing the world and its critics that the streaming 1080p HD video (w/ Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound) and VUDU App service is here to stay and one to be contended with. VUDU today announced at CES that the company’s app catalog now consists of hundreds of internet powered apps/programming which will be available across current and upcoming network connected HDTVs and Blu-ray players from Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba, and VIZIO. As such, VUDU is now the leading provider of internet apps through network connected HDTVs surpassing Yahoo! TV Widgets (at least as far as I can tell). The full list of available VUDU apps can be seen after the jump. You can also read VUDU’s blog post on the subject here. MORE »

You may have noticed lately that VUDU has been rolling out new features on a regular basis — today they announced the integration of Wikipedia — and on a variety of platforms (i.e. VUDU Box, Networked Blu-ray players & HDTVs). What you may not have known is that VUDU’s interface is essentially a web app hosted in the “Cloud” now, according to VUDU Blog. As such, VUDU is able to provide users with instant updates that don’t require a firmware upgrade like competing products (cough… Roku Player). If you think about it, this is a huge advancement — especially for third party services running on a CE device.  No more waiting for a CE device manufacture to roll out a new firmware update just to add a handful of features to their platform.

Related update: We have received word from Roku that the latest Channel Store firmware update will allow the company to push new content channels to players instantly without additional downloads as well. Woot!

If you own, or are thinking of purchasing, a VUDU enabled HDTV, you’re going to be pleased to learn that Internet services from the likes of Flickr, Picasa, Pandora, and others can now be accessed through your TV at no charge. The new function rolls out today to all Mitsubishi Unisen Diamond 249 Series HDTVs and may in the future roll out to the LG LH50 / PS80 Netcast HDTVs as well — though there are rumblings that LG may not include the feature update due to the fact they have Yahoo! TV Widgets enabled out of the box.

Off the heels of its recent availability announcement on network-enabled LG and Mitsubishi HDTVs, VUDU today says that owners of LG’s BD390 Network Blu-ray Player [Amazon] will be able to tap into their on-demand HD (1080p, Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound) movie service via the device’s menu UI by month’s end. The VUDU service has no subscription fees and will enable folks to purchase or rent movies directly from the player without any additional hardware. MORE »

Well, well, well…. Those who counted VUDU out may be surprised by today’s announcement. VUDU has teamed up with LG to bring their 1080p HD and HDX, Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound movies to LG’s “NetCast Entertainment Access” enabled LH50 and PS80 HDTVs starting this August. VUDU states that LG HDTV owners will be able to tap into their 2,000+ HD movie catalog with “no monthly fees and without having to buy, install, or connect any additional hardware.” In other words, true instant streaming — and without an additional set-top box or external storage device. What’s more, users will also be able to watch new releases through the VUDU service typically around the same time they’re available on DVD (a big advantage over its most popular competitor Netflix). MORE »

Not listening to any of the nay-sayers, VUDU is taking additional strides to remain competitive in the challenging video on-demand market it does business in. Earlier this month the company announced a partnership with Entone, an IPTV set-top manufacture who provides equipment to 70 US-based companies with 200,000 subscribers (numbers via NewTeeVee). The partnership will bring VUDU’s platform and its entire collection of movie and TV titles to Entone’s next generation media hubs that are slated to be released in June. MORE »

Now another reason to consider picking up a VUDU box for consuming HD content. VUDU today announced that they will begin selling HD and HDX movies to own. The initial selection consists of 50 films from “top independent studios” with the promise of adding additional releases on the same day and date as the DVD release. Movies will be priced at $13.99 and $23.99 and can be stored on a user’s set-top box or in the company’s online vault, at no charge, to leave space available for future purchases and rentals. No doubt major Hollywood studios (who already are partnered with VUDU for rentals) will be keeping tabs on how well the new service works out. MORE »

Interesting…. The guys at VUDU have decided to get in the the iPhone App game and release a free application [iTunes] that allows users to browse and search VUDU’s movie catalog and then make selections to rent or purchase on the spot. The idea here is that you can manage your VUDU box or boxes back at home and make selections on-the-go that will be downloaded and ready for viewing when you get back home. Initial reaction in the company’s forum seems to be positive and users are claiming that the application is pretty snappy and works well over 3G. And some users are already requesting additional features they would like to see rolled in like Wish List support and Movie Rating functionality. It seems VUDU has struck the right nerve here with their users.

Related: Official iPhone App Discussion and Support Thread

Forbes.com reporter, Lee Gomes, is shedding light on an interesting fact that many of VUDU’s customers are probably not aware of. The problem Gomes points out is that VUDU is not being totally transparent that their video on-demand boxes function as peer-to-peer nodes downloading and sharing bits of digital information with other users throughout the day in order to give everyone an “instant” viewing experience. He argues: “these protocols are notorious bandwidth hogs. They easily use up so much of the network that simple tasks like e-mail or browsing can slow to a crawl.” While I’m sure VUDU’s backend technology is not setup to leech off the network to that extent, passive background data exchange is a legitimate issue – especially in these days of bandwidth caps set by our providers (see: Comcast). In regards to disclosure, I agree with Gomes that the peer-to-peer aspect of the offering should be stated up front on the product page as well as on the packaging (not just in the Terms of Service or Support FAQ) so people aren’t under the impression that video is being provided directly and on-demand from VUDU’s company servers. MORE »