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Hardware - Sunday, April 29, 2007

Vudu (aka Marquee, aka Vivond) Has Coming Out Party

Vudu Inc. has commenced a PR road show with good results for its forthcoming Net-connected video player. We have covered the Santa Clara-based Vudu when it was known as Marquee and before that it was known as Vvond. The company has raised $15M in Series B funding led by Benchmark Capital with return backer Greylock Partners. The previously stealth mode company makes software and hardware for secure on-demand access to a large movie library.

Vudu will compete with Apple TV when it launches in the Summer and will cost about the same. Plans are to launch with 5000 movies from seven major studios as well as indie distributors. In fact, every major studio — except, for Sony Pictures Entertainment will make their films available on Vudu. The NY Times found that "film executives largely wax adulatory when speaking about Vudu."

Of course, Vudu plans to offer more films and to someday add TV shows, music and video games.

Vudu connects directly to your TV and does not require a PC or a cable box.delivers video streamed in MPEG-4, which is upscaled to HD. Interestingly, Vudu works in P2P mode, although users will probably not realize it. Boxes that have downloaded a movie will share that movie with other boxes that request it. Vudu claims to have filed 15 patents on this scheme.

The chairman of the Vudu is Alain Rossman who founded Phone.com, EO orporation, and C-Cube Microsystems. The founder of Vudu, Tony Miranz, was with Tahoe Networks and AT&T Bell Labs. The COO (Edward Lichty), and VP of Engineering (Andy Goodman) both come via TiVo.

If you want to make the jump, Vudu will cost you $300 or and the movies will cost $6-10 per. In addition to Apple's movie device, Vudu will compete with movie download services from cable companies, Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Google, BitTorrent, the Starz movie channel of Liberty Media and Netflix plans such an offer.

In summary, arly reception for Vudu seems to be that that the technology is nice but that many consumers are tired of connecting more boxes to their TVs and there is so much competitive noise here it may be hard for people to make decisions.

Read - Exclusive Pics of the Vudu - Video Store In A Box (Gizmodo)
Read - Vudu Casts Its Spell on Hollywood (NY Times)