Vudu HDX Video | Blu-ray Quality Downloads Now Available On Apple TV Competitor

With HD becoming the present rather than the future, set-top box producers are going to have to keep up with the technology to stay in the game. Luckily, Vudu is doing just that.Vudu

is a set-top box enabling the purchase and rental of full-length movies to a television using an Internet connection and peer-to-peer technology.

From HD To HDX

As with its rival, Apple TV, Vudu has been offering HD movies for a few months now. But the quality of HD downloads is not generally the same quality of HD movies on the Blu-ray or the (now defunct) HD DVD formats. Until now.

This week saw Vudu unveil what it calls HDX, and it’s a new format which means that content downloaded from the Web will now be 1080p, near-Blu-ray quality for the first time ever.

What’s more, movies rented in the new format will cost exactly the same as normal HD movies: $5.99 for new releases, and $3.99 for catalogue titles.

New and Old Titles

According to Yahoo, about 65 of the 300 HD titles currently offered by Vudu will be immediately available in HDX, with all future HD titles being HDX and all older titles gradually switched as well.

Unlike other so-called HD offerings, HDX downloads are reported to be crisp and clear with no blockiness or artefacts.

1080p H.264

HDX offers a full 1080p image at 24fps delivered using H.264 encoding. The only catch seems to be that rather than being able to watch these titles immediately, you have to wait hours before you can press play.

Competition Catch-Up

Vudu is an expensive alternative to Apple TV and the Roku box, but this new HDX format could give it an edge over its competitors. High Definition is becoming the standard format for movies and for downloads to compete, the companies involved will have to keep up with the trend.

The onus has now got to be on Apple and Roku, which doesn’t currently even offer HD movies of any description, to catch up and produce video as good or even better than Vudu HDX.