wewillsink

I put in a bluray and watched a few minutes of a movie and then watched the same movie on VUDU. I can not tell the difference. Has anyone did a true study on this? I really like having my movie collection in the cloud, wish they would get more studios on board.

Solid Snake

BD (blu-ray disc) will always better than VUDU. As of right now and the standards we hit in both formats used. Just in terms of what it can do. You're streaming. It's not going to be as strong as a BD. Saying that.... it's pretty close really. Depending on your internet you can get solid quality of it. My internet is great. So I've never any image issues except when like I'm doing a lot of other things that my internet can't take all at once. My internet doesn't like it when I try to jam something in every hole it has. It's reasonable for that.

Paul_SD

You're missing a few key details that would make your comparison carry a little more weight.
For instance distance to the screen and screen size (and I would rate their import in that order). What kind of display technology? Is it calibrated?

I'd have no doubt there would be little practical difference in watching a Blu-ray or VUDU stream on a 45" display from >7' away for example.
But it might be a different story if you were watching on a 19" display from <2' away.

Mr. Cinema

Vudu's HDX quality has greatly improved over the years. Most of the newer titles look very good. Amazon's 1080p titles also look much better now vs a few years back.

Alan Smithee

Biggest problem is "gradient banding", when in dark scenes, shades have a more 'solid' look to them- it's kinda hard to describe but very obvious when you see it. Plus audio is more compressed than on Blu-Ray. I'll admit it's pretty good for what it is, but I won't accept it as a replacement for media. The compression on some Blu-Rays is pretty sloppy though, they really need to be more mindful of that if they want people to stick with discs.

bunkaroo

I don't see anyone discussing audio quality. I know most don't care and I won't rehash the old 2006 argument of DD+ vs lossless, but suffice it to say if I like a movie I want lossless audio. Vudu is fine for rentals though.

TheBigDave

I love Vudu. I've spent a lot of money building a collection there. And I'm really happy with the service. But I've got to admit there's some definite drawbacks.

Foreign Movies - You only get one audio track. You can buy either the English Dubbed or Original Audio version. If you get the Original Audio version, the subtitles are burned in. But usually you don't get to choose. They just offer one version. A lot of great Foreign Movies are only available with a horrible English Dub.

Aspect Ratio - Check out this list. A lot of good movies are in the incorrect aspect ratio. And they don't get fixed very often.

Gradient Banding - Alan Smithee is right. This is a lousy problem that ruins some movies. You frequently see it in horror movies where someone is walking around a dimly lit room. I watched See No Evil 2, and some scenes were a complete mess.

Audio Quality - A lot of older movies (and even some newer ones) only have a 2.0 Stereo track when the DVD/BD has a 5.1 track.

On the positive side, most of these problems can be fixed. They just need to get a new version from the movie studio. They fixed the OAR problem on Million Dollar Arm earlier today. You can't do that with a physical disc. But they should really have better quality control in the first place.

hanshotfirst1138

Vudu have twice now majorly fucked up the aspect ratio on two titles I have bought from them, and I am not OK with that. One was just a UV code, the other was a waste of my money. He fact that my wifi is too week to stream HDX is my problem. The fact that they're cropping a 2.76 title down to 1.78 is theirs, and that's not OK. I'm a streaming skeptic and don't want to give Walmart a dime anyway, this doesn't plead the case in their favor.

PhantomStranger

If one can't tell the difference between HDX streaming on VUDU and the equivalent Blu-ray, something is direly wrong in your video chain. HDX streaming looks slightly better than upscaled DVD on larger displays, but the number of serious compression issues alone make it a far poorer picture than Blu-ray. As others have mentioned, almost all shadow delineation is crushed under banding. It's a major detriment in horror movies and darkened interiors.

I don't think the worse picture quality of streaming will really sway lazy consumers in the long run. We learned that consumers dropped CDs the minute they could move everything to MP3 with far inferior sound.

Alan Smithee

*I* never did!

Vudu is rather generous however in letting you check the first 2 minutes of every movie for free. I've done that before renting in order to make sure they have the ratio and sound right. I've also checked some of these before buying a Blu-Ray of an older title, especially if it's from Warner, to make sure the new HD transfer didn't replace the older opening logo with a newer one. I'm not sure where the blame lies for cropped versions- those hardly ever show up on Blu-Ray, but they sometimes do on streaming and on cable TV. Vudu seems to get that most people want the uncropped version and get that replaced if there's enough complaints; I've heard however that HBO specifically requests the cropped versions as they think that's what viewers prefer, which ensures that I'll never subscribe to them.

E Unit

HBO shows a lot of movies in their correct aspect ratio. Not all of them, but a lot. Most Warner's movies I've noticed get cropped. Most Paramount ones do not. Most recent I can remember is Mission Impossible being in its correct ratio.

morriscroy

I never did either. Though for maybe very different reasons.

At the time around a decade ago, most of the stuff I was interested in was not released legitimately as digital downloads. The only way to get such stuff was to either find the physical cd releases, or download an illegal rip from a file sharing network/site.

bruceames

So if they get a better version from the studio (like a 4K restoration for example) will that replace the existing one in your collection?

TheBigDave

Yes, but I don't think it happens very often. Actually, I can only think of one instance off the top of my head. They upgraded Sword In The Stone when the new BD came out last year. They might have also upgraded Little Mermaid.

I've had a couple movies that were screwed up (wrong versions, missing footage, incorrect OAR) and that works the same way. They just replace the video file that's on their servers. You only notice the change when you watch the movie.

The problem is getting the fixed/upgraded videos from the studios. It seems that most of them don't care about replacing the existing videos. And when they do, they're not in any rush to get it done.

TheBigDave

If there's a particular movie that should be fixed or upgraded, you should post about it in the Vudu Forum. That's monitored by Vudu CS and they're pretty helpful. They'll pass on the request to the content team. But basically they're at the mercy of the studios.

Sometimes it works out. I recently complained about Mimic: Director's Cut being the theatrical cut. It took them about 2 months, but they got it fixed.

https://forum.vudu.com/forum.php

PhantomStranger

VUDU has definitely fixed some of their poorest mistakes. Apparently the studios are not so helpful when upgrading new streaming masters.

hanshotfirst1138

Theoretically yes, but it happens very infrequently, and the cropping issues don't look like they're high on the priority list. And even if they are, given that they aren't getting paid directly, I don't think studios are in a huge hurry to help them fix it.

Josh Z

I would not qualify that as "a lot." HBO's policy is to show all movies cropped to 16:9 except when the studio refuses to send them a cropped transfer - and those exceptions are quite rare. Mission: Impossible may have been OAR, but you'll find that almost all other Paramount movies air on HBO cropped.

The Ocean's trilogy was broadcast OAR because Steven Soderbergh actually had it written into his contract that the movies had to be presented that way. HBO would have cropped them if it could have.

hanshotfirst1138

I really thought that the cropping horseshit would've stopped once widescreen TVs were adopted. I see no point in paying for movie channels if there going to show us 40% of the film . If Vudu want to sell me on "the streaming future," this shouldn't happen. I lose 50% of the picture on Ben-Hur

Mikael79

I know you're a little pickier than the average viewer, but I think you're being a little harsh on the video quality of HDX.

I use it, I have over 700 movies in HDX and I still collect BDs. While I would never say that HDX is equal with BDs, I would say they're in the same neighborhood, video-wise. A lot of it does depend on your connection, so that may explain why you're seeing such a dramatic difference.

PhantomStranger

I have a 75 MB Fiber connection, so it's not bandwidth issues. Some HD material does compress better, degrading more gracefully. Streaming HDX lies in that twilight between quality upscaled SD video and an average BD. I find it acceptable on some films and television shows, whereas it's pretty tough to sit through with other kinds of movies.

orangerunner

1.78:1 full screen on a 16:9 TV is the new 1.33:1 full screen on a 4:3 TV.

Many people still object to the black bars caused from 2.35:1 widescreen films so they crop them to HD Full Screen 1.78:1.

Unless they invent a TV that changes screen shape on-the-fly, we'll have to accept these compromises.

hanshotfirst1138

Or they could just stop caring what stupid people think . But then they wouldn't make any money, so probably not.