SAN FRANCISCO — Wal-Mart is making a major move into the business of selling movies over the Internet.
The retail giant has agreed to buy Vudu, a three-year-old Silicon Valley startup whose online movie service is built into an increasing number of high-definition televisions and Blu-ray players, according to two people briefed on the deal.
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., is one of the world’s largest retailers of DVDs. But it has so far lacked a way to deliver movies digitally to people’s homes — a glaring weakness as consumers shift from renting and buying physical discs to streaming movies over the Internet.
Wal-Mart’s move is likely to give a lift to sales of Internet-ready televisions and disc players, which generally cost a few hundred dollars more than devices without such connections. These products allow people to watch movies and shows over the Internet, bypassing their traditional cable or satellite service.
With all the movie streaming going on, the Internet is going to get slower and slower.
So if Walmart is selling video, you complain about internet bandwidth. If the bottlenecks are because of illegal copying, you complain about the RIAA for objecting.
The RIAA has nothing to do with protecting movies and other such content. They are an evil, corrupt organization and must be eradicated like the scum that they are.
“With all the movie streaming going on, the Internet is going to get slower and slower.”
Reminds me of:
“Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got…an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially. “
I just checked — VuDu rents new releases for $4.
Is this a winning price point? I doubt it.
Netflix’s lowest unlimited is $9 a month (one out at-a-time.)
This also includes thousands of “B” streaming movies and TV shows — as much as you want.
This seem like a MUCH better price point.
My main gripe is that you can’t stream Netflix to Linux. There is an $80 set-top box that brings streaming to TV and people say it works well but, still…
Some passing thoughts.
Fully using your UNLIMITED Internet service is considered abuse. If I pay for 5Mbps shouldn’t I be able to get 5Mbps 24/7 as I see fit? For some reason, this is abuse, but the ISP will turn the other head if I subscribe to their 60Mbps. If the ISP offers a 60Mbps, how is fully utilizing a 5Mbps all the time realistically abuse since it is throttled and the ISP has more than enough head room?
Other passing thought, since the report of Blu-ray’s growth has largely much ado about nothing thanks to continued BOGOs, sharp price cuts, and reports of 300% increases from last year sales; I have to wonder will this put a big dent into Blu-ray’s growth now that real sales growth has only just started for this format within the last 6 months.
I wonder what Ted Stevens would have to say about this?