Erm, I never said anything about it slowing down your computer…why the heck would it?  I just voiced a desire to hear what impact it had on your bandwith and more specifically your relationship with your ISP.

You suggest I shouldn’t (some expletive) as long as it does the job its supposed to do. Perhaps it works for you, but unless you have the same ISP that I do, you can’t say I’d have the same experience. You also can’t say how the system will scale until the Vudu becomes widely adopted.

I don’t think you’re even understanding my concern. If I run a P2P service (bitTorrent, most often), the first thing I notice is that the quality of my VoIP telephone drops drastically. So I have to shut it down before I can use my phone. No problem with a client I’m using, but will I have to unplug my Vudu? How can I throttle the bandwidth its using?

The second thing that happens if I use too much bandwith via P2P is that the ISP starts sending nasty-grams. Maybe you don’t have that problem with your ISP. If not, consider yourself fortunate.

What I’m trying to ascertain is how much bandwith the P2P feature uses and whether it’ll be a problem for people with VoIP phones and snarky ISPs.  Presumably Vudu has considered the problem, but I’d like to hear from someone with first hand experience.

To previous responder.  It didn’t slow down my computer at all, unlike Apple which downloads to the computer and does slow things down.  No problem here.  As far as peer to peer…it’s fabulous technology, works great, and you shouldn’t ##### as long as it does the job its supposed to do.  You seem to be negative without ever having used the thing.  You mislead people in the wrong direction when you comment about something you never even used.  You were wrong in your assumptions.  I would predict that if you did use it, you’d like it.  Every time I show it do people, I here “wow’s” all over the place.  It is impressive and just works the way they said it would.

VUDU has gotten even better as they are loading more and more movies.  Apple has only 500 downloads, VUDU has 5000 already going to 10,000 in 6 months.  I have not had a single glitch in 60 movies.  You do need broadband 3 MBPS.  My carrier increased my speed at no charge (it’s a competetive market.)  Once you use these guys, you feel that you will never go back to DVDs or physical media again.  No going to the store, or going online to order, no mailing, no waiting 40 minutes for a download.  VUDU downloads are a click and the movie starts in a second or less.  It’s cool.

One of my issues with the Vudu is the peer-to-peer component. If I’m paying $400 for the hardware and $15-$20 to buy a movie, they can darn well pay for the bandwidth rather than using mine.

I’ve heard there’s a Nice to Network (?) setting that chokes down the P2P stuff but it of course also limits download speed.

I’d just like to hear a report from someone who has a P2P unfriendly ISP, just to see if the Vudu gets them in trouble.

More of my thoughts in this post:
http://dragonchasers.com/2007/10/01/vudu/

Nice summary—thanks!

But you don’t have to be a Times subscriber to read any of my stuff. It’s all free, all the time!

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—David Pogue