What about audio - any improved quality?

Bill: According to VUDU…

“HDX also offers the best available surround sound quality for Internet delivered movies with immersive, high resolution sound at a 40 percent higher bit-rate than standard surround sound DVDs.”

Sounds like that would be Dolby Digital at 640kbs rather than DVD’s 448kbs, which definitely pales in comparison to the various lossless and 7.1 options offered by Blu-ray.

Pay $1,000.00 so I can Rent Movies and watch on one TV. with quality below Blu-ray, Because if it doesn’t have lossless audio it isn’t Blu-ray.

Or, I could buy a Blu-ray disc player for $300.00.
And for $18.00 per month basicily watch as many Blu-ray/DVD discs as I want thru Net Flix.

It’s a hard sell VUDO

“Pay $1,000.00 so I can Rent Movies and watch on one TV. with quality below Blu-ray, Because if it doesn’t have lossless audio it isn’t Blu-ray.”
You are a little mistaken. First off, the XL version of the unit with the terabyte hard disk drive is 1,000 and a rare unit to find at that. $300 dollars gets you the standard Vudu unit available at all Best Buy retailers.
Second, Vudu is not claiming to be Blu-Ray. What they are doing however, is offering near blu-ray quality video and audio that is better than DVD. Furthermore, they’re making sure you never have to go to a video store again, or wait while your netflix movies are mailed to you.
I think it’s a hell of a product!

“near blu-ray quality video and audio” remains to be seen.  Perhaps the video is close (assuming they are allocating enough bandwidth to match what Blu-ray can deliver), but on the audio side it’s very difficult to suggest 640kbit Dolby Digital is “near” lossless PCM, Dolby TrueHD, or DTS-HD MA in quality.