Vudu
By Joe Brown 10.23.07
At the intersection of laziness and instant gratification beckons a set-top box called Vudu.
Grab the remote, select a movie, agree to the rental fee (from $1 to $4, billed to your credit card), and without further ado you're watching it in HD.
Vudu has all seven major studios, plus 20 independent and foreign studios and distributors, signed up to provide films — 5,000 of them, constantly updated, from recent blockbusters to classic kung-fu epics.
The box automatically assesses your TV's display capabilities and pumps out a picture that's as hi-res as your set can handle, all the way up to 1080p.
Hope you didn't make any plans for next year.
Its special upconverting sauce turns files no larger than iTunes videos into massively awesome-looking movies, complete with Dolby 5.1 surround sound.
Plays It Cool
The engineers who designed the first TiVo were behind this box, and to keep it from overheating, they modeled every possible airflow scenario before the first piece of metal was cut.
Computing Pedigree
Instead of using a central server to push out flicks, Vudu's programmers took a lesson from the minicomputers of the 1970s: Every box stores a tiny piece of each movie on its hard drive, and sends that bit out to other users when called upon.
Remote Paradise
With five buttons and a scroll wheel, the super- ergonomic RF remote takes about 10 seconds to memorize, 20 seconds to master, and 30 seconds to love.
$399, vudu.com
