Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD

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Vudu has thrown down the gauntlet… They contacted me yesterday to emphasize their “quality of HD video is better” than what Apple TV provides. The claim is based on Vudu’s resolution of up to 1080p versus Apple’s 720p. Of course, the pixel count doesn’t tell the whole story… How well are these movies compressed and encoded, what bitrates are we talking here? Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget HD is on-board with a comparison – so he’s Fed-Exing his AppleTV to me for a side by side comparison. And then I’ll FedEx both boxes to him for his perspective.

25 thoughts on “Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD”

  5. Interested to see the results, but don’t kill your self. I assume Ben has access to a lab with 3 monitors and can queue them up simultaneously which is probably the only way to really do this…

  8. Where’s that “Let’s get ready to rumble!” guy when you need him? I love hardware “shootouts”, be sure to take lots of pictures ( Post on Flickr if bandwidth is an issue ).

    Also, if you are REALLY motivated, make note of the box-to-watching-movie set up times too. A lot of non-geek people factor that in as part of their purchasing decisions.

  9. From reading Vudu forums where multiple people own both platforms, there doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between Apple and Vudu HD quality but the quality ladder would go like that:
    1) Blu-Ray/HD-DVD
    2) -none-
    3) Vudu HD
    4) Apple HD
    5) Xbox Marketplace HD
    6) Cable/Satellite HD VOD (more bandwidth but one-pass compression)

    And I have faith that Dave will be able to perform a better job than EngadgetHD. Granted it was different people at EngHD who reviewed Vudu HD and AppleTV HD quality, but given how close Vudu and Apple are in HD quality it was still very curious to see ATV being praised for HD quality while Vudu got ripped for not being HD enough.

    P.S. One scene that people used is radar screen at the beginning of “Transformers”. You can see a noticeable difference in how much detail there is between Vudu HD, AppleTV HD and Vudu SD.

  10. Steve, give us some better non-truncated links? As far as analytical methods of comparison, you won’t see that here – I don’t have the gear or the interest. But I’ll give you my subjective impression of the video quality, and as Todd requested will take pics, present time-to-watch data, etc.

    Glenn, Ben doesn’t have a lab but he does have a 60″ Kuro and is much more particular in regards to PQ than I am. If the picture quality is comparable, I’m more about selection, ease of use, price, convenience… And those who read ZNF regularly probably already know that I favor multi-function devices over dedicated-function STBs – so I already prefer and recommend the Xbox 360, PS3 (w/ Blu-ray), or Apple TV over Vudu.

  11. Here are those links again:

    Jake Ludington

    and

    XYHD.TV

    Personally, I’d like to see proper screen captures taken via a screen capture card as opposed to digital camera. Otherwise you could end up with similar results as gizmodos – where their comparison of Transformers made Vudu look terrible (and as a vudu user myself I can attest to its innacuracy)

  12. Yep, photos won’t mean much – especially with my camera and my skills. As far as using a capture card (or Slingbox), it won’t happen with the Vudu which only outputs HD via HDMI… and the HDMI spec/cert doesn’t allow recording at this time.

    As an aside, I rented both Transformers in HD and SD on the Vudu and like Gizmodo did not see an amazing difference in quality. Connected via HDMI and displaying 1080i. That was just a brief look, though – hopefully, I’ll have the time and interest to be more comprehensive in this shoot-out. Unlike Wilson over at Gizmodo, blogging is a hobby… that eats into my free time and ability to actually watch and enjoy the movies. I can’t say I enjoyed Transformers and would like that time back. ;)

  14. I don’t really feel like I praised the ATV HD that much.

    I expected it to look much worse. And while I think a lot of Darren, he does own a Sony TV (hehe) and neither HD DVD or Blu-ray.

    My expectations are that the quality will be so close that it won’t make much impact on the decision between the two.

    Personally I don’t find either rental service useful and like the ATV cause I can bring my own content. But I am still very mad that the photos feature is USELESS!

  15. I was VERY excited when original AppleTV was announched but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.

    I don’t find ATV’s features all that useful for someone who’s not an iTunes-centered person. Photo functionality is gimped and you have to hack the heck out of it to get ability to playback normal video codecs (sorry, I am not converting my entire video library).

    Having said that, if new AppleTV software gets [re-]hacked to playback AVI and H.264 MKVs and actually allows 720p and 1080p playback (I hear that was an issue), I would be ordering one to use along with my Vudu.

  16. Has anyone seen a published list of all the HD movies available on Apple TV? I’m interested to see what they have available and what the overlap with VUDU is. I keep this list of vudu HD movies up to date (and will do until it gets too overwhelming):

    http://preview.tinyurl.com/28zw4r

    @Ivan – I agree, if Appletv were hacked and was able to basically do everything my HTPC can do without re-encoding all my videos and without its dependence on I-tunes, I’d buy one today.

  19. The most interesting question is not who has the best picture, but who has the best experience for the buyers who will make one a success and others failures. I have Netflix and Vudu. Netflix and Blockbuster were leaders of the last decade. Both are losing money badly and will go out of business. Xbox might be very nice if you are a gamer, but 100 million people are not. People in our age want instant gratification. Dave should test with an eye to which is the better, “most fun” machine. That’s what will make people buy. My Vudu is far more fun than my Netflix, my previous winner. Vudu has the best remote by a factor of 3. It’s instant, even with high def. If it’s a little sharper than apple and a little less than a high def disc is not important to me and millions like me. Those differences are small. But with Vudu you can filter your lists for categories, multiple categories, only best critic-rated movies, etc. in 10 or 20 seconds. You can preview whatever you pick before you buy or rent it. You don’t have that with anything else that I’ve seen or heard about. Netflix is cheap but you can’t preview and their selection process is buried with what we have today. Apple is copying Vudu, interestingly enough and will do well. Vudu seems to be more innovative and moves quicker than Apple, and is good for us since they seem to be driving the improvemnts in what we care about. Dave test as if you were a female buyer or a casual guy who didn’t already have something at home. Most of us did not buy Budu because it had more pixels. Which is more fun to use?

  20. Bernie, you have an important point — the vast majority of consumers don’t care a whole lot about video quality, especially after a certain point (which I think most of the current offerings reach). However, obviously there are multiple market segments here, and some of those segments *do* care a lot about video quality. Some, like myself, want great video quality *and* excellent usability — one without the other won’t make me happy. “So what?”, you might say; clearly people like myself are a minuscule fraction of the market. That’s true. However, the people who care about these things are the same people who tend to be early adopters. And early adopters will be very important in making these products successful. My mom isn’t going to go out and buy Vudu right now. She didn’t even get a DVD player until I bought one for her a couple of years ago. Before people like her are going to buy into a technology, people like me have to buy into it, and video quality matters to us…

  21. Excellent comments by Sean. At the same time that i have an eye to a sharper picture, I think the fun and ease of use are going to win the race. Apple will do well because they can copy Vudu, as they did one year later in getting the studios on board, as they are just starting with rentals, and as Microsoft did to them in the past. I love the Vudu and hope they stay in the race because they seem to be driving the technology and especially the software which is I guess what seems so much better than the others.

    Beernie.

  22. Bernie, I’m close to pulling the trigger on a Vudu, but I’ve heard that many of the movies, especially older movies are available for purchase only. I’m looking at this box (and Apple TV, but based on specs and reviews, am leaning 80-20 toward the Vudu) as a majority rental machine, and if the majority of films are not available as rentals, that might kill my interest in it. Can you give me an idea of what percentage (of SD & HD) is purchase only?

  23. Hey Joe –
    As of today:

    to rent – 3635
    to own – 4072

    All HD-DVD is rent only (except the Bourne trilogy)

    It can be annoying when you find a movie you want to watch and it is “purchase only” – but this doesn’t happen *too* much. Fortunately you can filter on “available to rent” when searching for titles.

  26. Have both VUDU and appleTV. Both are very similar and picture quality is usually a matter of the picture quality of your TV and what you purchase – thus this debate is a wash. VUDU has an awesome remote compared to appleTV but the advantage of appleTV is iTunes. Anything you can put on iTunes you can transfer to appleTV and watch and listen to on your TV which is great if you have a big fat stereo system hooked up to your TV. AppleTV also has the advantage if you have a lot of home movies and pictures and wish to watch them on your TV. Import or download them to iTunes and your set. No need to have a separate device hooked up to your TV to watch or view them or use third party software. The other great advantage of appleTV is the fact that every movie you buy and picture you take is on your computer in iTunes and this allows you to watch/view them on your computer and most importantly it allows you to download them to your iPods and have complete transportability – no other platform allows this (legally). Buy some audio/video cables for your iPod and you can watch your movies or view your pics on any TV in your house from your iPod.

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