Originally Walmart’s digital video store, Vudu is now owned by Fandango Media. Walmart acquired Vudu in 2010 for $100 million. The combined service will continue to use the name Vudu and offer over 200,000 titles, which are available for purchase or streaming without a subscription. Thousands of titles are available for free as well. If you are not yet familiar with Vudu, here is a brief overview of the service.
Unlike Netflix, Vudu offers new content before it is released on DVD, which makes it easier to find new movies. In addition to new releases, Vudu bundles similar films together and puts them on one convenient platform. These bundles often appear in electronics departments or at checkout lines and are presented as gift ideas. If you’re a fan of a certain genre or actor, you can choose a bundle pack to watch several similar films.
Aside from free movies, you can also watch TV shows for free. However, Vudu does have ads. Most TV shows have two or three minutes of commercials. The ads usually occur at random intervals, and are often not distracting. It is also possible to buy a movie and cancel it. But this is unlikely to happen unless you’ve bought it. But Vudu does let you watch movies for free indefinitely without any restrictions.
In addition to selling new releases, Vudu also offers SD and HDX versions of most titles. You may even find a few titles that have UHD versions. In order to watch these movies online, you can convert your physical discs into digital versions. Vudu’s website guides you through the process. It’s easy and inexpensive to convert Blu-ray and DVDs into digital copies. For $2 to $6, a Blu-ray to HDX conversion will allow you to view the content in HD or 4K UHD.