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Vudu first began showing up in Best Buy locations back in late-March and at the time it was just 24 locations, all of which were located in California. The limited availability was thought to be a testing period to make sure the devices would be able to sell as expected.

Well, jump forward a little over a month and it looks like it must have been successful because Vudu and Best Buy have just announced a little more widespread availability, however it is still not nationwide.

They have remained in California, but also expanded to Arizona and Illinois, all in all it looks like they are now available in almost 70 Best Buy locations. In addition to the move into Best Buy locations in other states, Vudu has also recently added 35 new movies to own and 30 new movies to rent.

Via [CrunchGear]

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/02/vudu-continues-to-infiltrate-best-buy/

Well, by now I hope you have already seen our unboxing set that we posted yesterday, but now its time for a quick hands on review with the Roku Netflix Player.

First off the player is small, which may be good or bad depending on your setup. I say this only because it does take up very little space in your entertainment stack, but similar to game consoles and the AppleTV its another odd size device that you will have to make a place for. Lucky for us, we had a nice spot to sneak it in.

The setup was easy an process and the player comes with the remote, a power adapter and a set of cables to hook it up. The setup was simple, find an empty set of plugs on your TV, plug the cables into the TV and into the player, then plug in the power adapter. Just like that its hooked up, and now its time to begin the actual setup, which I am happy to say was just as quick and painless.

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This little set-top box hit the market early last week with quite a bit of excitement. The Roku Netflix Player was what a lot of people had been waiting for, and based on statements about a 10 day delay from the Roku forums, they either sold really well or Roku had underestimated the initial sales numbers. Either way we were lucky enough to be able to get our order in early and with that ours is now in hand. That means you can be on the lookout for a review in the future, and if you have any questions about how it works send them our way. In the meantime enjoy some pics from the unboxing.

Keep reading for some more pics…

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Vudu, while maybe not attracting quite as much attention as originally hoped, are proving they are still alive in the small but welcomed movie set-top-box market. The Vudu box was originally launched back in the Fall of 2007, but sales may have been slow because of the limited availability, up till now it could only be found directly with Vudu or with Amazon.com.

However customers can now purchase the Vudu box in one of 24 Best Buy outlets in California, which should help overall sales and awareness of the product. While the management from Vudu would not comment on the strategy behind the limited availability of Best Buy locations, its safe to assume that they are most likely looking to see just how well they will sell. 

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Fresh off the official announcement we have some early reviews beginning to show up for the Netflix set-top box player from Roku. The new player will allow Netflix users with the $8.95 monthly plan (or higher) have access to (currently) 10,000 available titles for instant viewing from just about any television. While the player does have some limitations, it seems to have gotten a fairly good set of reviews, which just makes me look forward to mine arriving.

Overall it seems that most of these review were fairly similar. For the most part the comments were positive, referring to an easy initial setup and nice feature which offers automatic upgrades as they come available. The price, at $99.95 was also right on, especially considering those who are already Netflix customers will not have any additional expense, assuming they have an $8.95 a month (or higher) plan. It seems that while this may offer other devices such as they AppleTV or Vudu some competition, the lack of HD quality and current movie selection is going to hold it back. Assuming the movie selection improves over time, it could become more of a power player in the future. Other items that were mentioned was that the movie management is still done on the familiar Netflix website, you add movies to your queue the same way you always have and the box will then add them to your playlist. One potential drawback will be that the movies are streaming and with a slower connection, this could cause some issues, it was also noted in some of the reviews that because the movies were indeed streaming that it made fast-forwarding and rewinding less than ideal.

Let’s see what they had to say:

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Roku has just released the first set-top box for Netflix, allowing users to avoid the wait and have some instant access to the movie of their choosing. Unfortunately the box does not offer access to the complete Netflix library, however it still does have over 10,000 available as of now. The Roku Netflix set-top box comes in a quiet and fanless design that is about the size of just a few DVD movie cases.

The Netflix player also offers a wide variety of connectivity to include a RCA, S-video, component video, HDMI and optical audio connections. The device also offers both a wired Ethernet port as well as wireless compatibility. Any customers with a Netflix plan of $8.95 or higher will be able to get unlimited viewing of those available titles. As a service that can be used with just about any television, offers a large movie selection and costs less than $10 bucks a month, it seems that the AppleTV and Vudu have just gotten a solid competitor. The Netflix player is currently available and retailing for $99.99.

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Title: Iron Man
Release Date: May, 2, 2008
Publisher (Developer): Marvel and Paramount Pictures
Rating: PG-13
Pros: Great acting, very funny, great effects, more contemporary setting and origin, pleasing to Iron Man and comic fans
Cons: Feels like a short movie, limited story, not enough action or Iron Man, to many quick edits, no Nick Fury cameo
Overall Score: One thumb up, one sideways; 80/100; B-; * * * out of five.

Gamertell has posted its review for the Iron Man movie, in theater now (released May 2, 2008). According to the review, “The film provides the perfect merging of fact and fiction, featuring a fictional character whose own life has as many ups and downs as Downey’s real-life career. With so much insight, Downey brings incredible character and personality to Stark, helping to extra depth to a previously 2D character. It’s that depth that allows you to simultaneously laugh at Downey’s every word thinking about how much of a jerk he is…

Ultimately, Iron Man is a fun ride that doesn’t live up to the story and emotional quality of Batman Begins, nor is it likely to win over a whole new generation of fans like the Spider-Man films have.”

Head to Gamertell for the full review.

Read [Gamertell]

Our sister site Gamertell has spotted an interesting freebie at Target retail stores. The chain is putting out a Speed Racer-themed gift card that comes with a 60+ MB USB 2.0 Flash drive built right in. It is one of those gift cards you fill with money to give to someone else, so it’s essentially free if you happen to forget to fill it before you take it home. (*wink*)

The Flash drive is preloaded with 50 MB of promotional files including the usual wallpapers, printable coupons, movie files and a videogame cheat code for the upcoming release of May 6, 2008, release of Speed Racer: The Videogame. You can, of course, keep or delete the files as you wish and simple have a nifty fat credit card sized Flash drive with a Speed Racer skin.

Read [Gamertell]

Apple announced today that the AppleTV “take 2” update will be delayed. According to Apple the new “software will be available as a free automatic download to all Apple TV customers within two weeks.” Of course we were told two weeks during Macworld which would have meant yesterday. While its not a reason to hold off on purchasing an AppleTV, it is annoying to those of us who cannot wait to start renting HD movies.

Read [Apple]

It seems the movie download business was just not for Wal-Mart. They have closed the service effective December 21, 2007, having it up and running for less than one year. According to a Wal-Mart spokesperson the movie download service was shut down because Hewlett Packard had discontinued the technology that was behind it. Wal-Mart does not currently have any plans to find another partner to power the service, due in part to the service not performing as well “as expected.”

Wal-Mart has not offered any refunds for movies that were currently downloaded. The movies are able to be played on Windows Media Player or the Wal-Mart Video Download Manager, but are not able to be transfered to another computer. Wal-Mart had support of all the major Hollywood movie studios and TV networks however I think they were lacking one important item; flexibility.

Read [Yahoo! News]