Friday, April 22, 2011

Vudu vs. Netflix updated

The performance of both Vudu and Netflix streaming has improved with the installation of powerline Ethernet. You make an explicit choice of quality with Vudu and pay more for higher quality. However, it is difficult (or not possible) to downgrade to a lower quality, once a higher level of quality has been selected.

Netflix tests your link at the beginning of each film and sends you the best quality that it believes that you can support. It is automatic and will back down automatically if the link degrades while streaming.

I like the Netflix approach best. However, I think that Vudu generally provides better video quality. However, Netflix is certainly good enough and I would not choose to buy a Vudu film rather than watching it on Netflix. I would watch Vudu only if content I wanted to see was not available from Netflix.

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