Vudu lets you extend 24-hour rental window, for a price

The Apple TV competitor now lets you extend the 24-hour viewing window for movie downloads by another day, for a "discounted" price. It's a step in the right direction, but the fee is still too pricey.

The makers of the Vudu TV set-top box sent out an e-mail blast announcing the new feature, which comes in its latest firmware update (version 1.5).

So here's how it works: One the initial 24-hour viewing period for a movie has elapsed, you'll have a week to order another 24-hour window (or 48 hours, for Vudu movies that have a 48-hour viewing period) for the title.

You'll have to pony up for the privilege, however. For $5.99 HD movie rentals, extending the viewing window will cost you $3.99; for all other movies, you get $1 off the rental price (or 50 cents off 99-cent rentals).

Another condition: You can only extend a movie once; after that, you'll have to pay the full rental price to see the movie again.

It's an interesting compromise for those of us annoyed by the stingy 24-hour rental terms (or 30 days for unwatched videos) of movie download services like Apple TV, Amazon Unbox, and the like.

But if you ask me, the "rental extension" idea would be a lot more compelling if the extensions were half off the original price; as it stands, paying $2.99 to extend a $3.99 new-release rental doesn't feel like much of a bargain.

Or even better: How about giving us an across-the-board 48-hour window—or get this, a seven-day window? That would bring movie downloads closer to matching the convenience of Netflix movies, which you can keep as long as you want.

Or try this on for size: Unlimited viewing windows, but only for X number of rentals at a time?

Related:
TV set-top battle: Apple TV vs. Vudu