TV Shows, HD "Bourne" Come to Vudu

The video set-top box with the 5,000 "instant" movies just added its first batch of TV shows, along with the Jason Bourne trilogy in HD. Good stuff—now all we need is a price drop on the hardware itself.

CNET's Crave blog reports that about 12 shows just arrived on the Vudu service (you can read my review of Vudu here), including "24," "Arrested Development," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "My Name Is Earl," "NYPD Blue," "Prison Break," "The Riches," "Shark," and "The Shield." Episodes are $1.99 each, the same as on Apple iTunes and Amazon Unbox. I always thought that TV shows and Vudu would go well together, and I'm glad to see that the first wave of episodes has arrived, at the right price; that said, I'd like to see more shows go online soon, including more from NBC, such as "The Office" and "Heroes," as well as ABC shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives."

Vudu also got its first HD movies earlier this month. "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy" both went online in late November—for free—while "The Bourne Ultimatum" goes up today. "Ultimatum," however, is only available for purchase, and at $24.99, the price is pretty steep, considering that you don't get any extras. I'd hope that future HD offerings on Vudu are available for both purchase and rental (and that rental prices are no more than about $5 a movie).

Good stuff, but here's my lingering gripe about Vudu (besides the fact that the sound on some movies was iffy during my initial tests): the $399 price tag. That's pricey since you're still paying top dollar for movie and TV rentals/purchases (and Vudu doesn't offer a subscription service, unfortunately). If the Vudu box got a price drop to, say, south of $250, then we'd have something.

Related:
Vudu adds TV shows [Crave]