As if porn wasn’t enough to differentiate itself from competitors, this time Vudu (see our early review) has cheapened its set-top box movie service in the right way by offering heavily discounted rentals through its newly launched “99 for 99” movie channel.
As the name suggests, 99 movies will be on offer priced at just 99 cents per rental. Titles will be “personally” chosen by Vudu’s “in-house movie expert” Steven Horn, and will include both recent releases and “classics”, with selections rotated each week.
Vudu has also significantly reduced the cost of extending a movie rental, a new feature it introduced in May whereby, for an additional fee, customers can extend the 24-hour viewing window after they first hit play. Users can now renew any standard definition video rental for 99 cents within seven days of first viewing a film. High definition movie rentals can be extended for $1.99. Vudu claims that its new offering is “the most generous rental renewal policy in the industry”, something that we’d have a hard time disagreeing with, although we still wish that viewing windows for digital rentals were much more generous in the first place. Ever heard of no late fees?