A recent player in the Yet Another STB market, VUDU launched less that two months ago with a $399 price tag, but now they’ve cut the price to $249. I’d have to suspect that means early sales volumes were disappointing. I don’t know of early adopters will get some kind of compensation, a la Apple and the iPhone, or if they just get the warm fuzzies of having their VUDU first. If you bought a VUDU for $400, I’d love to hear what, if anything, VUDU offers you for paying full-freight at launch – leave a comment.

Even at that price, I’d have problems recommending VUDU to anyone who wasn’t a *serious* movie buff. Someone who would be renting movies several times a week, if not nightly, to justify the purchase of a uni-tasker STB (as Alton Brown might say). If it drops under $200 my reservations would decrease. Get it down to $99 and no problem, I’d probably pick one up just for the hell of it. But if someone had ~$250 to spend I’d sooner recommend a TiVo HD. I think most people would get more use out of a DVR than the VUDU – and the TiVo always has Amazon Unbox as a download option.

VUDU needs to lower the price further and/or add more capabilities to the product to provide what I’d consider a good value. Ideally they’ll make their software, which is quite well done, a service on other platforms – TiVo, SlingCatcher, Blu-ray or HD DVD players, etc. Convergence, it is time. (I’d really love to see it as a service on the SlingCatcher.)

Picked up from ZatzNotFunny.