Great news for VUDU owners this morning. Well, great news if they happen to have kids. VUDU just announced that Disney has released 60 library films for purchase and future titles will be up on the same day that the Blu-ray/DVD titles are released.
This is the first time VUDU says that Disney has allowed a downloadable service to sell their titles. Previously the films were only available on a rental basis. It’s always good news to see large additions to the VUDU catalog, but how about dropping the price a bit on the device itself? $150 is still kind of expensive even if Pandora is now available on the set-top box.
VUDU announced today that Disney is the first major studio to broadly license their HD catalog for purchase to any online service. Until now, HD movies have been available for rental only or offered for purchase in a one off basis. Disney is licensing 60 of the library films and all new HD releases for purchase day and date with the DVD/BluRay release of the film. Disney is offering this through VUDU in large part because of the quality of HD that VUDU offers, showing that Disney is a leader among the major studios who are making steady progress toward embracing the digital lifestyle of today’s consumers.