The rental process is very similar. When you
rent a title, it will be available and
stored in My Movies for up to 30 days. Once you press “play,” a 24-hour viewing
period is initiated. The rental will expire at the end of that 24-hour period or the
end of 30 days, whichever comes first.
After you have rented or purchased a film, you may easily access it by clicking on
My Movies from the VUDU Home Screen. Each movie studio determines the
availability and the conditions under which VUDU rents and/or sells its titles.
In order to pause the movie’s playback, press the “play/pause” button. To resume
play, press “play/pause” again.
If you leave a movie you are in the process of watching for any period of time, it
will automatically resume playing where you left off when you return to it.
You will notice a track bar at the bottom of your screen. This bar allows you to
navigate within the movie you are watching. You can fast-forward or rewind
within that portion of the movie that has been downloaded by using the scroll
wheel on the remote.
If you do nothing, the track bar will disappear after five seconds. If, at any point,
you’d like to see the track bar again, simply click or scroll the wheel once.
YOUR ACCOUNT
You can access your account through the VUDU website. There, you can view
your movie purchase history as well as update your credit card information.
VUDU takes all major credit cards: VISA, MasterCard and American Express.
If you purchased your VUDU box online, you will have set up your account during
the purchasing process. If you bought the box from a retailer, you will be asked
to activate your account during the guided set-up process.
When setting up your account, you will provide a credit card and choose an
amount ($20, $50, or $100 with $20 being the default amount) to charge the
card and create a positive balance in the account. As you rent or purchase movies,
the per-movie viewing charges will be debited from your VUDU account. When
your account depletes to $0.00, the pre-selected amount is charged to the credit
card and the account is replenished.
SETTINGS & INFO
SERVICE QUALITY
Throughout the VUDU experience, you will be notified if the network is not in an
optimal state. This notification does not interfere with exploring or with playback
unless instant viewing is not possible.
If the network is disconnected, a red triangle appears in the bottom right-hand
area of the screen and is also noted on the Movie Details Screen.
If the network is connected but below the level needed for instant access (2
Mbps), the network notification appears in yellow. When you click into it, you
will be informed of how long the delay will be to watch your movie.
Additionally, the Network State on the Settings & Info menu enables you to see
details about your network state and troubleshoot any issues.
With the Advanced Service Set-up, you can set the amount of bandwidth VUDU
will consume.
PARENTAL CONTROLS
With this feature, you can limit access to certain kinds of movies for
rental/purchase or watching.
From the Settings menu, you can select “Parental Controls” and limit the movies,
by rating, your children may watch or purchase without your participation. (If
you block a rating for purchase or rental, it will automatically be blocked for
viewing as well. You may separate the two by un-clicking the individual boxes.)
To activate Parental Controls, click the “On” switch. You will be asked to enter
your password. If it is the first time you’ve used Parental Controls, you will be
prompted to create a password with a display presented which assigns numbers
to buttons on the remote.
All movies are assigned a rating by the MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of
America. The ratings are G, PG, PG-13, R, or NC-17. Some additional content is
not rated by the MPAA. Please note that we find some of this content—such as
nature documentaries—suitable for family viewing. In these cases, we label the
content “Unrated/Family-Friendly.” If it is otherwise listed as “Unrated,” we have
not deemed it to be family-friendly.
The “time-out” for Parental Controls is three minutes. If a user leaves the screen
idle for more than three minutes, he or she will have to reenter a password in
order to activate Parental Controls.
AUDIO & VIDEO SETTINGS
The VUDU box can output a variety of aspect ratios. You’ll want to choose an
aspect ratio that’s compatible with your TV. VUDU offers 16x9, or “widescreen,”
the format of most ED and HDTV’s. If you have an older television, you’ll want to
choose 4x3, or “fullscreen.” In most cases, VUDU can detect the settings most
appropriate for your TV. Additionally, we enable some manual settings.
Video playback format–The default setting is boxed.
• Boxed (recommended)– Displays video using the original aspect ratio with
black bars on top/bottom or sides.
• Stretched– Stretches video playback to fill the screen.