Yes, the Sugar Bowl is forgettably over, and Pulpconnection’s Pour Some Sugar on Me giveaway is finished. When announcing the winners, I gave a look at the Nice prizes, but how about a look at the Naughty ones?
Naughty#1 prize is a 2008 calendar provided by Club 939 featuring twelve thirteen months of 939. And of course, this one is personalized!
Naughty#2 prize again comes from the graces of Club 939 and is an autographed DVD from Jandi Lin.
Part 1 of my Vudu review focused on the Vudu service and my movie watching habits. Part 2 looks at setting up and getting the Vudu box online.
The Setup
Getting the Vudu box connected was straightforward. Connect the included yellow, red, and white cables, connect the Ethernet cable, screw in the small RF antenna, and plug in the power.
Make the Net Work
Since Vudu relies on the Internet to get its movies, you need a decently fast Internet connection. Vudu has their speed test application to test your connection. My Road Runner connection fluctuated in test results anywhere from 2300 kbps to 4000 kbps for downloads and 750 kbps for uploads, getting a green light for Vudu use.
But here’s the tricky part. My cable modem and home router are no where near my television set. How do I get the Vudu in my living room connected to my cable modem in another room? You gotta go wireless! The Vudu has a wired Ethernet jack and does support Wi-Fi via a wireless adapter according to the Vudu FAQ. The FAQ also has a list of tested routers but does not show my router of choice, Apple’s AirPort Extreme. But I can safely say the Vudu works with the Airport Extreme base station.
And here’s another wrinkle with this wireless setup. The 802.11n AirPort Extreme is just the base station providing wired and wireless connections. How do I connect the Vudu that is rooms away? Fortunately, I also have the “companion” product, Apple’s AirPort Express. While I mainly use this pair for streaming music to my home stereo system via Air Tunes, together both devices allows for a wireless distribution system (WDS). Luckily, I already had a WDS set up so plugging the Vudu box into the AirPort Express is all that was needed to get online.
Initialization
Once connected and powered up, the Vudu box plays an audio and video test to help confirm the setup. Then the Vudu box automatically goes through a four step initialization process:
The overall initialization process took about 15 minutes as software version 1.1.2 was downloaded and installed.
Once complete, you’ll see the Vudu navigation screen and can start looking for movies.
Found this UH Warrior football magazine for the upcoming 2008 Sugar Bowl. Contains team info and stats throughout the Warriors’ undefeated season.
Didn’t get any kicks for Christmas this year. I’m just looking…
Nike Trainer Dunk Low – Black – Camo – Bo Jackson would be proud.
Air Jordan Enhancer – eh, okay, but the oversized jumpman logo really stands out. Good advertising for teams playing on television.
Air Force 1 x Air Jordan III Fusion – love them Air Jordan cross overs.
Air Jordan XX3 – possibly the last in the Jordan line.
Technorati Tags: Air Force One, Air Jordan, Kicks, Nike, shoes, sneakers
What do you think of when you hear about voodoo and movies?
How about Major League’s Pedro Cerrano making offerings to Jobu to banish fear out of his bats? How about a scare tactic used against Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset in The Deep? Or how about a convoluted plot of revenge in the Blue Bayou between Denise Richards, Neve Campbell, and Matt Dillon in Wild Things?
Did you ever imagine this?
Vudu.com is a new on-line movie service letting customers rent or buy movies using their sleek Vudu box. Vudu joins Tivo, AppleTV, Netflix, and Joost (to some extent) in the watch-at-home movie market.
Thanks to a grassroots viral marketing campaign by a dedicated employee, I managed to get a Vudu box to witness Vudu’s movie magic. Let’s take a look.
Me and Movies
Me and movies? I’ve been to two movies in about two years – Star Wars III and X-Men: The Last Stand where everyone dies. That’s it. So, I’m no critic, and my only recent exposure to films has been watching trailers.
There are other sources for movies you say? How about a Tivo partnered with Amazon Unbox? Sorry, for some reason, I never cared for Tivo’s monthly subscription fees. How about an AppleTV along with the iTunes Store? I’m still an old school holdout without a HDTV unlike these guys. Until my current set breaks, I’m sticking with it, and that’s why no AppleTV since it only supports newer television sets with HDMI or component video. I’m looking for the composite yellow or S-video port. Netflix is good, and I used to be a subscriber. Again those monthly fees started buggin’ me especially when I watched very few discs in a month. I don’t got the time to keep watching flicks or have the effort to burn copies of the discs. So there went Netflix. Joost? Well, it’s neat and looks good on my big screen Mac, but content is lacking. Watching a channel only of Transformers cartoons is fun for only so long.
My movie profile summarized – I don’t like monthly subscription fees (sorry Tivo and Netflix). I need to support my retro, analog television set (sorry AppleTV), and I want some decent selection of content (sorry Joost and iTunes Store).
Welcome to Vudu
The Vudu service is at the sweet spot of fitting my needs. Users buy or rent movies without any monthly fees. The cost of movies is reasonable ranging from $3 to rent up to $20 to own ($24 for HD movies). And content selection is good with nearly 5000 movies and now television shows.
Here are a few obligatory unboxing shots.
The Vudu packaging (the box is heavy!)
Took a page out of Apple’s playbook with the cardboard covering with a special message.
All the accessories you need.
The Vudu box.
The included instructions are minimalist and are kinda funny when it says stuff like this targeted for Everyone.
Pulpconnection’s Pour Some Sugar on Me giveaway is finally done. There were 18 entries vying for 4 naughty and nice prizes.
First, here is a rundown of the naughty and nice prizes.
Nice#1: Starbucks and iTunes “Almost” Hand Picked music. Almost a complete collection of delectable Starbucks Hand Picked Song of the Day. Instead of going to Starbucks a whole lot, I did it for you and almost got all the songs. That plus a $5 Starbucks gift card which includes two free songs from iTunes.
Naughty#1: Club 939 Calendar for 2008 (customized for Pulpconnection w00t!). Twelve months of Club 939 coming at you.
Nice#2: Ainevano tee shirt. Be the life of a Christmas party wearing this rare, red ainevano tee shirt from Moanalua High School.
Naughty#2: Jandi Lin autographed DVD, courtesy of Club 939. Jandi will warm your cockles this cold Christmas.
‘Nuff with the prizes. On to the winners… watch as the winners are revealed.
No YouTube access? Try this alternative.
Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for playing. Happy Holidays.
Technorati Tags: pulpconnection
Club 939 is hosting a quaint soiree, and you’re all invited! The guest of honor at this Holidaze affair is local girl and starlet, Jandi Lin. The “femme fatale reborn” will be signing DVDs on Thursday, December 20.
During these cold times, Jandi is sure to warm your cockles. Ho, ho, ho!
Playing around with the Nike+ web site, I noticed it supports widgets like this.
Oh yeah, that’s 370 calories of junk food I can now eat! Where can I find some mint, dark chocolate 3 Musketeers?
Technorati Tags: Nike
Thanks to Ryan and Burt, I’m hoping Santa will be making an early delivery of a Vudu box.
What’s Vudu? It’s a movie streaming service that delivers movies straight to your television. You can buy or rent movies ranging from $0.99 to $19.99. Here’s a first look from Macworld.com.
Hopefully more to come… soon…
Technorati Tags: vudu
How can you forget Poison, Do Me!,and When Will I See You Smile Again? I was talking with Coco Bean about music from the 90’s after she attended a forgettable concert featuring Sweet Sensation, Cover Girls, Freedom Williams of C+C Music Factory, and others then I thought of BBD, Bell Biv DeVoe.
I also remembered meeting the trio (actually mainly Michael Bivins) at a celebrity basketball game back in the day on the campus of the caffeinated Anteaters. Got Biv’s autograph on their WBBD – BOOTCITY! remix CD.
All I can say is w00t! Pulpconnection passed 50,000 visits yesterday thanks to readers addicted to passions and pulp (and Julianne Hough farting on Dancing with the Stars).
The visits timeline:
What was the hot content during this time? Dancing with the Stars, UH WAC championship shirts, and kicks dominated.
But by far, Julianne Hough’s fart brought in the most views. Referenced by truemors.com, this post accounted for 33% of the visits.
At 40,000 visits, Club 939 fell off of the list of top keywords. Did it make it back?
Yup, 939 eeked back in at #9.
And lastly, where did the traffic come from?
Thanks for all the visits everyone. I didn’t think Pulpconnection could pass the 50,000 mark before the end of the year, but here we are. Don’t forget there’s still time to play in the Pour Some Sugar on Me giveaway. The list of naughty and nice prizes is almost done with the addition of another naughty gift. w00t!
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It goes down Thursday night. Get your very own limited edition Club 939 calendar for 2008 and meet the pictured talent. The 939 models will be on hand to sign your calendar starting at 9PM.
Be there to take home 12 months of Club 939.
Technorati Tags: Club 939
