Vudu is primarily a service for renting and buying new movies. Paid options offer up to 4K resolution and include pretty much all the newest movies to hit the home market.
There are also free, ad-supported movies and TV shows. Vudu’s free TV show offerings are meager — expect a lot of "Kitchen Nightmares" and old shows, like "Roseanne."
There are over 5,000 free movies available on Vudu, but like most free service libraries, many of these films are those that no one actually wants to watch mixed with good but older movies. There's an option to sort by Rotten Tomato score above 60 and 80 percent fresh, which is a welcome feature, although we would like to have the ability to filter with more precise scores.
As far as ads, it’s awful for television shows, with one to three 30-second commercials starting before the show even starts, with additional similar ad-breaks peppered throughout. Movies fare better, with about four or five ad breaks with only one commercial.
Vudu touts its "HDX" feature, which it says is better than standard Ultra High Definition (UHD)/1080p because it streams in a higher bitrate. The movies do look good.
As far as a streaming service, we don’t recommend the free television section, but we do recommend the free movies. For its paid a la carte movie rentals and purchases, Vudu offers a huge selection of HD movies at fair prices.