VUDU Introduces Pandora, First Music Application for VUDU

VUDU Introduces Pandora, First Music Application for VUDU

Latest Major Application Built on the VUDU RIA Platform Enables VUDU Owners to Bring Truly Personalized Radio to their Televisions and Home Theaters For Free

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 16 /PRNewswire/ -- VUDU, a leading provider of digital on-demand entertainment products and services, announced today that VUDU owners can get immediate access to Pandora's free, personalized Internet radio service on VUDU. Pandora represents VUDU's first music application for its growing RIA (Rich Internet Application) platform. Pandora joins YouTube, Flickr, Picasa and a selection of more than 120 channels of web based video content available to VUDU owners in their living rooms for free.

"As we continue to expand our RIA platform, we look forward to bringing many more popular services like Pandora to the VUDU Service," said Edward Lichty, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Content. "Our open development environment allows us to easily release new applications in partnership with some of today's most popular services and content delivery platforms, increasing the value of the VUDU service platform for our users and partners."

"Pandora is committed to enabling our listeners to enjoy their Pandora stations in all the places they listen to music; at home, at work or on the go," said Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora. "We were impressed with VUDU's speed and the quality of development and think that VUDU is a great way for our listeners to access their favorite Pandora stations in the comfort of their living room."

VUDU customers can now experience Pandora on their televisions with all of the functionality that has made Pandora the leader in Internet radio. Using VUDU's award winning remote control, VUDU customers can create new stations and personalize them by adding new variety to the station and "thumbing" songs up and down as they play. Additionally, Pandora on VUDU supports multiple accounts enabling every member of the family to play his or her own personalized Pandora stations.

http://www.pandora.com/Pandora (www.pandora.com) is a free, personalized Internet radio service based on the Music Genome Project, which began in 2000 and is the most thorough analysis of popular music ever undertaken. Each song in the massive collection, which includes Pop, Rock, Jazz, Electronica, Hip Hop, Country, Blues, R&B, Latin and Classical, is analyzed and assessed against up to 400 distinct musical attributes (encompassing melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) to capture its unique musical identity. Pandora uses this information to build playlists based on musical similarity. By entering a favorite song or artist, a listener is instantly launched into a personalized listening experience. Listeners can create up to 100 of these personal radio stations and refine them by providing thumbs up or thumbs down feedback.

Introduced in late 2008, VUDU's RIA is a standards-based platform that makes Web-hosted rich applications and services easily accessible through the VUDU Labs area of the VUDU service. Consumers can now use the VUDU remote control to access their favorite Internet content in their living rooms, optimized for display on their HDTVs. Combining the openness and ease of development of Web applications and a lean-back user experience optimized for television, VUDU RIA will be opening to developers later in 2009.

About VUDU:

VUDU is a leading provider of digital technologies and services that deliver entertainment to consumers' HDTVs and Home Theaters. VUDU's 1080p Movie Players, the VUDU BX100, VUDU XL and VUDU XL2 are designed to deliver tens of thousands of on-demand movies and TV shows directly to HDTVs. All versions support native instant start HD as well as HDX, the highest picture quality for on-demand content available anywhere, and automatically upscale standard resolution movies. All movies are displayed in 1080p resolution at 24 frames per second, the cinematic gold standard. The company recently reduced the retail price of the VUDU BX100 movie player, offering the set top box at retail and online for only $149.

Through relationships with every major US movie studio and more than 40 independent studios and distributors, VUDU offers a vast array of on-demand choices at the highest quality. VUDU offers a library of more than 14,000 movies and TV episodes, including the largest HD library anywhere with over 1,400 movies currently available. The VUDU collection is constantly updated, and newly released movies from major studios are available on the same day as the DVD is released. Consumers can finally watch great movies without the hassles associated with traditional services:--no driving, no mailing, and no monthly fee. For more information, visit http://www.vudu.com/.

Source: VUDU

CONTACT: Erika Shaffer of SutherlandGold Group, +1-206-972-5514,
erika@sutherlandgold.com, for VUDU

Web Site: http://www.vudu.com/

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