Fandango at Home (formerly known as Vudu) is an American
digital video
Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data. This is in contrast to analog video, which represents moving visual images in the form of analog signals. Digital video comprises ...
store and
streaming service
Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...
owned by
Fandango Media
Fandango Media, LLC is an American Box office, ticketing company that sells Ticket (admission), movie tickets via its website and its mobile app. It also owns Fandango at Home (formerly owned by Walmart and originally known as Vudu), a streaming ...
, a joint-venture between
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...
and
Warner Bros. Discovery
Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Outline of entertainment, entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It was formed from WarnerMedi ...
. The company offers
transactional video on demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typical static broadcasting ...
rentals and
digital purchases of
film
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
s, as well as integration with
digital locker
A digital locker or cyberlocker is an online file or digital media storage service. Files stored include music, videos, movies, games and other media. The term was used by Microsoft as a part of its Windows Marketplace in 2004. By storing files ...
services for streaming
digital copies of films purchased as
home video
Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
at retail.
The service initially focused on a
digital media player
A digital media player (also known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integrated into a h ...
known as the Vudu Box. In 2010, the company began to abandon its hardware business, and focus on integrating its service and associated app platform into third-party devices such as televisions and
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...
players. The company has since offered its services online, via
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...
s, and on devices such as digital media players and
smart TV
A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV or, rarely, CoTV), is a traditional television set with integrated Internet and interactive Web 2.0 features that allow users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart T ...
s.
In 2010, Vudu was sold to
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...
. In 2020, Fandango Media acquired Vudu for an undisclosed amount. While initially maintaining the Vudu name due to
brand recognition
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of the two key components of brand knowledge, as defined by the associative network memory model. It plays ...
, Fandango Media nevertheless rebranded the service under the Fandango brand in 2024.
History
Vudu was founded by Tony Miranz and
Alain Rossmann
Alain Simon Rossmann (born 1956) is a French entrepreneur who was a member of the early Apple Macintosh team and who went on to found or co-found nine Startup company, startups, of which three Initial public offering, went public (Radius, C-Cube ...
(the creator of the
Wireless Application Protocol
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an obsolete technical standard for accessing information over a mobile cellular network. Introduced in 1999, WAP allowed users with compatible mobile devices to browse content such as news, weather and sp ...
). The Vudu Box had been secretly in development since 2004, but in April 2007, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' revealed Vudu had signed deals with several movie studios and independent distributors to deliver access to nearly 5,000 films.
, Vudu had received $21 million in venture capital funding from
Greylock Partners
Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965, with committed capital of over $3.5 billion under management. The firm focuses on early-stage companies in consumer and enterprise software.
History
Greylock wa ...
and
Benchmark Capital
Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden. The firm is known for its equal partnership structure and focus on early-stage investing, typically leading the firs ...
. The company is based in
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Clare of Assisi, Saint Clare") is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 127,647 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities and towns i ...
.
In May 2008, Vudu began displaying and selling its set-top box in
Best Buy
Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...
stores. Before this, the box was only available via online retailers. In October, Vudu announced that it would begin to stream films in
1080p
1080p (1920 × 1080 progressively displayed pixels; also known as Full HD or FHD, and BT.709) is a set of HDTV high-definition video modes characterized by 1,920 pixels displayed across the screen horizontally and 1,080 pixels down the sc ...
high definition, branded as "HDX".
These films would feature a series of encoding and processing techniques branded as "TruFilm", including the dampening of
artifacting and
pixelation
In computer graphics, pixelation (also spelled pixellation in British English) is caused by displaying a bitmap or a section of a bitmap at such a large size that individual pixels, small single-colored square display elements that comprise th ...
associated with darker areas of pictures,
film grain
Film grain or film granularity is the random optical texture of processed photographic film. Film grain develops due to the presence of small particles of a metallic silver, or dye clouds, developed from silver halide that have received enough ...
preservation, "color gradient processing" to improve appearance on flat-panel televisions, and "statistical
variable bitrate
Variable bitrate (VBR) is a term used in telecommunications and computing that relates to the bitrate used in sound or video encoding. As opposed to constant bitrate (CBR), VBR files vary the amount of output data per time segment. VBR allows ...
" to optimize streaming performance.
On February 24, 2009, Vudu became the first on-demand service to offer high-definition movies for download to own. Prior to Vudu allowing users to purchase high-definition movies, studios only allowed their films to be purchased in standard-definition format.
LG was the first to integrate Vudu into its
HDTVs, with access beginning in August 2009 through the television's NetCast application.
On January 8, 2010, at
Consumer Electronics Show
CES (; formerly an initialism for Consumer Electronics Show) is an annual trade show organized by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). Held in January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Winchester, Nevada, United States, the event typi ...
, Vudu announced that it would phase out its in-house hardware business in favor of focusing on integration of its
rich Internet application
A Rich Internet Application (also known as a rich web application, RIA or installable Internet application) is a web application that has many of the characteristics of desktop application software. The concept is closely related to a single-page ...
platform, "Vudu Apps" (which featured Vudu as well as other streaming video and internet services), directly into
internet-connected televisions and
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
players, with initial hardware partners including LG,
Magnavox
Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", often stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics brand. It was purchased by North American Philips in 1974, which was absorbed into Dutch electronics company Philips in 1987. The predecessor to Magnavox w ...
,
Mitsubishi
The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries.
Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group traces its origins to the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company that existed from 1870 to 194 ...
,
Samsung
Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...
,
Sanyo
is a former Japanese electronics manufacturer founded in 1947 by Toshio Iue, the brother-in-law of Kōnosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric Industrial, now known as Panasonic. Iue left Matsushita Electric to start his own bu ...
,
Sharp,
Toshiba
is a Japanese multinational electronics company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, elevators and escalators, electronic components, semiconductors ...
, and
Vizio.
On February 22, 2010,
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...
announced its intent to acquire Vudu. The company had previously attempted to offer digital video sales in 2007, but the service folded due to competition with the
iTunes Store. To comply with Walmart's content policies, Vudu subsequently discontinued its "After Dark" service (a collaboration with
AVN), which offered
pornographic
Pornography (colloquially called porn or porno) is sexually suggestive material, such as a picture, video, text, or audio, intended for sexual arousal. Made for consumption by adults, pornographic depictions have evolved from cave paintings ...
content.
In 2012, Vudu partnered with
UltraViolet
Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...
, an industry-backed
digital locker
A digital locker or cyberlocker is an online file or digital media storage service. Files stored include music, videos, movies, games and other media. The term was used by Microsoft as a part of its Windows Marketplace in 2004. By storing files ...
offering online streaming of retail
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
and
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
disc purchases.
In 2014, Vudu also joined
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Di ...
's competing
Movies Anywhere
Movies Anywhere (MA) is a cloud-based digital rights locker and over-the-top streaming platform that allows users to stream and download purchased films, including digital copies redeemed from codes found in home video releases as well as d ...
initiative.
In February 2020, it was reported that
Comcast
Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...
(via
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...
) had entered talks into acquiring Vudu from
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...
.

In April 2020, it was announced that
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...
subsidiary
Fandango Media
Fandango Media, LLC is an American Box office, ticketing company that sells Ticket (admission), movie tickets via its website and its mobile app. It also owns Fandango at Home (formerly owned by Walmart and originally known as Vudu), a streaming ...
would acquire Vudu for an undisclosed amount; the sale closed on July 6, 2020. Fandango is minority owned by
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
, and operated the similar service FandangoNow. As part of the sale, Walmart will maintain its relationships with Vudu, including account integration and promotion of the service via Walmart's website.
On August 3, 2021, FandangoNow was merged into Vudu. Fandango chose to retain the "Vudu" name as it was the larger service and had better
brand recognition
Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of the two key components of brand knowledge, as defined by the associative network memory model. It plays ...
. As a result of a prior agreement with
Roku, Inc. inherited from Fandango acquisition M-Go, Vudu would also become the official digital media storefront of
Roku
Roku ( ) is a brand of consumer electronics that includes streaming players, smart TVs (and their operating systems), as well as a free TV streaming service. The brand is owned by Roku, Inc., an American company.
As of 2024, Roku is the U ...
digital media player
A digital media player (also known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integrated into a h ...
s.
In June 2023,
AMC Theatres
AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. (doing business as AMC Theatres, originally an abbreviation for American Multi-Cinema; often referred to simply as AMC) is an American movie theater chain founded in Kansas City, Missouri, and now headquartered ...
(which has been a long-time partner of Fandango's online movie ticketing service) announced that Vudu would subsume its AMC Theatres On Demand service, with its library being transferred to the platform and upgraded to higher quality formats where applicable. Users would be able to migrate to Vudu through August 31, 2023.
On February 16, 2024, it was announced that the service would be rebranded as "Fandango at Home" to unify it with its parent company. This took effect March 12, 2024.
Content
As of June 2019, Vudu's selection contains over 24,000 titles in their catalog and over 8,000 television shows. Titles range from major motion pictures, independent films, documentaries, children's programming, anime, musicals, recorded musical performances, cartoons, and television series. Vudu has established content licensing contracts with all major movie studios as well as over 50 smaller and independent studios. Films are available to rent in standard-definition, high-definition, and
4K ultra high definition formats, with
Dolby Atmos
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels as well as free-moving sound objects, interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horiz ...
,
Dolby Vision
Dolby Vision is a set of technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories for high dynamic range (HDR) video. It covers content creation, distribution, and playback. It includes dynamic metadata that define the aspect ratio and adjust the picture ...
, and
HDR10
HDR10 Media Profile, more commonly known as 'HDR10'', is an open high-dynamic-range video (HDR) standard announced on 27 August 2015, by the Consumer Electronics Association. It is the most widespread HDR format.
HDR10 is not Backward compatibil ...
available on supported devices and content.
In October 2016, Vudu added a free, ad-supported streaming library to its platform in the United States branded as "Movies on Us", featuring recent and classic films.
In October 2018, Vudu partnered with
MGM Television
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Television, formerly known as MGM/UA Television, is the television studio arm of the American film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), specializing in broadcast syndication and the production and distribution of television sh ...
to develop and acquire original programming for Movies on Us, with a focus on "family-friendly, advertiser-friendly content" derived from existing MGM properties.
Vudu premiered its first original series, ''Mr. Mom''—a continuation of the
1983 film of the same name, on September 12, 2019.
See also
*
Over-the-top media service
An over-the-top media service (also known as over-the-top television, or simply OTT) is a digital distribution service of video and audio delivered Direct-to-consumer, directly to viewers via the public Internet, rather than through an Terrestria ...
*
Interactive television
Interactive television is a form of Technological convergence#Media, media convergence, adding data services to traditional television technology. It has included on-demand delivery of content, online shopping, and viewer polls. Interactive TV i ...
*
Internet television
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as films and television show, television series, Streaming media, streamed over the Internet. Standing in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by Broadc ...
References
External links
*
{{Video digital distribution platforms
Advertising video on demand
American entertainment websites
Transactional video on demand
Internet properties established in 2004
Companies based in Sunnyvale, California
Fandango
2020 mergers and acquisitions
TvOS software