VUDU is an exceptionally easy-to-use alternative to cable or dish video on-demand services and DVD rental and purchase outlets like Netflix, Blockbuster, or Hollywood. For $399 you get the hardware that has a 250GB storage capacity for your downloaded content and the service that vends the movies.

The VUDU service boasts more than 5,000 movies that range from recent Hollywood blockbusters to classics, documentaries, and a wide range of foreign film choices. Some of the latter are a tad obscure and are definitely "B" list (or even "C" list) titles. It also offers TV shows in season-sized chunks, much as you'd rent or buy them elsewhere.

The service allows you to rent movies for between 99 cents and $3.99 or buy them for anywhere from $4.99 to $19.99. The actual fee, the choice to rent or buy, and the length of the rental varies from movie to movie, depending on the agreement VUDU has with the studio or film distributor.

Generally when you "rent" a movie, you either watch it immediately or download it to the device for up to 30 days unwatched. Once you begin to watch the movie, you have 24 or 48 hours to finish watching it. Then it is removed from the VUDU drive.

A purchased film can be watched immediately as it downloads to your VUDU, and it stays there for the life of the device. Occasionally the service runs specials, like old mystery movies free to rent and the ability to sample a single TV episode for 50 cents before buying or renting a whole season's worth.

VUDU offers you the opportunity to search for movies in the standard title, artist, and genre modes. Every week or so, it offers items sorted around themes like sports or collections -Academy Award winners, for instance.

VUDU's categorizations aren't perfect, however. For example, the original version of "The Cat People," - "... she is deathly afraid that, when sexually aroused, she will transform into a panther..." - was one of the "family" selections.

The main items in the VUDU box:

• The unit itself (your basic square black box with lots of places to connect cables);

• A stylish, comfortable remote with just 5 buttons and a scroll wheel;
• A small wire coil antenna.

The VUDU supports NTSC, S-Video, Component and HDMI outputs and connects to analog, digital coax, or optical audio devices. It links to your home network via an Ethernet port . For me, the device and service set-up worked almost seamlessly, though I did have to "pair" the remote with the VUDU box twice before I got it to work.

Navigating and operating the system is simple. The remote has a power button, a play-pause button, a "VUDU" button (home), a clickable scroll wheel, and a "back" button for navigating the menu system. There's also a "more" button for future system upgrades that currently doesn't do anything. Navigating the menu system is simple and intuitive. Scroll across or down the menus, click to make a selection, use "back" to move back up the menu tree.

There is only one serious flaw with the VUDU: There is no Closed Captioning support! This is at least embarrassing, if not appalling, as it costs so little to support as far as hardware and software development goes.

This cuts out many elderly and hearing-impaired customers and their families. My wife depends on Closed Captions for television and movies, so my family is one that won't be picking up a VUDU, even though I think it's a great product overall.

Aside from that rather glaring drawback, VUDU is clearly the best pay-per-view system I've seen. If you're willing to pay $399 up front for the ability to rent or buy entertainment at the click of a button, this could be just the thing for you.