The company announced this new option, called Vudu Movies On Us, in a blog post on Tuesday. Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch and in this case the tradeoff is that the movies are ad-supported, similar to movies available on Crackle and other services.
There is one other catch: movies streamed via Movies On Us are limited to 1080p resolution. After all, the company is looking to gain new paying customers and giving away one of the main advantages it has compared to other streaming services would not make good business sense. For customers unsure about paying for yet another streaming service, this is a good way to try Vudu out without committing.
Despite the new feature only launching on Tuesday, a fair amount of titles are available for free streaming. True Grit, A Walk to Remember, Abduction, and Escape from Planet Earth are among the titles Vudu mentioned in the blog post, while a brief look at the website shows a number of live concerts, sports specials, and stand-up comedy specials in addition to the movies offered.
Titles stream with Dolby Digital sound, when available, and Movies On Us appears to be supported on any platform where the Vudu app is available. This includes iOS and Android devices, smart TVs and Blu-ray players, PlayStation consoles, and Roku streaming boxes.
If you are not already a Vudu user, you will need to sign up for an account in order to watch Movies On Us titles. Once you are registered, all you need to do is head to the newly launched Movies On Us website.