The Simpsons Vudu Issues

[VuduAddict]

UPDATE 8/5/17: This issue has been fixed by Vudu.

The Simpsons seasons 4-19 were added in HDX today, and I have purchased them all. I have run into issues in accessing the purchased content when using the app on a Roku TV, Roku 4, and Vizio Smart TV. I assume that this is present on almost all (if not all) smart television devices (excluding mobile apps as they use different sorting method).

As Vudu techs will know, when you click on a TV series you own, it begins with the most recent season at the very top. In this case, season 28. You can then scroll down to select the season you would like to view. Unfortunately when scrolling down on The Simpsons, once you get to season 16, the scrolling feature resets back to the top (season 28), causing you to scroll down twice to access your earlier seasons. I believe this has something to do with the series previously only taking into account a far more limited number of seasons as there were before (seasons 1-3, 20-28).

Unfortunately that's not the only tech issue. If you actually select seasons 8-16 and exit out of those seasons, it takes you back to season 28 at the top. And if you happen to select seasons 1-7 and back out of any of those seasons, it crashes the Vudu app and you have to start over again. The only situation that doesn't present issues is if you stick to only watching/scrolling down from season 28 to season 17. Anything earlier than that, and you may find yourself quickly frustrated by these glitches.

[FelipeF]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

The Simpsons seasons 4-19 were added in HDX today, and I have purchased them all. I have run into issues in accessing the purchased content when using the app on a Roku TV, Roku 4, and Vizio Smart TV. I assume that this is present on almost all (if not all) smart television devices (excluding mobile apps as they use different sorting method).

As Vudu techs will know, when you click on a TV series you own, it begins with the most recent season at the very top. In this case, season 28. You can then scroll down to select the season you would like to view. Unfortunately when scrolling down on The Simpsons, once you get to season 16, the scrolling feature resets back to the top (season 28), causing you to scroll down twice to access your earlier seasons. I believe this has something to do with the series previously only taking into account a far more limited number of seasons as there were before (seasons 1-3, 20-28).

Unfortunately that's not the only tech issue. If you actually select seasons 8-16 and exit out of those seasons, it takes you back to season 28 at the top. And if you happen to select seasons 1-7 and back out of any of those seasons, it crashes the Vudu app and you have to start over again. The only situation that doesn't present issues is if you stick to only watching/scrolling down from season 28 to season 17. Anything earlier than that, and you may find yourself quickly frustrated by these glitches.

This is so weird... I was able to replicate all of these scenarios from my Roku 3. I'll have someone take a closer look at this, thanks for the heads up.

[Alan Smithee]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

It looks like the earlier seasons are also cropped to 16x9 when they should be 4x3. The first Christmas episode was already free on Vudu a while ago in SD only but in the proper screen format, it just went up for free again with the 'upgrade' to HDX but both the HDX and SD copies are now cropped.

[VuduAddict]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

This is so weird... I was able to replicate all of these scenarios from my Roku 3. I'll have someone take a closer look at this, thanks for the heads up.

Thank you for looking into this FelipeF

[Navigator]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

There's another issue with The Simpsons on Vudu as well. Early seasons of The Simpsons were made in a 4:3 aspect ratio, but for some reason the HDX versions of these early seasons on Vudu have the tops and bottoms cut off so they fit a 16:9 display. Please tell me this will be fixed. I just bought the first 11 seasons before finding this out, and I don't want to watch the show with part of the image cut off.

[FelipeF]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

It looks like the earlier seasons are also cropped to 16x9 when they should be 4x3. The first Christmas episode was already free on Vudu a while ago in SD only but in the proper screen format, it just went up for free again with the 'upgrade' to HDX but both the HDX and SD copies are now cropped.

This is the only source file provided by the studio for these seasons. It appears this is the same aspect ratio that's available from FOX streaming site as well.

[Navigator]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

Yeah, in looking into it, it seems as though Fox wants all their episodes to fill a widescreen display, whether they were originally animated for a widescreen display or not. Which means chopping off parts of the image for the older seasons, so there's no black bars along the sides which would preserve the original aspect ratio. It's a pretty dumb and disappointing decision on their part, I think.

[madmod20061]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

Yeah, in looking into it, it seems as though Fox wants all their episodes to fill a widescreen display, whether they were originally animated for a widescreen display or not. Which means chopping off parts of the image for the older seasons, so there's no black bars along the sides which would preserve the original aspect ratio. It's a pretty dumb and disappointing decision on their part, I think.

Very strange considering the FXNOW app on the apple TV lets you choose between aspect ratios (something Roku oddly doesn't). FXNow is a Fox service so I wonder what makes the Apple TV apple have the only 4:3 ratio option?

[VuduAddict]

Re: The Simpsons Vudu Issues

Very strange considering the FXNOW app on the apple TV lets you choose between aspect ratios (something Roku oddly doesn't). FXNow is a Fox service so I wonder what makes the Apple TV apple have the only 4:3 ratio option?

That's really just a benefit of the app. Unfortunately Vudu, iTunes, Amazon, FandangoNow, etc. don't offer the option to select aspect ratios/dealing with multiple encodes under one listing. It would be nice to have the option, but I'm not holding my breath that any of these companies would take the time to implement it, especially since MOST content is available in original aspect ratio only.

I also would have preferred the original aspect ratio for this content, but I've heard from a source at Fox that they took into account some survey information as far as aspect ratio and general lack of understanding of it. Unfortunately the general public believes that "HD" content especially should fill the entire screen on their widescreen televisions, and that there shouldn't be "black bars" on the sides. It's seen by many negatively, especially if general consumers are buying "HD" versions of these seasons. I know there were complaints regarding the Blu-ray releases of prior seasons in original aspect ratio, so perhaps that has something to do with it as well.

On the bright side, Fox did a generally good job with these crops, as they didn't crop specific scenes (such as when the characters are watching the television screen and requires the full television frame in original aspect ratio to understand that they are viewing a television, and not just another random scene). Everyone's thoughts on this subject are justified, but it's not really a glitch, more-so a studio decision on how they want to sell their content digitally. I'm just happy to be able to own this content at all digitally, as I've waited years for the full series to be available. Hopefully in the future, we can get original aspect ratio as an option/replacement.

As far as the original topic of this thread, Vudu has corrected the glitch that caused the Vudu app to crash or jump to the top when viewing earlier Simpsons seasons. Thank you Vudu for the fix.