Archives For DVD

Confirmed: Blue Rays in Red Boxes

Dave Zatz —  August 22, 2010 — 13 Comments

Within a few days of Redbox announcing Blu-ray rental availability from their nationwide network of kiosks, I swung by for confirmation. And, as it turned out, their press release was overly optimistic — neither Blu-ray title availability or even a category in the UI was found at my closest outpost (MickeyD’s). But when Engadget was tipped that Blu-ray rentals have started turning up (for real), I once again braved smells of the worst hamburgers in America to discover the truth. Low and behold, this particular Redbox now contains three lonely Blu-ray titles renting at the expected $1.50/nt rate.

While I’m not much into physical media rentals these days, there’s no question a lot of people appreciate movie rental kiosks. With their growing retal footprint (CVS is next) and absence of a surly staff, I quite imagine their success has been hastening the end of the brick & mortar video store.

Click to enlarge:

In Blu-ray, DVD
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Trying Blockbuster Mail-Order Game Rentals

Dave Zatz —  August 21, 2010 — 11 Comments

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Blockbuster as we know it may or may not survive 2010, but that hasn’t prevented them from re-enabling mail order game rentals. As I’m currently on a Gamefly hiatus, a company that I’ve had a like/hate relationship with, I figured I’d check out Blockbuster’s combined DVD+gaming snail mail service which starts at a low $8.99/mo — about 45% less than Gamefly’s single disc plan. And, of course, you’re not limited to games.

I sold my copy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 months ago, after clocking way too many multiplayer hours and growing bored. But figured it might be time to brush up my skills a bit in preparation for Black Ops (11/10). Not to mention, a pal’s pre-teen thinks he can take me. And, while he probably can, I’m easily baited. Bring it, punk. So I added CoD: MW2 to my queue.

Unfortunately, the game was initially listed as having up to a 2 week wait due to low inventory. Upon checking my queue the next day, the delay had grown to 2-4 weeks. Which exceeded Blockbuster’s 2-week free trial – I fully expected to cancel service before anything arrived, due to my need for instant gratification and short attention span. Fortunately, the game showed only about a week after requesting it. For comparison, at its best, Gamefly took about a week to get a disc out to me.

Interestingly, not only is Blockbuster’s mailer smaller than Gamefly’s cardboard sleeve (which has been problematic), they’re also more compact than Netflix’s.

In DVD, Gaming
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Comcast & Blockbuster Devolve (DVDs by Mail)

Dave Zatz —  August 8, 2010 — 12 Comments

While Netflix shifts their focus to online streaming, Comcast (?!) and Blockbuster have teamed to provide DVDs By Mail — a soon-to-be-archaic method of content distribution and quintuply befuddling given Comcast’s large data conduit into millions of customer’s homes. I assume DVDs By Mail is primarily a marketing arrangement on Comcast’s end and potentially good for Blockbuster, who has been living on borrowed time – with imminent bankruptcy proceedings? (Put a fork in ‘em.) Netflix does anticipate their DVD shipments will peak in 2013 (or sooner). So there could be a small window of opportunity to capitalize on here… although I don’t see it happening.

(via HackingNetflix)

In DVD, Movies, Netflix, Video
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DivX, Coming Soon To A Store Near You?

Davis Freeberg —  November 21, 2009 — Leave a comment

Hollywood-DivX-300x117

I’ve been critical of DivX’s efforts to woo Hollywood in the past, but I’ve also got to give them credit for a win when I see one and I think they knocked it out of the park when it comes to Paramount.

Recently, Paramount announced that they were going to be distributing content on USB sticks. At the time, they didn’t say what format it would be in and even on DivX’s conference call there was no mention of this realization of their strategic vision, but Electric Pig reports the Paramount movies will in fact be encoded in DivX.

With only 20,000 memory sticks for sale and at a price of approximately $33 US, Paramount is still clearly in the testing phase. But the fact that they choose DivX demonstrates the clear advantage that DivX has over all of their other digital competitors and have the only real solution for brick and mortar retailers.

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In DVD, Gadgets, Video
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Sharing Digital Media (Legally)

Dave Zatz —  May 30, 2009 — 4 Comments

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As ZNF readers are well aware, one of the biggest challenges we face with digital media (books, music, video) is in sharing it. Legally.  Over at Live Digitally, Jeremy Toeman details one possible scenario for an Amazon Kindle used book store – allowing folks to resell books back to Amazon for a store credit. And in turn, Amazon offering these ‘books’ at a lower cost than ‘new’ ones.

Despite his calculations, I’m not sold. Traditional supply, demand, production, and distribution rules don’t transfer cleanly from the analog world to a wired marketplace hawking digital goods. Other than an artificially lower resale value, what’s the difference between a ‘used’ ebook and a ‘new’ one?

A better solution to increase adoption and loyalty while staving off piracy is the integration of a gifting option. After purchasing most Season 1 episodes of Mad Men and Burn Notice digitally, I’d have liked to give these titles to my mom (~1,000 miles away). Instead, I ended up buying her the DVDs. Which I’m sure the studios love. But how about thinking bigger picture?

What if each digital download/license could be transferred (not copied) just once - what I believe to be a reasonable compromise between producers and consumers. And let’s give incentivize the retailers by limiting transfers to their own ecosystem. So in my case, Apple would get a new iTunes member in my mom and probably an Apple TV purchase – as I don’t see her watching video for any length of time at the computer. Building upon one of Jeremy’s ideas, perhaps retailers could also facilitate bartering (with a per exchange fee) between strangers. Which could also be a big win for music discovery, leading to additional digital purchases.

Over the years, I’ve had many music licensing, DRM, etc talks with ZNF contributor Dale Dietrich. He (had) envisioned a digital media “utopia” where every piece of content is registered with a unique serial number via an online licensing clearinghouse – and could be freely traded, sold, or loaned. In reality and unfortunately, I doubt any of our scenarios will come to pass. They’re too consumer friendly. And perhaps to complex. Guess we’ll continue to settle for low-def Hulu streaming with commercial interruption.

In Audio, DVD, Media, Video
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