In an effort to save itself from complete irrelevance and obscurity, Blockbuster has inked a deal with Sonic Solutions to offer Video On Demand services for the home.Blockbuster is a bit like the Little Engine That Could. In the era of VHS, it had deals with the studios to allow for a rental window for movies. With the invention of DVD, that was deemed no longer applicable, which meant more money to the studios and less to Blockbuster.
Video On Demand is not completely overshadowing DVD (I think people still like the extras that a DVD provides), but it is taking a large bite out of that market. Some people only want to see the movie and couldn't care less about the extras. They also would rather stay inside to do it.
So what do you think? Will movie rentals go the way of the Dodo? Will Blockbuster go the way of The Sharper Image?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-14-2009 @ 10:14AM
VP said...
Movie rental won't go the way of VHS any time soon, but Blockbuster sure will. People still like having physical media in their hands and companies like Redbox do it so much cheaper than BB. I can rent 4 movies at Redbox for the price of one at Blockbuster so ofcourse they are about to go extinct.
VOD & Digital Downloads still have some time to go before being perfected.
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1-14-2009 @ 2:22PM
Beth said...
Netflix owns Redbox I believe.
1-14-2009 @ 2:24PM
Beth said...
Oops, nevermind - McDonalds basically owns it. Weird.
1-14-2009 @ 11:46AM
R-Bro said...
I just tried Blockbuster's rental-download service (which has been around for a month or two). Holy crap, what a hassle. The software required a .NET Framework update that appeared to time out (but actually just took 45 minutes to complete).
On the plus side, there was live support available by chat, which was nice. But compared with Apple TV's simplicity, it was a joke. Also, the video quality (at 1,366x768) was quite jerky. I wouldn't use this service again.
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1-14-2009 @ 3:14PM
This Is Me said...
I'm going to say this every time a VOD discussion comes up; what good will it be for cable internet subscribers who are getting bandwidth caps? Sure, the cap is on the high side (250GB for Comcast) at the moment, but don't expect that to last. Apparently their InDemand service was taking a hit so, instead of improving it, they're looking for other ways to keep you from using a competitor.
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1-15-2009 @ 12:27AM
Kaycee said...
I could care less about a physical copy. If Netflix would show all the movies I want to see On Demand, I would never rent another DVD.
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