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How to Open a "Movie Cafe"?
tunari asks: "Here in my neck of the woods (Cochabamba, Bolivia) there are hundreds of Internet cafes and Nintendo salons, where you can rent games by the hour. I would like to open a movie salon. I imagine a central CD/DVD jukebox and either dumb terminals or, if possible, TVs. Users would need basic control over playback, and, if possible, some automated way to request new titles. Cost is a big issue, as we will probably be charging less than a dollar per hour. What are some of the ways we could set this up?"
The biggest cost you need to worry about is the movies themselves. Every time you turn on any movie you see a big 'FBI WARNING: ...movie is licenced for private home viewing only...'. Now, most of us have already gotten used to this but if you try and set this up you are going to need special licences. And they don't come cheap. Whenever you loose a blockbuster movie, know why they charge so much to replace?
This is answered in the MPAA FAQ :- How do I open a Movie Cafe?
Hotels often have such a service and system installed to some degree. you Call say you want to watch a movie and you can... So there are systems that will at least partialy take care of your question. but as usual the devil is in the details such as cost of system, cost of licencing, etc...
I would like to have a lot of money, but I don't want to work for it. Would everyone who reads this please send me some money. Thank you.
Copy the DVD to a hard disk and strip off that encryption guff. OK now you just have to decompress and play.
You can decompress on the server and stream a large quantity of data or stream a smaller quantity of data and uncompress on the client.
I would start doing some quick mental calcs. How many clients can I support with a given infrastructure?
This seems a very expensive way of providing said service. Why not just buy a bunch of TV+DVD players?
I just patented movie cafes. Thanks for the idea tho :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
One would rather go to Blockbuster.
Hey guys I don't think this guy has too bad of an idea. He is essentially opening up a video store where the movie is returned within hours instead of days. The turn around time is great. The biggest problem would be real estate and infrastructure. I think you would need at least 20 - 30 rooms to fill possible demand. Each room could seat say 8 people and there would be some kind of terminal to order food and what not. You would also have to install cameras to keep people from leaving nasty stains on the couches too. Still if the facilities were nice enough I think I would catch a flick or two at my own private theater/resturaunt.
In Republican America phones tap you.
Have rooms. In the room, large TV. A cabinet, in plexiglaz, with a lock. In the cabinet, a dvd player. A remote-control, in the room, with a security wire.
Dude comes in with his buddies. Wanna watch the latest hollywood trash. Clerk behind counter says: Be right back. Sets up DVD in DVD player in the room. Makes sure movie works. Collects the $2 for the flick, then says: have fun.
When they leave, they leave. They can't take the dvd with them, cuz it's in the dvd player in the plexi case.
You guessed it, you can still control the dvd player with the remote through the case.
"Piter, too, is dead."
y'know, anything "for public or commercial viewing" is much more expensive -- unless you live in a country where the FCC is generally disregarded. (As opposed to the US, where we fear for our personal liberty when doing so much as talking in a public forum about using content outside of the letter of its license, or regarding changes we might make to the devices accompanying this license, though we pay for them and use them in the privacy of our homes).
But if you're not in a Free-as-in-to-get-extorted-by-the-media-cartels country, then I guess that's not a consideration.
In the US, a DVD for private viewing an indefinite number of times costs well under twenty bucks, but
"
Screening a film outside of the home requires a license from the film studio or a distributor. Licences range from $125 - $1000 depending on the film.
"
Source
Note that this is from a small, independant film club! And even they're playing strictly by the rules of extortion, because they're afraid not to.
Of course, chances are that in Bolivia you have more personal liberty than you would in the US, and do not have to pay protection fees to agencies of extortion sanctioned by the very Federal Government. [1]
Anyway, good luck with everything.
Also: I believe that Microsoft must be annihilated.
~Robert.
ps. Once more, just to make me shudder:
Of course, chances are that in Bolivia you have more personal liberty than you would in the US.
[1]
(A run-down of extortion: We make it so that for what you want, you need to pay more than is reasonable, because we have distribution locked down. If you do not agree to pay our price, you must fear for your personal safety. [As in today's Federal prisons, with whose conditions we are all familiar.])
(This is all moot, of course. The MPAA would still sue you to Weehawken and back. But hey, it's fun to dream...)
Call your lawyer first...
Then Ask Google...
Then Ask Slashdot.
Jonny 290 asks: "Here in my neck of the woods (Hong Kong) there are hundreds of Internet cafes and Nintendo salons, where you can rent games by the hour. I would like to open a software salon. I imagine a central CD/DVD jukebox and either CD writers, or possibly DVD-ROMs. Users would need basic control over duplication, and, if possible, some automated way to request new versions. Cost is a big issue, as we will probably be charging less than a dollar per package. What are some of the ways we could set this up?"
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
The owner of my previous local video store told me that the reason he is actively trying to get people to move from VHS to DVD is that he doesn't have such huge licensing costs for DVD's. I don't recall the details but I think he was saying that the cost to him for a rentable DVD is about the same as it costs to buy it in a retail store. He didn't seem to be doing anything dodgy like renting out "private viewing only" distros.
What's the FBI/Interpol's definition of "home"? Why do they consider my aparment a "home", but not some space at the local movie cafe?
Maybe you could put the TV & player in a small room at your business, and rent out the small room as "apartment space" or "apartment storage space" or something.
"Joe's Movie Cafe, your 'home' away from 'home'".
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Sounds like a job for VideoLAN and perhaps maybe also LinuxTV.
You will need to clean and disinfect your kiosks from time to time if you're renting/selling titles such as Inner Sanctum or Last Call. These erotic thrillers tend to provoke a certain response from viewers, especially males.
When i was in Italy there we these trains but before you got on a train @ the station you could hire these mini-dvd players that came with a dvd or 2 in the deal then when you got where u were going you just handed it back in no problems so if ure doing the same just the fact is that the dvds move and the tv's stay still. Also i can c this takin off due to the fact that movies are 2 expensive but going into your own little thearter and spilting the cost make sure its not per person becasue then u may as well rent it at a blockbuster ect but if u could go ing pay ure 8 dollars ($AUS) and bring 5 guyz in with something like doby digital 5.1 sounds and a projected image or a really big tv then it would be well wicked. So there is going to be a nicie in this market but the cost will be heavy and you will neeed at least like 10 rooms even more but the rooms dont need to be that big but they have to be sound proof becuase if your watching some kind of drama and in the other room you can her saving private ryan its going to wreck the whole point. well thats my 2 cents
I'm a geek deal wit it
Do folks in Bolivia get this same message on their movies? Who in Bolivia would track this cafe down?
I don't think he really has to worry about the MPAA goon squads showing up and taking him out. He is in Bolivia, for christ sake. In South America they take a, let's say, more liberal view on copywrite enforcement than they do here. Hardware cost is the big issue.
Slightly OT, but I spent some time in Peru and used the interent cafes there a fair amount. I could never figure out how they made any money. Like this guy, they cost about a dollar an hour. Some had several sattelite dishes. The machines were not brand new, but certainly useable. What's going on?
spreer
I appreciate the comments, but really, the (American) legal issues involved in doing this are not a big concern. I was kinda hoping the Slashdot crowd might weigh in on how this could be done *technically*. Oh well.....
who gives a flying, well, anything, about some industry assoc in a foreign country?
The MPAA has an export arm called MPA whose job is to market MPAA films worldwide. It has been called the "State Department of the MPAA".
Will I retire or break 10K?
You can do this perfectly legally and you may even be able to make a profit charging by the hour if you design your business model right.
You can purchase a movie on-demand in many hotels now. You can find these kinds of systems all over the world. I've personally seen them in Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt, France, England, and Mexico, and even on international flights. The movies are free on the international flights I've been on, so they must have a special license.
You can license these same movies (some still even in theaters at the tail end of their run) for use in a closed environment as you describe fairly simply and perfectly legally from several sources. It is even fairly economical (couple of thousand US$ per month for a bunch of movies).
You CANNOT distribute (and will probably be held financially responsible if they are stolen) the movies outside your closed system (although you can purchase licenses for this, too. It's a little more expensive and difficult.), but you can show them on your own equipment in a closed environment. Different companies make them available in different formats, including varying video file formats and DVD.
There can be a base licensing cost plus a per-movie per-play cost but you may be able to work out a license more appropriate for you.
So, it could be possible to create a business model where you charge by the hour and this covers your costs. It probably wouldn't work well for just one cafe, you would need to have several, and perhaps many. But it may be less expensive and you may be able to make a sliding-scale partnership agreement, too, so that you can pay less to start with and then pay as you grow.
Whether people will actually pay the hourly price required for you to make a profit there is the question.
thinking that the last guy to rent the room was in there "watching" the latest porn releases.