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Cringely on Blockbuster-iPod Video Distro Plan
MrPerfekt writes "In this week's Cringely column, another one of his hypothesizing sessions actually seems plausible. Blockbuster's retail outlets make good sense for Apple to partner with them for video iPod content distribution. From the article: 'Take your Video-out iPod to Blockbuster, drop it in a kiosk dock then download from the local xServe your choice of 50,000 movies. You can rent the movie or buy it and you can even choose the resolution, which may or may not affect the final price. Take the iPod home, drop it in the dock attached to your TV and watch the movie. H.264 decoding takes place in the iPod in hardware.'"
Drive to the Blockbuster to load up your iPod? When I have a perfectly good cable modem connection? Can you say "Akamai", boys and girls?
Blockbuster has nothing whatsoever to offer Apple if and when Apple decides to go into the full-length, hi-def movie business.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But borrowing a DVD is already incredibly easy. About the only way this is easier is that you don't have to return the DVD and I don't think that's enough. Apple would be asking its customers to spend hundreds of dollars (?) on a piece of hardware that would be doing more or less the same job as the DVD player they already own.
It's probably a reasonable why-not idea, for those who already have an iPod. But I can't see it attracting a lot of new customers.
based on Cringley's latest "predictions" ie.. google advertising on tv? not anytime soon.. blockbuster having "docking" stations for ipod's? nope sorry.. cringley is waaaaay wrong lately..
first of all apple hasn't sold enough video ipods for blockbuster to even think of making a kiosk.. and second everyone has dvd players dummy.. you dont need a 400$ portable device to rent a movie.. you simply take the piece of plastic home with you. Maybe your saving the customer a return fee but why not save the customer from going to the store all together and download the movie from itunes? The customer with an ipod already has a kiosk its called a PC.
Sorry Cringely, http://www.blockbuster.com/homepages/LoadBlockbust erHomepage.action
Blockbuster is already picking up the Netflix model and supplanting it with free in-store rentals.
Notice that Burst.com also announced that they are waiting another month to file their counter-claim to Apple's original suit.
What does this mean?
1. Burst.com needs more time to get their ducks in a row?? - Not likely. Any patent attorney worth their shiny shoes could have seen this stink with Apple coming from at least 946 smoots away. I can't imagine that Burst.com didn't anticipate Apple's suit and thus, they know how to reply.
2. Burst.com is stalling for time in case someone else is going to buy them in the near future - Why would Sony or Microsoft swoop in now when they didn't all of last year? They've got their own dudes with shiny shoes who are advising them to wait on the sidelines. I'm postive that no one in high-tech thinks that Burst.com's patents are valid -- however, someone has to jump in and sue. If Apple does, let 'em. Sony and Microsoft and Amazon and NetFlix and Blockbuster and . . . . insert old media company here . . . will jump in the pond after Apple's determined the water temperature. No one ELSE is going to buy Burst.com until this thing is clear.
3. Burst.com and Apple are working out a deal - Now this one . . . I think I can smell. Apple's suit is a great opening chess move. I can see Burst.com demanding a hefty licensing fee that amounts to something silly like amounts that have more than 9 figures or huge amounts each year. I'll bet Burst.com even has the moxy to think that their patents are worth hundreds of millions alone. What better way to get good terms for Apple than to file a suit? Dare Burst.com to go to trial . . and risk losing the patents . . . or settle on a lower licensing fee or selling price.
I'll bet at least my own shiny shoes that these suits are just negotiating by other means.
Why would I want to drive to the nearest Blockbuster location when I can download an iPod movie from the comfort of my very own cable modem?
If no cable company is willing to run Internet access to your geographic area, or you are otherwise happy with dial-up, then getting high-speed Internet access just for downloading movies may be more expensive than a DVD rental by mail subscription, and given the price of urban real estate, moving house is even more expensive.
Change DVD player to CD player and go back a few years.
Now how does this blurb about the iPod sound:
Apple would be asking its customers to spend hundreds of dollars (?) on a piece of hardware that would be doing more or less the same job as the CD player they already own.
terrible business model....
I like microcars
iPods had a big advantage over portable CD players - more portability. They were smaller than portable CD players, more convenient to use, much more portable than CD libraries. I don't think the video iPod has any similar advantage. It's not a portable viewer, as long as you're still taking it home to watch on your TV. If people start watching movies on VR glasses or something then that sounds like a much more promising paradigm.
iPods could also use songs downloaded from the internet. There's a marginal corresponding advantage here: by transferring songs from your computer to your TV through an iPod you avoid issues with noise in the TV room. But it's not the only, or probably best, solution to that problem.
Wow, that's backwards thinking for you! Why bother leaving the house?
All apple needs to do is upgrade the mac mini to include an ipod video docking station and convince us that we need one in the living room. Download movies from the iTunes video store and play them using the mac mini. If you want to take a movie to a friends house just sync it to the ipod video go to said friends living room with an s-video cable and viola: The ipod is the new DVD media and player all in one. Exactly where they want to be.
All this sneaker-net idea of his would do is slow Blockbusters death at Apple's expense.
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Sorry dude, you need a computer to use an iPod. Sure, there are a few folks out there who probably have all their music on their friend's computer, but those people are few and far between. Seeing that the iPod demographic, while mainstream, tends to be the technically elite mainstream... and fairly cosmopolitan, it's safe to say that a large percentage of the the demographic has fairly decent internet access. And, so what if it takes 2 hours to download a movie? Many people download things while they sleep, movies would be one of them.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
A small quibble: your point 1 is wrong. Cringely's idea is that you would be renting the movies. You would not need to return it though. The DRM license would just expire after a determined amount of time.
Oh, and that invalidates your second point too. You don't buy songs at Virgin or Tower because there is no mechanism for uploading songs from your iPod to your computer (according to Apple anyway). However when renting, Apple does not need to provide a way to keep it on your computer. You will want it to be deleted after the license expires.
The thing is, portable DVD players are already cheaper than video iPods. And regular DVD players are cheaper than an iPod Shuffle.
Going with the iPod really doesn't get you much of an advantage. The screen is smaller, the video is lower quality when hooked up to a TV. The only advantage might be that you can keep more than one movie on the iPod, but that strikes me as being much less significant than the ability to keep thousands of songs on an iPod versus a few songs on a CD.
There's no way Blockbuster is going to try to make a business out of selling or renting iPod-based movies to the few customers who would prefer to watch on their wee small iPod screen, and would leave home to go to a Blockbuster in order to do so.
I can't see many people doing that. If you're going to drive to the store, you're likely to grab a DVD to watch on your TV.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
As an addendum, there is one place where I think this business model would work well...
Airports. The ideal market for this would be travellers facing a few hours on a plane, who probably would appreciate being able to pick up a video to watch without being encumbered by a DVD case, bag, plastic wrapper, etc.
Especially if the service allowed the movie to be loaded onto a laptop for customers without a video iPod.
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA