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Blockbuster Throws Hat into Movie Download Business
jtroutman writes "Stepping into the ring to compete with entities such as Amazon, CinemaNow and, of course, NetFlix, Blockbuster announced today the acquisition of Movielink, LLC. The deal had been scheduled to take place earlier this year, but was quashed amid trouble between the then CEO, John Antioco, and the Board of Directors."
> Proofread. The laziness of Slashdot editors never ceases to amaze me. Your job is so easy, yet, you don't even do it.
There's this `firehose` thing which is supposed to help. One day I'll work out how it works and how to use it, and perhaps even why it makes Firefox render the site in a way which makes it impossible to read.
Oh come on, you're being too harsh.
It's not like a basic spellchecker would have caught that one.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
will be downloadable, too..
Jimmy
This comes on the heels of the Netflix DRM being 'broken'. I guess Blockbuster wants to be a 'me too' here, as well.
towel soon to follow.
I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
The British are coming! The British are coming! oh wait, wrong time, wrong event... but on that note, you knew that downloadable Movies were going to hit the market for the masses soon anyway you know it was coming, once everyone could start downloading whole movies via P2P (mainstream) everyone has started to get on the bandwagon. It was successful enough (could do much better but...) for the music industry, why not send whole movies via Renting services? whats next, Software? I am surprised Microsoft hasn't gotten completely on the bandwagon for P2P for their software updates (Blizzard has been doing that for WoW for a while). Back to Movies, what is next? You could buy whole DVD's that allow only 3 DVD Burns or 3 Downloads (like Napster)?
Once again, I'm sure this will be doomed to failure. It will be riddled with DRM and have all sorts of technological (if not outright legal) hurdles to get the movies I buy to play when and where I want them.
The first company that manages to convince studios to release simple file downloads in common formats that are either/both a) ready to burn to DVD or b) ready to play on an ipod or appleTV and completely unencumbered by any manner of DRM will clean up.
But for now, the only way for me to get DRM-free movies is to buy the DVD and rip the content using quasi legal (or illegal depending on your perspective) methods. How else am I to get them loaded on my media server or transcoded for viewing on my ipod?
It's the same for music. Right now, I either get them at emusic.com where I have a subscription, or the itunes plus store, or I rip CDs. It's silly and wasteful to buy a physical CD, rip it once, and put it on the shelf. As storage capacity increases, this too will happen for movies/DVDs as it has for music/CDs.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
blockbuster has really rebounded from their near bankrupt late 90s days... but they're starting to feel like the "best buy" of movie/game rental. maybe its the colors.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051226-5842 .html
That's from 2005! Did they just never follow through? What happened?
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Geeze quit your bitching. If you hate the editors so much stop visiting slashdot or at least stop posting about it so the rest of us don't have to hear your constant whining. Obviously the spelling errors and dupes aren't as important as you think otherwise why do you keep coming back.
Has anyone posted a /. article about how much Blockbuster sucks? How expensive they are? How the "no late fees" is a rip-off scam?
Ahhh.. I see, so they're joining online download vendors. Wow. Impressed. I hope they rot in hell. Twice.
I just recently used the Netflix download service to stream a movie for my kids.
We wanted "Firehouse Dog" but that wasn't available. In fact, browsing the entire category of releases for Family/Kids we found that there we ZERO new releases in that category. In fact the category choices were poor at best. We settled on "Space Jam" which the kids liked. The quality was very good, we hooked it up to the 42" LCD to watch.
My big complaint is that there were no new releases in other categories at all.
As far as the DRM install goes, the kids' PC had MP9 and I upgraded to MP11, and got the license, and it only took a few minutes for everything.
If Blockbuster wants to make a go of this, they had better have a better selection of newer flicks or it's the same old story all over again.
Video rental companies need to stop chasing the home computer streaming media dragon and get their vast libraries available to the television for use in VoD. The way of the future is all media converges on the television which will be linked in to the home network. It's time to make deals with the cable companies that both sides can really use.
This is all great but can they compete with Bit Torrent?
I know it's shocking but BT is NOT just for grabbing the latest Fedora Core ISO.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
There was a post on techcrunch about this http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/09/blockbuster-d esperate-to-do-something-buys-a-loser/
The summary:
"But Movielink certainly isn't going to be a silver bullet for Blockbuster. We looked at all of the players in Movielink's space last October. Their competitors include, besides Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, CinemaNow and Guba (and, let's be honest, BitTorrent). Movielink has a very deep library of movies, but they are DRM'd to the hilt and the studios force them to price downloads at higher-than-dvd prices.
Blockbuster's salad days ended in 2002, and the stock has slid steadily since then. It is no longer profitable. There are just too many options for consumers who want to watch movies at home. The company's biggest asset, and biggest problem, are the long term leases it has on its 9,000 retail stores. It needs to defocus on Netflix and think about how to use those stores to its advantage. Otherwise, its long term prognosis is clear - deadpool."
I'll see your hokum and raise you a boondoggle.
I've been a loyal NetFlix customer for a while. Their site is well made and their service works as advertised. Contrast this to the terrible experiences I've had with Blockbuster in the past. But I'm not one to hold a grudge. Blockbuster can win me back by making the right moves. They offer in store swapping of movies which is a small win, but not enough to make me switch. Now, they want to compete with NetFlix download service, which is all well and good, and which targets the same audience, people who want a particular movie right now. NetFlix does not support the Mac at all. All Blockbuster needs to do for me to take a serious look is to support one of the several DRM'd video formats for the Mac. Instead they paired with Movielink, whose service does not support the Mac or the iPod or the PSP. Also, their Web site is obviously broken in standards compliant Web browsers.
Congratulations Blockbuster. You found the chink in NetFlix armor, and then completely ignored it. Enjoy your death spiral.
both companies have provided excellent service in their time periods.
blockbuster dominated the VHS and video game rental era hands down. those were the days of the Burger King kids club and Ronald McDonald chasing after the Hamburglar. their biggest asset was their large amount of store locations and the addition of the 24 hour drop off slot. when DVD become the big format, nothing really changed. it was just a slimmer box at the store. people had more time to spend with their families as well, so renting a movie and taking it back the next day wasn't a big deal. i don't know too many people who had late fee problems with blockbuster in it's hayday, because there were 3 of them in the town i grew up in.
eventually, society changed. we don't all have 3 hours during the week that we can dedicate to a movie. kids have a lot more homework and after school activities than they used to, parents are working longer hours and going to the gym then coming home and having dinner then trying to spend time with their kids before everyone goes to bed at 9.
Cue Netflix.
Netflix's advent of abolishing the late fee waws revolutionary. Keep a movie for a year if you want. you pay a monthly fee that's LESS than what you would pay at blockbuster for 3 movies in a month. free return shipping? bonus. they have enough locations where within 2-3 business days you have a new title, and they have a vast enough library (they have f*cking ICE PIRATES. people that work at blockbuster have no idea what that movie even is!) that you can more than likely find exactly what you're looking for, and get it when you want. What exactly is the downside of this? I have yet to see one.
Netflix just had the right business plan for a changing society. You can get a movie in the middle of the week and watch it when you have time to. That's amazing.
(Gamefly, on the other hand, is an abomination in the world of rental service. If you're going to rent games, go to blockbuster. )
Getting to the issue at hand though -- Downloadable movies. I don't understand the need for it. Why (unless you have a 17" notebook with a mobile broadband card, or are a poor college student surviving on ramen) would a FAMILY, the largest market for these companies main service be interested in huddling around a 20" LCD? because you can have it RIGHT NOW? The only "family" use for this is for the neglectful parents who buy into the baby einstein scheme of sitting your kid in front of a TV at 4 months old because it will help them learn at an earlier age. If your kids are running around the house, don't take them to the park to play catch! Shit, sit em down with AOL's new parental controls (LOL) and put on SPACE JAM!
Obv blockbuster is not to be outdone by netflix and they are going to follow up with this service. The availability of films is dictaded by who ocan get them onto servers faster. The smart move is to put the new releases out their faster, but then you run into DRM issues as well as licensing and copyright suits. Your best bet, imo, is to wait the 2 days and get the DVD.
Or, download it from piratebay.org and burn it. ^^
oh marmalade.
My major complaint with Netflix is the way the website is designed, it needs a major overhaul. In particular browsing is a pain in the arse. Categories need to be grouped better, they need to stop having a unique listing for each season when browsing, especially for TV. Star Trek needs a listing for TOS, New Gen, Deep Space Nine, etc, then within each of these list out each season. Searching function needs work as well.
I'm still sticking with GreenCine.com. It's a San Francisco based DVD rental by mail company, plus they have DivX Video on Demand rental and download to own. They have a good selection of mainstream as well as obscure movies... plus porn.
they provide an API I can use to write a MythTV plug-in. I'm all for streaming movies, but until I can do with a remote control from my couch, it's too complicated for my girlfriend to figure out (and consequently too much of a pain in my ass).
And IE. I wonder what browser it works on - if any.
And I thought Blockbuster was going bankrupt.
Thank you for the clarification.
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