Blockbuster Working on Set-Top Box

An anonymous reader writes "According to the Hollywood Reporter and news.com, Blockbuster will soon be announcing yet another reason not to go to a rental store. A media-delivering set-top box is in the works for the company, leveraging the store's existing competence in the industry to provide a viable alternative to iTunes, Xbox Live, and Amazon. 'There was no mention of price or how such a service would work in the report. But let's think about this: to compete with Apple TV or Vudu, the device would have to cost around $200, and rentals of movies and TV shows should be around $3 to $4 each, which would be slightly cheaper than rentals of new releases from Blockbuster currently. The big advantage Blockbuster would enjoy over Apple TV, Vudu, and TiVo, it seems, would be selection.'" I still think they're kinda doomed.

Comments

Doomed by the integrated computer

[athloi]

I still think they're kinda doomed.

Me too. For the last two decades, people have looked at their computers and wanted the things to be information centers. That includes media, business information, personal contacts, everything through recipes and music.

Read our lips, big corporations. We don't want more gadgets. We want our gadgets to get more powerful and less unreliable so they save us time and make life more relaxing, not more gadgety.

Re:Doomed by the integrated computer

[Lumpy]

Exactly.

Give me a service that will work with my non MS media center PC and I'll be all over it.

NONE of them work with the decent media centers, only a couple that kind of work with the crappy Windows MCE product.

I want a mediaportal plugin or a MythTV plugin etc...

support standards not specalized DRM.

Why pay $200 for a box where your cable box can do

[Joe The Dragon]

Why pay $200 for a box where your cable box can do the same thing with on demand with out eating up your internet bandwidth.

ISPs will block it.

[DigiShaman]

It's doomed because of the major ISPs. Be it Cable or Telco, the service would consume more bandwidth than they have allocated to their customers. Second, it competes with same services they offer.

missing the boat

[Dzimas]

The big advantage Blockbuster would enjoy over Apple TV, Vudu, and TiVo, it seems, would be selection.

Bzzt, wrong. Blockbuster will still have to negotiate licensing agreements with the major distribution companies, just like everyone else in the game. They can't simply rip their existing DVD offerings and stream them to customers. Blockbuster's in a tough spot here; if they remain a dealer of physical media, they'll get pummeled by streaming content. Their only hope for survival is to leverage their brand and physical locations to introduce a set-top box that grabs sizable market share. The trouble is that a video rental chain is going to have an extremely difficult time going head to head with the likes of Apple. It'd be like a record chain introducing an mp3 player in the hope that they can prevent iTunes and Amazon from decimating them.

Re:Why pay $200 for a box where your cable box can

[Ucklak]

Can your cable box get you Robocop, Twin Peaks, or La Planete Savauge when you want it or just whatever the media companies decide what you should choose from?

Re:Why the negativity?

[TheRaven64]

Sell it for $200, with your first 20-40 rentals being free. Once someone has rented 40 movies on the device, Blockbuster have made back most of the cost and the customer has got so used to on-demand movies that they don't think of using other services.