Blockbuster OnDemand Comes To TiVo

MojoKid writes "Netflix isn't the only company that sees that streaming is the future of movie rental distribution. Blockbuster, which always seems to be playing catch-up with Netflix, will start making its on-demand rental and purchase content available on TiVo DVRs. Blockbuster OnDemand has only been available as a streaming service on Windows PCs or streaming to TVs via the 2Wire MediaPoint device. Meanwhile, Netflix streaming is available on far more platforms, such as on Windows and Mac computers, TiVo, the Roku Digital Video Player, LG and Samsung Blu-ray players, the Xbox 360, as well as a number of video portal software applications, like Boxee and ZeeVee's Zinc. Blockbuster's partnership with TiVo is yet another indication of the coming revolution of on-demand media available to TVs — that is, if the revolution hasn't already started."

Comments

Re:Now all they need to do is

[telchine]

Now all they need to do is bring the Tivo back to the UK. There are still people maintaining or even buying old UK-spec tivos because nothing else manages the "program prediction" as well.

Absolutely, TiVo is great, Thompson just made massive mistakes with their launch and marketing of it. My mother is a complete technophobe, yet she can use it without problems.

Now most people already understand the concept (it's similar to Sky+), it should be much easier to launch in the UK if they try again.

Re:Now all they need to do is

[Chrisq]

Thompson just made massive mistakes with their launch and marketing of it.

You can say that again. The Tivo adverts made it look really confusing and you could watch one without knowing what Tivo actually does! Compare that to the very good adverts for Sky+, which emphasise that its so easy that your gran use it do it and you see why Tivo flopped.

Revolution

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I've already changed my Habits. I dumped dish and will no longer pay for cable or satellite. I stream NetFlix thru my x-box and am pretty happy paying less than 15 a month (microsoft live and netflix) for a full queue of shows I get to see when I want to see it.

Dish, Comcast, And direct TV better start panicking, the age of a la carte is here.

bandwidth

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

Assume for a moment that in some fantasy land you can convince 5-10% of your customers to give up physical media and switch to downloads. Where is all this bandwidth going to come from? Are people supposed to sit around tapping their foot as these huge (even if you use low bitrate H264) files slowly seep in over the interwebz? I don't know about you, but I'm not NEARLY patient enough for that. But perhaps it's just me.

Re:bandwidth

[transporter_ii]

Netflix works for those who use it now. But what happens when everybody wants to use it?

Almost all ISPs oversell their bandwidth by a good ratio, which means that they do not think that everyone will be using the bandwidth at the same time.

When everybody is watching streaming movies, the crap is going to come to a screeching halt.

A while back I worked for a WISP. A WISP almost has to over sell its bandwidth, because bandwidth limitations of the access points make it almost impossible to give every customer exactly what they are paying for if every single customer were to be using it at the same time.

I was so worried about the oversell ratio and streaming movies, that it is one of the reasons I don't work there any more.

Re:Percentage of movies on demand

[morgan_greywolf]

Except that 90% of the movies I want to see on demand are available only in DVD.

That's probably because most movies are not available on demand. According to this blog bost about VOD servers, about Blockbuster has about 2,000 titles available for VOD and Netflix has about 3,500. The biggest thing missing from both VOD and DVDs are classic movies: some have never been digitally remastered, while others have.

Re:First Post?

[Sorce]

They have very few free streaming titles. They do have new releases but they are all PPV and I believe around $4. I don't think anyone is really going to use this service. Netflix doesn't have a huge library but at least it's got something that is included in the monthly fee.

Just Quit Blockbuster

[dank zappingly]

Had Blockbuster's total access plan where you can get 3 at a time mailed and trade in the envelopes for up to 5 dvds a month in store. Then they changed it so the dvds you rent in the store get added to the movies you have out and they don't send another one and called it "no late fees." So basically I was paying extra money to save them postage and when I called to complain they tried to tell me that it was better than what I had because there were no late fees. I told them just because you're reading this off your response tree doesn't make it true. Previously they had unlimited in-store rentals, so they've changed my plan twice since its inception.

I was so ticked off that I switched back to netflix, which I quit because of throttling and got to cash in my one month of one free extra dvd I got in the class action suit. The service has greatly improved since I left. They have way better selection than blockbuster and I sometimes use the online streaming to play things on my ps3, I just wish it was natively supported and I didn't have to pay for a program(playon) to do it. Then again, the program also supports other online video sites and I am able to stream every episode of Star Trek TOS from CBS, which is great. The only downside is that I have to pay one dollar extra per month to get access to blu ray's, but it is so much easier to get the movies I want sent that I don't mind.

Re:Just Quit Blockbuster

[horatio]

I stopped giving my business to Blockbuster a few years ago in nearly the exact same situation. I was in a store, and commented to someone who was with me that I was annoyed that they'd jacked up their prices but were playing games with the rental periods. One of the employees on the floor started arguing with me about how this was so much better, and it was cheaper, etc. He actually stood there and argued with me that they'd lowered the rental cost, when in fact, the per-unit (day) cost was higher.

Wayne Huizenga, the guy who founded(?) Blockbuster, from what I know, is a really good guy. Gives lots of his money to charity, is involved with the south Florida community, etc. The guy is a picture of the American dream - started with couple of garbage trucks and built an empire that is now Waste Management, Blockbuster, and other things. Too bad the corporate drones are ruining Blockbuster's image with stupidity, and either suing or constantly playing catch-up to Netflix instead of competing and developing a better product.

I'm slightly surprised that TiVo doesn't have a non-compete type agreement with Netflix to prevent Blockbuster from running on the TiVo in parallel to Netflix. Good for the consumer though - more choices and we get to decide.

Re:Yay for series 2 support!

[dreamt]

Well, I'm pretty sure that the reason that Netflix only worked on Series 3 boxes is the codec that Netflix uses to encode their movies. Blockbuster's must be using MPEG2 because I think that is all that series 2 has the hardware to handle.