Redbox Plans To Launch New Streaming Service 'Redbox Digital' (consumerreports.org)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Consumer Reports: Redbox, the movie and game-rental kiosk service, might be getting back into the streaming game a few years after its digital streaming service, Redbox Instant, failed. The new Redbox streaming service could be a pay-per-view option for rentals and purchases like Apple iTunes or Vudu. The trade publication Variety -- which broke the story, citing "multiple sources" familiar with the company -- said that the new service will be called Redbox Digital and that Redbox is close to launching a beta of the service. Compared to a subscription service, negotiating the rights to pay-per-view titles should be easier for Redbox. And since many Redbox streaming customers already use their site to search for and reserve titles, it would be much more convenient for them to be able to immediately order a digital version. Another potential benefit would be the price of the rentals. The reason why physical Redbox kiosks are popular is because the $1.50 rental price for DVDs, and $2 rental price for Blu-ray discs are relatively cheap. Redbox Digital may gain some attraction if, and only if, there are considerable savings for users, otherwise there would be little reason to choose Redbox over a more established pay-per-view service, such as Amazon Instant, Google Play, or Vudu.

Comments

As opposed to Redbox analog?

[rossdee]

FP?

Re:As opposed to Redbox analog?

[Dutch Gun]

What, you haven't seen their LP rentals?

Seriously, though, the article is right that $1.50-$2.00 or so is the right price for a rental. Most streaming services currently charge a relatively high price for a rental, and it tends to put me off. For instance, right now on Amazon, they're charging $6.00 to rent "The Martian", a movie I'd much like to see (read the book and loved it). That price makes me hesitate, thinking "for about 2 1/2 times that price, I could own it". So far, I've purchased neither option, largely because I'm already paying for streaming services that have many other shows and movies to watch, and those only cost about $10 per month.

A couple bucks per rental is in the "I don't even have to think about it" price range.

Re:As opposed to Redbox analog?

[Anonymous Coward]

And for the cost of a little research you could install Kodi/Xbmc, or the torrent client of your choice, bootleg it and choose to purchase it if you care to.

Fixed that for you.

Re: As opposed to Redbox analog?

[Anonymous Coward]

He also forgot the part where xfinity flags your account for copywrite violations since you downloaded from a honeypot and they reported you.

Re:As opposed to Redbox analog?

[Curunir_wolf]

That's part of the problem, not the solution.

Sort of. It's kind of a chicken-or-egg problem right now. You have the studios afraid of losing money to copyright infringement, and trying to make up perceived losses by controlling how distribution happens and at what cost. Then you have folks driven to bootleg video somewhat by cost, but mostly due to the (lack of) availability of content they want to see, when, and how.

Frankly, as difficult as it is sometimes to find something in particular you want to see in some form you can actually watch, it takes a lot of effort to get to it on the torrent networks, too. These things have become these private closed clubs, and you have to build up a social network of torrenters and gain some reputation as a "sharer" to even be allowed into the clubs. It's crazy the amount of resources some people put into doing that stuff. I have to think the reason has more to do with availability than cost, and if the studios would open up distribution the bootlegging would not be as much of a problem.

what's in a name?

[Noah Haders]

> Redbox Plans To Launch New Streaming Service 'Redbox Digital'

They should call it RedTube.

The Big Red elephant in the envelope

[goombah99]

How is it possible this story fails to use the word "netflix"? Redbox is nice and I use it when I want burst mode on my DVDs that I can't get from Netflix but it so far has few things netflix doesn't and netlfix is cheaper. Redbox also get expensive when you screw up, and indeed that happens. Netflix is slowly calving off it's DVD from its streaming service. I assume there is a financial logic here but at face value that's dumb. Integrate them. They open the door for Redbox more by doing that. BUT, here's why I'm pretty sure they are splitting them. If they are separate then the content producers can't charge them more for a DVD than it's face value, and they can even negotiate for less than face value. But if they are integrated the producers can hold the streaming service hostage to claw even more cash for the DVD rentals. Redbox is opening themselves up to this blackmail on their core rental bussiness if they make streaming and rentals combined.

Re:You ain't seen nothing yet...

[kuzb]

I'm not worried about this. The internet has a built in failsafe against corporate greed when it comes to media. When the price becomes unreasonable, or the media becomes hard to access a large number of people will return to piracy instead of paying.

It's been shown that if the price is fair and it's convenient to get the content that people will pay. If they forget this, those same people will remind them.

A La VidAngel?

[Brawnson]

Perhaps they are going to copy VidAngel. They have a system that effectively allows $1 streaming rentals ($2 for HD) of movies, including new releases. Redbox could potentially copy this idea, especially since VidAngel filters their movies because they want to claim to be a family friendly business.

We rent 1 or 2 per month, don't need more expensiv

[raymorris]

My family rents a Redbox video maybe twice per month, meaning we spend about $3-$4. Netflix is $9 for the service itself, so just on that Netflix costs more.

In addition, although faster internet with higher caps is certainly available, we have no reason to pay for it since we don't stream movies. Upgrading the internet would be another $20 per month or whatever. So really Netflix would cost us $29/month, if we used to more than a couple times per month.

With our current internet we can stream once or twice per month, so we'll stream Redbox if it's the same $1-$2 price range.