Blockbuster's been
trying all sorts of, um,
innovative things to get more foot traffic in its stores, but thanks to a dastardly invention known only as "
Netflix," that very task has proven exceptionally difficult. Now, it seems the flagging movie rental company is giving one more far-flung idea a whirl:
movies on SD cards. Around six Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores will soon begin offering titles on SD cards, though the included DRM only allows customers 30 days from the purchase date to view it, and once it's fired up, you've just 48 hours before it vanishes completely. Each rental will cost $1.99, and while we definitely see the benefit of renting something that you don't have to return, we're still skeptical that folks will be more willing to make even one trek for a card when Netflix brings it all to one's mailbox (and
PC, etc.) for just $8.99 per month.
posted Nov 11th 2009 9:44AM
Title fail
If you read it it actually makes perfect sense.
whatsup cutie?
Got verb?
1 Star = Blockbuster
2 Stars = Cable/Dish Movies on Demand
3 Stars = Netflix
4 Stars = Redbox
How dare "you some candy!"
"You so kind for renting movie, here some candy"
Sounds great!
It's actually common in news item titles to separate two items that interact with the first part of the sentence with a comma; usually this is to save space since in the printing biz every giant words is money.
"The senator allocates funds for handouts, kickbacks"
The title here would read "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards as you checkout. Blockbuster kiosks to offer you some candy as you check out."
@Draaaainage! >> "It's actually common in news item titles to separate two items that interact with the first part of the sentence with a comma; usually this is to save space since in the printing biz every giant words is money."
This is true. Although in this case, the simple word "and" would have been better. "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards and some candy as you checkout"
"you some candy as you checkout" is just plain weird.
It's funny though... since the newspaper industry is in such trouble... why are online blogs picking up some of their habits?
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
The headline to this story makes no sense, did someone proofread this?
It does make sense. Say it out loud.
why are you so hardcore on defending the title?
Well, it should have sounded like this:
"Blockbuster kiosks offer soon to offer you movies on SD cards, and some candy as you checkout"
But then the title would be too long. It's all about length; the understanding comes after you read the title.
No it doesn't. It should read "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, you *get* some candy as you checkout"
How does leaving out the word "get" in any way shape or form make sense to you when you read it?? I don't get how N900 came up with all that other stuff either. The only thing it's missing is the word "get".
They offer you movies on SD cards and also offer you candy as you checkout. What's hard to understand? If it said "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, free monkeys", would that make it any clearer?
"How does leaving out the word "get" in any way shape or form make sense to you when you read it??"
Because they offer you the candy, you don't get the candy with it, and plenty of people turn down candy, so your correction makes little sense.
"They offer you movies on SD cards and also offer you candy as you checkout. What's hard to understand?"
Basically. Lrn2facts.
For native speakers it's implied that "you" is in the indirect object case, same as "movies on SD cards." It's a common thing for titles of articles.
Exactly, the verb "offer" is directly related to the subject "you" in the following phrase: you some candy as you checkout. There's not even a need to apply a second verb, get, to give it meaning or sense.
Going back to the original topic of discussion, Nextflix and RedBox combined have proven to be quite an obstacle to surmount by any retail video rental company. Furthermore, I can already see people being able to bypass the DRM and uploading the tools to do so. BlockBuster should look into starting a service that is more like Netflix AND RedBox. A slight twist to their previous "movies in the store and movies in the mail" campaign. You should be able to get movies in the mail and return them via mail or kiosk in case you'd rather bypass waiting to get a new movie in the mail.
What's every ones's deal? The kiosks 'offer movies and SD' and the kiosks 'offer you some candy'. It's a title, it's phrased in short hand and reads and makes perfect sense to anyone not an anal english lit major.
I think it's actually the odd double placement of the word "you" that's throwing people off.
It should read "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, some candy as you checkout".
no what doesn't make sense is that they think they can beat Netflix by basically ripping off itunes (only with 2 days to get in that viewing not one).
for this to really work they need to cut the price in half and put the machines in not Blockbuster stores. imagine being able to run to the grocery store and stock up on goodies AND a movie. or even better, how about more than one movie on a card. $5.00 gets you up to 3 movies at 720HD (1080 would be higher but i'm not sure 3 would fit), full dvd style with all the extras even (think itunes Movie Extras as a model). 30 days to use and all the viewing you can do within 5 days.
now that would be killer and could work. it would at least be a better start
The headline makes perfect sense if you are smart enough to know where to put emphasis.
I think "Blockbuster kiosks to offer you movies on SD cards, you some candy as you checkout" is easier to understand, or if you want it shorter and a little less awkward just let the 'you' stay implied consistently: "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, some candy as you checkout"
Or for lolz:
"Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, you accidentally some candy as you checkout"
Well, better than having to drive to the store twice, and pay the same amount for a disc that you can only keep for a day. However, unless I move to a place within walking distance of any Blockbuster, or they put one in the same plaza as my grocery store, I'm still not going to bother with them - it's not worth the extra driving just to rent a movie.
Also: title win.
I know some people who don't even pay $8.99. Just sayin'.
To be honest, I'd much prefer this route as long as I just use one reusable SD card...
Bring it on.
Now the next question is, what sort of resolution and bitrate are we talking about on these cards? If the card is 8GB's I'd do this, even 4GB would be good. Though I wonder how long until someone figures out how to just copy the file directly.
Probably the same amount of time it takes to rip a DVD? :P
It looks like you BYOSDC (bring your own SD Card), and the kiosk loads the movie on for you. I think this would be a decent idea for RedBox, which already uses kiosks for distributing movies, and RedBox's kiosks are usually in more convenient locations.
The question I have is if this thing is supposed to work with existing cell phones and TV's, what type of DRM can it be using? Does your phone or TV have to have some type of "PlaysForSure"-type of DRM software to be able to deal with it?
I'm sure someone will bypass it in Linux within the month.
To be honest I would rather just have a streaming service, like what Netflix has to offer. Granted I would like a better selection to show up on the streaming side, but it sure beats going to somewhere and hanging around a kiosk will data transfers to a SD card.
I'm all for this. Stuck at the damned airport with only my friggin' company laptop (can't download, but can read from SD or USB)... grab a flick and plug it up... it's that or start planning ahead and arguing with my wife for the top 3 spots on our NetFlix queue before every trip.
I agree. Airports are probably the only good place for these. I would rent a movie to watch on my netbook (no DVD drive) and watch it on the plane.
The only way Blockbuster is going to save themselves is to sellout to Netflix. Then they could become brick and mortar return stores for Netflix, so that people that live and work next to one could just drop off there discs there, and have the system real-time update so they ship out your next in queue... or better yet you could drop them off and go ahead and pick up your next in queue there! And on top of that they could add the option to rent other movies(say new ones that aren't available to ship right away) for a low price and not have that interrupt the queue... Think about it... it would be magical, like that place I used to go to, to get movies sometimes... Cant quite remember the name... but the store was blue and yellow I think... Sometimes(albeit rarely) they even had stuff I wanted... can't remember..the name....
But it was funny.
Netflix would not want Blockbuster or any brick and mortar store. Part of the concept behind Netflix is that there are no individual stores to staff and maintain which greatly reduces the cost of operation. They can't offer the existing service and would have to increase the price or charge a fee at stores which leaves us exactly what blockbuster is now.
this didn't help.
"Around six Blockbuster stores..."
So they are putting them in all the ones they still have open?
Actually, they are putting two in each of the remaining stores.
This would've been a great idea three years ago. But I think Blockbuster could still make it work, if they do the following things:
- give away set-top boxes to all members.
- put one of these kiosks in every supermarket, convenience store, and gas station.
- drop the price to a buck and, preferably, get rid of the 48-hours-to-finish-watching window.
If they can do this, I think they can sustain themselves against Netflix's streaming solution, particularly in Middle America where not everyone has the high-speed internet connection to get satisfactory service from streaming and downloading services.
+1
So how is the general populace supposed to watch these movies on SD? My TV doesn't have an SD card reader.
I'm pretty sure the general populace owns computers.
@kevin Maybe in airports and hotels, then. But I can't see it competing with redbox in grocery stores.
Blockbuster sucks. Their business model is terrible; they keep trying to replicate the movie theater experience in their stores, and that's rather costly. The BB down the road from me is going out of business and, ironically, it's never had more customers!
You left out something important.
The SD cards only work in a Blockbuster branded set-top box. You can't just pop it into your laptop and watch it. Could this be any more worthless?
oop. assuming you're right, i totally retract my comment below. in that case, yes, this is pretty worthless. sigh. it's like Blockbuster WANTS to die.
In that case, this is not just a fail, it's another epic Blockbuster fail.
From FastCompany:
"Blockbuster is piloting a new movie-rental program that allows customers to load movies onto SD cards and play them back on mobile phones and TVs equipped with SD readers.."
thanks, darren. they also mention using laptops in the FastCompany article, so it seems any card reader will work. i guess i retract my retraction.
http://consumerist.com/5401643/you-will-probably-never-see-a-blockbuster-sd+card-kiosk
They're reporting that this will only work using a proprietary box...
They get it wrong or are we missing something? Not that anyone is going to use it either way.
Read the press release linked by Consumerist.
"The initial technical pilot will facilitate playback on a TV via a digital media player provided to trial participants, and future iterations will allow consumers to move digital content via the SD memory card to a number of portable electronic devices, such as laptops and mobile phones."
@maveric, you need to retract to one more level...
From the HomeMediaMagazine link (click on the pic or the READ link):
"Anthony Bay, CEO of MOD Systems, said the rentals will include a digital media player to facilitate playback, but he expects some consumer electronics devices may still have problems reading the content. He said he hopes that in the next year third-party devices will be readily available to play SD card content on devices that may not have an SD card slot."
The DRM that is used here is NOT on your phone or iPod or Windows media Player. _At this time_ it only exists in the player box that BB or HW will hand you as you're heading out the door.
this is actually a decent idea; probably Blockbuster's best chance of staying afloat. the DRM restrictions are totally reasonable, and the price is too if you want to hold it for a day or more before or after you watch (given that RedBox is $1/day). i don't really rent movies frequently at all, and i usually watch my TV shows online, so Netflix isn't really worth it for me.
Although not a perfect solution, this is a great idea for many reasons, particularly business travelers. Currently, if you don't own an Apple device, there are very few legitimate methods to view mobile video content.
Additionally, netbooks have been selling like hot-cakes. These devices lack a DVD drive but are almost ideal (long battery life, appropriate size, SD card reader) for viewing content on-the-go.
This solution offers the potential to provide video content to Blackberry, Android, Palm, etc devices without requiring the user to go to a large amount of effort. Additionally, you can get the content that you want without worrying about the desired item being completely "checked-out."
The two main issues I see are making sure that the content can play on a wide variety of devices and secondly waiting in line behind people that need to read the synopsis of EVERY SINGLE MOVIE AVAILABLE. I HATE YOU SO MUCH REDBOX BUT I JUST CAN'T QUIT YOU!!!
FTW, Hulu needs to offer mobile media player clients for popular devices and and allow the viewing of offline content.
This is another inevitable Blockbuster failure. WHY must I drive to a store to download a movie at a kiosk? Why not let me do it from home? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
because you'll be throttled :P
Dude - if you are that lazy, BB offers downloads as well.
I dont' think its laziness its the fact people want the shortest distance to x and downloading movies is pretty close to the shortest distance. The ideal situation is everything is on demand and you save yourself sometime and grief and use it for other activities.
Like I said - BlockBuster DOES offer downloads - so why bother posting and saying this is "dumb dumb dumb" - its just another attempt at BB to move people towards my_ebiz's ultimate fantasy where downloads / streaming are mainstream (and their profit margins increase).
@ncalsurfer Because it was a waste of very valuable (and expense) company resources to do a project which looks to have a negative NPV.
your own sd cards or proprietary ones?
i could see this being very helpful for travelers...hotels have dodgy wifi at best..and with the netbook craze an sd card would be perfect for the frequent traveler (in my experience...). great idea, if there are enough kiosks out and about.
I don't think this is as much of a move to compete with Netflix as it is to compete with Redbox. Netflix is great, and I love that they are taking the lead in streaming content, but for the folks that want something now (and lets face it, the streaming selection is still a bit weak), there are still physical stores. Once they started deploying Redbox kiosks to literally every grocery store and pharmacy in my town, Video stores started getting shuttered. Most people only want the new release anyway, and the kiosks are cheap ($1 a day for a new release is hard to beat) and convenient. This model makes more titles available, distribution of titles to kiosks easier, eliminates having to remember to return the movie, and is equivalently priced. Yes the downfall is that many customers don't have a way to play movies off of SD cards yet, but many do, especially in their PMPs, phones and laptops. I personally hope it succeeds if only to pressure all manufacturers to put an SD (or MicroSD) slot in every device.
"I personally hope it succeeds if only to pressure all manufacturers to put an SD (or MicroSD) slot in every device."
I've often thought it is odd that most, DVD/BluRay players, and even TVs don't have a SD slot on them. They are pretty cheap feature to add and don't take up much valuable real estate
You know Sony and some other are starting to throttle some of Redbox release dates up to 30 days
Meh- this will fail and Blockbuster will ultimately go out of business. Which is a good thing in the sense that Blockbuster has always sucked and this is what they have coming. But it's also a bad thing for any large company to go out of business in this economy and just have all those useless Blockbuster employees out on the street hungry, dumb and desperate. So you can see ultimately this is a bad thing for all of us...
The only way they have a prayer is to build streaming into their existing by-mail accounts. The fact that you have to pay per download even as a customer that rents exclusively by mail is moronic.
Blockbuster had a product that was better than Netflix. And they completely ran it into the ground.
Geez, freakin Netflix fan bois get a grip on you $8.99/month trip and stale movie streaming options. This is something BB is *trying* to see how people respond. Its a great idea for several reasons:
1. Lots of people still drive to the store to rent a movie. Why? because they are on their way home from school, from work, etc. Now, there is an option for some people to get an HD movie for $1.99 instead of $3.99 without having to wait in line or browse the shelves.
2. If people use these, maybe they get put into airports, starbucks, gas stations, etc.Only in the mass rollout, they offer a multi-format card writer and you can bring your own usb stick, miniSD or microSD card (for your phones - Doh!!!!)
This is a great interim step until we have viable HD streaming across all our devices - at which time rental stores and kiosks alike will be obsolete.
Obsolete except for people who actually want to buy something instead of have it for 2 hours. Or for people who want to watch movies on the go, like on an airplane or in a car, where you can't stream it.
I dunno, but $9 a month is rather high to me. Plus you can only have one movie at a time, and how many movies per month can you really get for that $9? Redbox is the way to go to me, $1 rentals, and includes new releases. $9 gets you 9 movies in a month... Plus airports already have rental movies along with players, cant think of the company offhand, but still a waste IMHO.
Who said anything about HD movies? That'd take a hell of an SD card.
Redbox - its great, IF you are responsible enough to return them the next day. Otherwise the $9/month for 9 movies becomes $18 (1 day late) or $27 (2 days late). RB can get expensive quick! Ask me how I know, last time we did RB, we had family in town for a few days. We got busy and didn't watch them the first night, or the second. Bam $3 turned into $9 before we knew it!
@ncalsurfer >> "Redbox - its great, IF you are responsible enough to return them the next day."
Our Redboxes are in grocery stores... places I could get something else at too. It wouldn't necessarily be a wasted trip. I can always get something to eat.
If I drive across town to solely go to a Blockbuster store... that's a wasted trip. Plus, would have paid $5 for the movie rental at Blockbuster!
Besides... you have always had to be responsible for something. Previous video stores had a due date... library books have a due date... your bills have to be paid on time. If anything, I'd rather pay an extra dollar to RedBox because I couldn't drag myself to the grocery store... than be late on some bills.
It has DRM? It might be mildly useful if I could just stick the SD card in my PS3 and play it. But if it has DRM I have to use a PC instead, that's a hassle. Even though I have a Mac Mini connected to my TV I doubt it works with Mac OS.
Around here, it's not Netfix that's killing BlockBuster - It's RedBox. A DVD vending machine at Walmarts, and Walgreens that rents new movies for $1.00!! Game over for BlockBuster. They're closing left and right.
But the SD card thing sounds like a good idea because you don't have to have a DVD player to watch movies. If they get them to micro SD (or let you install them on your own card) and playable on a smart phone, that would be even better.
It's not redbox for me, it's crap movies and the internet. 99.9% of new movies are shit and not worth the time and effort. If it's worth it, I watch it in the theater on the big screen. If it's old and I want to watch it, torrents and hulu provide.
Yes, yes, make more and more electronic wastes and dump them in Africa, Bangladesh and India. What a responsible people!
Wow that's desperate!
So loosing out to movies over the internet they decide to try and offer the same product, but on a memory stick? That I have to go to the store to pick up?
Who would bother with that?
'bout time..
Let's get back to the important point here: the post title. nix some and move you to before movies. Solved.
Install these on subways,trains, and airplanes, and distribute them on microSDs so that people with smart phones can watch them on their commute, and then pop them into their TVs when they get home to finish the move. Then you'd have a hit.
Fail ideas like this and failure in general are Blockbuster's punishment for raping their customers with late charges and outrageous fees. Down with you Blockbuster.
I'm thinking $dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
maybe with bs=512 or whatever but how can they lock down an sd card?
Blockbuster has the same service as Netflicks plus you can trade the movie for a movie at the store. I don't think the SD thing will take off, but I like Blockbuster, great people watching place. Hell 9 times out of 10 the trip to the store is more entertaining than the tripe they call movies these days.
Great idea! I can see the day when we wont need a disc drive. everything trasported via SD CARD....no more scratching
They're probably not re-inventing the wheel. So I suspect they're just using some WMA encryption on the file. It then authenticates to a central server which will unlock the content on the SD card for a specific amount of time before the certificate expires.
I think this is why they say it can play on 'anything with a SD reader' assuming they can decode WMA encrypted files, which is sorta-kinda true. This assumes of course that you have an internet connected device and such.
History repeating it self for failure.... Remember circuit city.
I remember that they wanted to BUY Circuit City. You have to wonder the level of business acumen that exists in the halls of this company (if any) because its one clueless stupid move after another.
Did anyone else notice that that kiosk is property of the NCR? I would have thought it was brotherhood of steel technology but it clearly says NCR right on the screen.
Let me guess: it won't be Mac compatible, and there won't be any subtitles. So I'll have to boot into Windows and *still* strain to hear the dialogue. Ho-hum.
It will take a lot more than that to get me into one of their stores.
The whole everyone saying hi as you walk through the door is just creepy and I got stung a couple of times with late fees. Sorry streaming/downloading is the way to go. It is a simple fact people do not want to go to stores unless they have to.
I should feel some sympathy but they put all the mom and pop video stores out of business so I guess it is fair play.
This thing could be great if they put these kiosks in airports. SD card movies to watch on your laptop on the plane would be fantastic!!
Their starting to get a clue! But nobody has a TV with a card reader so you have rent the film, take it home, copy to computer and THEN copy to your iPod or whatever, and finally hook that to your TV. Far too much effort. Until they allow direct transfer to devices that have TV-out, or provide a set-top box with an SD slot, or until sub-$200 Blu-Ray players start including SD slots, this is pointless except to geeks with HTPCs or other high-end home theatre gear.
@Draaaainage!
I think it's actually the odd double placement of the word "you" that's throwing people off.
It should read "Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, some candy as you checkout".
Another "idea" from blockbuster that will become nothing more than a press release.
Not having an IT staff to develop and maintain any of this is a little bit of a problem.
Most likely it's another "hey look at all these great things we have coming out shortly, somebody please buy us" type of thing.
@Photo Phil: well during sucky mailing times I average 3 movies every two weeks. so that's 6 movies right there. during better times it's more like 5 movies every two weeks. plus with the streaming side of things I can catch a movie a night while I wait for the discs. i know it's not 100% and a lot of newer titles aren't up. but there's also a lot of tv shows and there's enough movies that it works for me
Great, now they have something else to put in all those stores that they are closing. Putting movies on an SD card that actually won't work in most of the SD slots in America? Brilliant... way to show that you understand the American consumer. Oh wait... that was why you're closing all those stores...