Blockbuster Movie Download & Rental Service in Beta

Blockbuster is beta testing the integration of the Movielink service (purchased by Blockbuster last year) into the Blockbuster website, and offers about 5,000 movies and TV shows for rental or purchase. Digital movie download rentals start at $1.99, and digital movies can be purchased for as little as $7.99. Note the new "Download" tab on the Blockbuster website:

Blockbuster will offer some of the digital titles for purchase on the same day as DVD release, and rentals within the video-on-demand release window. The initial selection of movies and TV shows includes many new releases, but with a rental or purchase price.

There are a number of ways to watch Blockbuster downloadable content on your TV, as Movielink currently supports Windows Media Center PCs, the AT&T Homezone set-top box, the Xbox 360, and other media adapters. Blockbuster content should even work on portable media center devices (but not iPods).

Blockbuster has taken a totally different approach than Netflix, which has bet the entire business on a subscription model. Blockbuster is offering customers a wide variety of options, including subscription (Total Access), digital rental, digital purchase, DVD rental, and DVD purchase (used or new).

It'll be interesting to see if Blockbuster can gain traction against Netflix in the coming year with this new approach.

Thanks to Aaron and AJ for sending this in.

Comments

[John]

This is the stupidest move by Blockbuster.

How is this different from Amazon's Unbox, and Apple's iTunes, similar Movie streaming or download services?

Apple & Amazon charge for each movie.

If I don't like a movie, I close it after 10-15 minutes. I don't want to have to pay for it.

I will stick with downloading from PirateBay as Reed hastings said in one earnings call, and IW/DVD for my rare movies.

Agree. This is stupid.

Starting at $1.99, yes. But I see most movies at $2.99 or $3.99.

No competition to Instant Watch. And certainly no replacement to an actual monthly subscription.

Some people, like myself, love the subscription model, like Netflix or Rhapsody. Then there are people who hate a subscription model, and love ownership. These groups of people don't understand each other, but there is money to be made off both in the marketplace. (although I think that the 'subscribers' are bigger spenders)

[Dan]

I completely agree that this is stupid. Not because I disagree with an a la carte model, but because they don't distinguish themselves from their competition.

[james]

you can't compare the two models. Subscription-based digital content will always be 2nd rate, the studios mandate it in fact. So if you want brand new releases, go to Blockbuster, Apple, etc. If you are a garbage collector and have limitless free time, Netflix is the way to go.

[Jeff from Knowzy]

If they're not planning on bundling the rental downloads with TA subscriptions, it makes me wonder why they bothered purchasing Movielink in the first place.

At the very least, they should throw in a few complementary rental downloads per month to be somewhat competitive with Netflix on this front.

[CinemaMad]

I think that Blockbuster will be relying on it's brand more than anything else. It's unlikely they'll come up with a better service than the upstarts. In the long term, unless they get a really good manager, they are toast.

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[Frank]

The 1.99 price point is of course intended to lure people, and smart people disregard it and look at the true price, but most people aren't that smart. Redbox makes a mint off of people renting the latest release "for just $1" and then returning it days later owing 5 times that.

And "ownership" of DRM-protected movies is a ridiculous concept, but the more people hear the term they forget how fragile that ownership is. The company better stay in business and the buyer better keep their accounts there current, so they can revalidate the movie when inevitably they get a new computer. And my friend wants to borrow a movie I "own", how do I do that?

The real risk to Netflix customers is this will embolden Netflix to start charging for instant watch. That may not be all bad, though, because they will likely need to fix the problems in picture quality and selection which turn a service that sounds wonderful in theory into something far less in reality.

Just a string of dumb moves.

What next, rental kiosks. Oh yeah, they're already working on that.

[Cool Guy]

The site has become very slow today........And whats up with this color changeeeeeeeeee.............i signed in and it is showing some one elses name.... If i click on rent download... its taking me to an image...........this suckssssssssssss

[hrsd]

NFLX has garbage in its movie downloads. Almost all of its movies are old. I seriously doubt that people use this feature too much.

[hrsd]

NFLX has garbage in its movie downloads. Almost all of its movies are old. I seriously doubt that people use this feature too much.

[leonardodicrapio]

"NFLX has garbage in its movie downloads. Almost all of its movies are old. I seriously doubt that people use this feature too much."

10,000 movies. If you can't find something you want out of that, you have poor taste. Sure, there's a lot of catalog titles, but there's a smattering of new release titles, also. True, you're not going to get Spiderman 3, but that's a good thing -- really.

That's why over 100,000 people have paid $100 for a Roku box. That's over 10 million dollars in less than 10 weeks for a little, tiny company.

Over 10 million people own XBoxes in the U.S. No, not every one of them has a Netflix account, but if only 10% have a XBox Live Gold account and a Netflix account then you have over 1 million people will be able to Watch Instantly on their television very soon. If you figure 10% of that million people will use Watch Instantly then that is another 100,000 people, or a virtual doubling of demand whenever the switch is thrown.

Yeah, noone is using Watch Instantly. Sure. You keep telling yourself that, hrsd.

Oh, did I forget to mention all the people who will buy the LG BD300 Blu-Ray player for under $500? I wouldn't even be surprised if a few people end up getting an LG Blu-Ray player bundled for "free" with a LG 1080p HDTV at Best Buy.

[Gir]

The stinker ratio in Watch Now is pretty high, but there are quite a few gems. This is where recommendations can really help you out.

And the opportunity cost of Watch Now is practically zero. If you select something and it turns out you dislike it, you can just stop watching and move on, no harm done. There's no disk to return and no waiting for the next title.

I really don't understand anyone that can't see the immense value add that Watch Now gives. You continue to get disks as you want, plus all this other stuff, at no additional cost.

[james]

No one is going to buy Blu-Ray units in any quantity until they're sub-$200 and it doesn't go mass until they reach $99.

[Keyes]

Keyes is an idiot. This will be a failure. It is true that the studios hate the subscription model. However, customers love it. So studios will eventually have to accept it.

Keyes still thinks he can save BB by making the stores into Starbucks for Movies. Good Luck!

[Old Timer Too]

After the fiasco of last year, BB expects us to trust whatever they do?

Keyes may be trying, but BB has been so "trying" that there isn't much they can do to win my exclusive loyalty back.

They might try bringing back the more "out at a time" plans and then I might see how I feel. Until then, forget it. The last shipping cycle saw them slow to receive and slow to send, as compared against NF, which received early and shipped the same day.

Maybe it has to do with me keeping films out (now on the average) of over a week, but I would expect BB to at least keep the same service I'd been used to, instead of now receiving too late to ship the same day.