Blockbuster to offer Movie-on-SD card rentals

Driving all the way down the street to your local Blockbuster to pick up some old, decrepit physical media is a pain. Not to mention, cassette tapes are all but antique and DVD’s are losing their luster in this digital age. Blockbuster is one of those businesses who should be scared. Without any physical media to rent, how do they stay in business? SD cards, that’s how.

Blockbuster is currently undergoing a pilot program in which users can bring in their own SD card and load it up with movie rentals via various “rental kiosks” that are made by NCR corporation in partnership with MOD Systems. Simple insert your card, select your movies you’d like to rent, pay your dues and off you go.

If you’re looking to play the system and simply take home your rentals for quick and easy copies be forewarned — expect an extremely tight layer of DRM wrapped around them. The most notable of this new DRM is a time limit which will render the files unplayable after the expiration date has passed. Kind of cool I guess. Though if Blue-ray DRM can be cracked as fast as we’ve seen, some SD card DRM can’t be that hard can it?

Of course, other obvious questions such as “what do I play it in?” arise. A computer is a given. Game systems such as the PS3 are safe too. Though not many TV’s support SD cards yet, but it’s coming. But let’s not get to excited yet because if Blockbuster decides to use a specific form of DRM that requires certain hardware or software to play it, thereby limiting the devices it plays on, well, then this new venture is dead before it began. All in all, if you don’t have an SD card reading device, it’s easy to find some attachment or 3rd party add-on allowing such functionality. If you have a hard time finding an SD card reader in your house, you’re probably not the prime audience Blockbuster is gunning for to begin with. I don’t know how many boxes of memory cards I have. It’s like a graveyard I swear.

Personally, I think a microSD based system would fare better. Sure you have to worry about end users losing the cards more often, but Blockbuster isn’t footing the bill for the cards so it’s not their loss. With mobile phones and smartphones really taking off, being able to rent a movie on microSD and then watch it on your phone or other mobile device would be a pretty cool concept. Blockbuster, are you listening?

Do you think Blockbuster can starve off any more cash bleeds with this new SD rental program or do they just need to get over this whole physical thing already and make more aggressive strides online?

Erictric

Movie labels pushing “no rental period”

They’ll never learn…

The entire world is running towards digital, yet the few greedy suits who control major movie labels as well as their bass akwards business models refuse to die. The movie labels are toying with a “no rental” plan that would prevent new movie releases from being rentable for up to a month after a purchase only release. Fine, be that way. I’ll torrent it for the pain in the ass you caused me. Or I’ll *gasp* wait an extra month, rent it, and then copy it. Such reactions aren’t solely my own. I know many will be fed up with increasing stupidity that oozes from such organizations.

Faced with declining physical DVD sales, movie execs are looking for ways to continue their old, monopolistic, price gouging tactics they’ve enjoyed for decades. This new fangled digital revolution has slashed manufacturing and distribution costs which leads to lower retail prices and ultimately lower profits. So far, only an intelligent few have begun experimenting with various digital and paid – free pricing schemes to get the most of this new medium — again, something labels are highly resisting.

When will they realize they will never be able to charge the same for a digital product (with much lower production/distrobution costs) as they do for physical media (higher production/distribution costs)?

The business plan of such labels in the future will consist of much smaller, leaner, and more technically savvy individuals who actually have a clue about the market they cater to, their audience, and the wants of that audience. For now, were stuck watching old business die. It’s for the better. They’re holding back innovation and technological progress.

**Note to labels: Accept digital already. Regardless if you do or not, it will win. We will get along just fine without you. Do you want to be on the winning side? Or are you going to slowly kill yourself ultimately ending on the losing side?

Slashdot > LA Times

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