Blockbuster and Rogers suck.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Apple TV will be great when it goes to 1080p.

AppleTV is here and good now. HD looks good, standard def rentals are fine.

Honestly, if you are a casual viewer renting movies from Blockbuster or Rogers (as opposed to a movie fanatic who buys their stuff or uses a mail-based subscription service to get hi-def), its more than acceptable.

[Byrns]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

I saw a vending machine in Safeway the other week that had new releases for $1.97... what's the story with that? I guess it isn't blu-ray either.

Not Blu-ray, but awesome. I use it all the time.

[Titan]

Saw an ad for zip.ca calling itself the netflix of the north. Any users? Opinion?

[iggypop]

If it makes you feel better, Blockbuster may be bankrupt by the end of the year.

Blockbuster (BBI, news, msgs). On April 7, auditors speculated that the movie rental giant may have to declare bankruptcy before the year's end.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...this-year.aspx

Personally I still use blockbuster to rent TV series' when I don't feel like waiting for a torrent to finish. You can rent a single disc for 2 bucks, so the whole season for 8-10 bucks. That's pretty good IMO.

[wooohooo]

Those are very good prices, but they need to lower down the price of their movies. $7-8 is still quite a bit whereas if you D/L it it's free. Make it 2-3 bucks and they'll have a lot more customers

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by wooohooo

Those are very good prices, but they need to lower down the price of their movies. $7-8 is still quite a bit whereas if you D/L it it's free. Make it 2-3 bucks and they'll have a lot more customers

Doubtful. As somewhat related to my Authors@Google thread, movie rentals are following the path of print media - extinction. Downloads, streaming, on demand and hell, low HMV prices just make it though for a movie rental to stay in business. You'll probably see a few movie rental machines or 7/11 renting movies, but past that, I can't see the franchise of movie rentals (BB/Rogers) surviving past 5 years.

[Hack&Lube]

What? People still pay to watch movies at home?

I guess I'm part of the download generation but I've never warmed up to the big screen TV and Blu-Ray home theatre idea so I understand if the sheer size of Blu-Ray downloads makes this unfeasible for many people.

But hey...when you are downloading at 2MB/sec only takes about and hour and a half to download a 13GB Blu-Ray rip in MKV...Go make some dinner and have meal first. Then just load the movie up from your HTPC harddrive or your media distribution server or modded Xbox 360, etc.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

What? People still pay to watch movies at home?

I guess I'm part of the download generation but I've never warmed up to the big screen TV and Blu-Ray home theatre idea so I understand if the sheer size of Blu-Ray downloads makes this unfeasible for many people.

But hey...when you are downloading at 2MB/sec only takes about and hour and a half to download a 13GB Blu-Ray rip in MKV...Go make some dinner and have meal first. Then just load the movie up from your HTPC harddrive or your media distribution server or modded Xbox 360, etc.

....the thing is, there's still lots of people out there that would look at what you wrote there and go "WTF!?! I'm more comfortable just renting a movie."

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by flameswin

....the thing is, there's still lots of people out there that would look at what you wrote there and go "WTF!?! I'm more comfortable just renting a movie."

In english, download blue-ray quality is fast, and then copy it or stream it to your TV (using PS3, xbox or media box whatever you use)

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

In english, download blue-ray quality is fast, and then copy it or stream it to your TV (using PS3, xbox or media box whatever you use)

Oh it's definitly easy (and awesome), I guess my point was just that there's lots of people (especially from the older generation) that are just happy and more comfortable with putting a disc in a DVD player, turning on the TV, and sitting down with some popcorn.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Oh it's definitly easy (and awesome), I guess my point was just that there's lots of people (especially from the older generation) that are just happy and more comfortable with putting a disc in a DVD player, turning on the TV, and sitting down with some popcorn.

Oh yeah, for sure, understood. In business entrepreneurship terms, its whats called "crossing the chasm" and these things will infiltrate society in time. If you think about the bell (aka Gaussian) curve from grade 12 stats, you have the 2% nerds to who try the newest gizmo's (beta software, etc) out there, then 14% young people who go and buy the newest and hottest fads, then an new product "crosses the chasm" where the product is adapted by the majority of the population. Eventually, the next 14% is industry adapting the product and you'll always have the 2% old people who still haven't figured out what this internet business is.

Right now, tech-age services are phasing out products like movie rentals and newspapers as its started to cross the chasm to go from minority to majority.

(sorry to turn that all nerdy)

[edn88]

I think we need a poll asking how people 'rent' their home movies

a) Rent DVDs
b) Pay per view or video on demand
c) Internet download
d) Who pays for movies?

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by edn88

I think we need a poll asking how people 'rent' their home movies

Actually I was thinking it would be nice to get this thread back on topic; for those who wish to rent; what are the other options? I think we have already shown that there are a number of downloading options available.

A place that we used to go to was Casablanca video in Marda Loop. They always had a good selection of movies, they had TV series DVDs before they were cheap/popular, and for regular customers they were pretty forgiving about late fees. Meaning if you had rented a dozen movies and returned them on time, they might be willing to let a 1 day late movie slide.

I'm no longer close to them so they may not even be around still, but might be an option to check out.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by Puxlut

I saw a vending machine in Safeway the other week that had new releases for $1.97... what's the story with that? I guess it isn't blu-ray either.

24 hour rentals. Very good deal. They have them at the NothHill Safeway.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Actually I was thinking it would be nice to get this thread back on topic; for those who wish to rent; what are the other options? I think we have already shown that there are a number of downloading options available.

A place that we used to go to was Casablanca video in Marda Loop. They always had a good selection of movies, they had TV series DVDs before they were cheap/popular, and for regular customers they were pretty forgiving about late fees. Meaning if you had rented a dozen movies and returned them on time, they might be willing to let a 1 day late movie slide.

I'm no longer close to them so they may not even be around still, but might be an option to check out.

They're still there. I can't say I'm overly impressed with their prices, but after reading this thread, I probably should be. It's $4-something for a new release for one night. Last movie I rented, I returned a couple days late and it was a couple bucks for late fees. For some reason, I thought that $4-something was expensive for one night, but you guys are saying $7-8 at BB and Rogers? Guess I'm glad I live so close to Casablanca. For the three movies a year that I rent.

[MaDMaN_26]

I have a bit of a rant about blockbuster and other video stores that has bothered me since DVD became the standard format.

I used to work at a independent video store in a small town when VHS was the only format available. Other than the Disney movies and a few others that where priced to sell directly to the consumer at about $20 most VHS movies could only be purchased by the public from the "used" or "previously enjoyed" bin. Most new releases we bought cost in the range of $200-$300 for 3 or 4 copies, we often could not afford to carry more that 4 or 5 copies of a hot new title as we would never make money on it if we had too many copies... often we only started making money on the title when it hit the old release section... I think I remember it took on average 30 rentals before we made money on a new release, so when we charged late fees, sometimes for only being a few hours late, there was a very good reason for it... someone keeping a new release an extra day or past prime rental hours was pure loss for us so we had to charge for that extra day... we could not afford to have that new movie sitting on the shelf over night.

Fast forward to today, All DVD movies are priced to the consumer, there is no such thing anymore as a DVD release that the consumer cannot purchase at a retail cost of $15-30ish... Companies like blockbuster have such buying power that I'm positive they get their movies for a lot less than retail... especially given that we pay 2-3 times more for a new release rental than what we did for VHS, They would be making money now after the first rental I'd wager...

So when they finally did away with Late fees I was like its about F'ing time as I already felt ripped off. To bring them back or pretend they have it rough in anyway shape or form is ludicrous to me. As far as I'm concerned if they truly are hurting then they somehow have p!ssed away a ton of profit margins that I can't comprehend how or where the money is going... if they are not making more cash than they ever have in the history of renting movies then they deserve to go out of business and passing on these "we-are-so-hard-done-by-costs" on to us, the consumer, to make up for their terrible mismanagement of a profit margin gift that was DVD unreal. I can't think of another business ever where the cost of your business would plummet so dramatically and yet the consumer would be for the most part unaware of that fact so you can continue to charge the same amount of money...

The whole thing really makes me scratch my head.

(oh and Shantz, I can't be the only person who thinks picking apart some guys thread like you did doesn't make you look smart, it just makes you look arrogant)

[MaDMaN_26]

Originally Posted by Byrns

Not Blu-ray, but awesome. I use it all the time.

I used zip.ca and I liked the service, problem was I would create my wish list with new and old releases and then they would never send the new releases to me, only the old movies... so I removed all the old movies from my list and then the service got slow... so I ended up canceling it.

I think I would as an option go with rogersdirect, which is actually run by zip.ca, but they used to have an option to get 2 coupons for in store rentals as well as the by mail service... so you could use those to get your new releases... but I never actually did this so not sure how well it would work etc...

http://www.rogersvideodirect.ca/dvd/index.aspx

[Russic]

Originally Posted by Titan

Saw an ad for zip.ca calling itself the netflix of the north. Any users? Opinion?

zip.ca wasn't bad when I used it. The problem was I got an apple tv. I realize videophiles and such will gag at these words, but the apple tv HD was strong enough that I don't care as much for blurays anymore. Sure it isn't perfect and I'd rather have the bluray versions of the movies I adore, but for casual rentals it's apple tv all the way.

I've seen the online arguements about how apple tv quality is lower than a dvd rip, but truthfully those arguments tend to leave out two important factors: the quality difference is hard to tell if you aren't viewing them side by side and the apple tv is THE EASIEST thing out there. I will gladly pay a premium to get my content quick and fast.

The one big downside to the apple tv is that it isn't very friendly with other formats. Using bit torrent is a definite option, but you'll more than often have to convert the file to work. This is fine in standard def, but when you start downloading hd files (or "hd" files), the conversion process degrades the quality. Personally I've found getting hd content off bit torrent to be far more hassle than it's actually worth.

Here's my story about how blockbuster managed to screw themselves out of a great deal of my money:

I rented guitar hero: 80's edition (the worst one) for a party. Returned it late which was my fault. I get a call about a month later saying that I returned it 31 days late, so I was now the proud owner of guitar hero: 80's edition. I was obviously annoyed, however the fault ultimately lands on me because that is the deal they set up. Return it more than 30 days and you own it. Like it or screw off. So I asked when I could come in to pick up the game I just bought. I couldn't come in ... because they had rented it out. So they charged me $60 for a game and proceeded to rent it out. I spoke to a manager and calmly told him that I will gladly pay the fine as it was my fault, but also that it was garbage that they make me buy a game and then continue to rent it out to people. He could drop the fine and I would continue to be a customer or I'd pay the fine and never set foot in a blockbuster again. He was a really nice guy and told me he understood, but he couldn't break policy. I payed the fine and have given them $0 every since.

[mykalberta]

I do wish Netflix was in Canada with the 360 service.

The only times I rent movies is when I have a date over. And for me it makes sense to go out to get the movies because then I can buy pop or whatever for her to drink. Most dates arent interested in drinking chocolate milk or Crystal Lite like I am

While I suggested BitTorrent on the first page, I rarely use it. Its just to much of a hassle. If there is a move I like I just go and buy it. I use the cheap theatres to see the movies I am thinking of buynig or friends reccomendations. My friends havent been wrong before - in fact there are alot of movies I have to thank them for, like Prestige, Man on Fire, etc - some of my favorite movies.

[MarchHare]

I'm GLAD that BB and Rogers are bringing back late fees. Customers are taking advantage of not having to pay late fees and keeping DVDs out way longer than needed, making it much harder for other customers to rent the films they want to see because they're already out. Before, people would make an extra effort to return their rentals on time because they didn't want to pay the late fee. Now they just keep them out as long as they want and only return them when it's convenient.