Items tagged with DVD
Redbox is putting the word out that it plans to hike the price of its DVD rentals by 25 percent next month, as well increase the cost of borrowing Blu-ray discs. Effective December 2, 2014, the price for DVDs will increase to $1.50 per day, up from $1.20, while Blu-Ray discs will jump $0.50 to $2. Starting January 6...
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Many years ago, I helped run a local mom-and-pop video rental store. Business was okay, but not great. By the time I came onto the scene, chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video had started putting the squeeze on independently owned stores by inking revenue sharing deals with movie studios. While we analyzed...
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Remember Kaleidescape? That's the company that attempted to give high-end cinema lovers the ability to digitize all of their DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, and clearly, enough of those folks exist to keep it afloat. While niche by nature, it's tough to knock the cool factor here, and the home movie server outfit is now...
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The race to figure out more efficient ways of storing the ever-increasing amount of data we generate every day is on, and researchers have developed a simple yet powerful way to dramatically increase the storage density of a DVD. How dramatic? DVDs can handle 4.7GB of storage using conventional means of burning; a...
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Netflix Adds 3 Million Streaming Subscribers, Debuts New Streaming Package, and Pledges More Content
Netflix has been doing brisk business for years, and there are no signs that the movie streaming company is slowing down. Netflix released its Q1 financial report, which included plenty of interesting tidbits about what it’s up to now and in the near future. First, those 3 million additional streaming...
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For the second time in about a week, Netflix is experiencing an outage. On Christmas Eve, many users lost streaming capabilities and didn’t get it back until well into Christmas morning. Netflix pointed the finger at Amazon Web Services, and indeed it appears that an Amazon facility in Virginia was to blame. This time around, Netflix...
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The movie rental market couldn't be hotter. From digital distribution to Redbox, it's a booming market, and movie studios are still struggling to figure out how to best approach the growth. Redbox and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment have inked a new multi-year agreement to bring Warner Bros.' Blu-ray Disc and DVD...
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It’s no secret that Netflix believes that its DVD rental-by-mail service will vanish one day soon as more and more households switch to streaming-only subscriptions, so the suits were certainly pleased at some of the Q3 numbers Netflix posted. The company added almost 2 million new streaming subscribers in Q3...
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Samsung announced a new optical disk drive that it's marketing for ultrabooks and tablets. While we aren't sure how many tablet users will actually carry a separate optical disk drive, Samsung's latest drive is designed to work with tablets that have a built-in USB port and run on Android Honeycomb OS 3.1 or above. In...
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Is Qwikster on the rebound? Perhaps. Netflix killed the short-lived Qwikster after an uproar from customers about the splitting of DVD and Internet queues, but it's obvious that Netflix still believes that the future is one with a split. Or, perhaps the future is one where DVD rentals are simply inconsequential. The latest resurfacing of plans...
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Earlier this month we covered Walmart's burgeoning partnership with the Ultraviolet DRM system backed by major Hollywood studios and their plans to "assist" customers in registering DVDs with the Ultraviolet system. Walmart has since announced additional details to the program and it's a clever attempt to drive more...
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Redbox has been on a roll lately. The DVD rental service recently knocked out its competition in the kiosk market by buying out Blockbuster's kiosks, it's renewed its agreement with Universal (while flipping the finger at Warner Bros., which tried to double the new release rental window from 28 days to 56 days), and...
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Redbox did something with Universal that it wasn't able to do with Warner Bros., and that's hammer out a multi-year agreement that will continue to make Universal DVDs and Blu-ray discs available for rental nationwide 28 days following their home release. The 28-day window has become somewhat of a standard between...
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Ouch. We knew the movie studios didn't like Netflix very much, but this is just brutal. In the viewpoint of the movie studios, they want people to go out and buy new DVD and Blu-ray releases. A rental provides only a fraction of the profit that an outright purchase would, but with $1 Redbox rentals and unlimited Netflix streaming for just...
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Plextor's made a few announcements during the CES stretch, and here's another. The company has just revealed a snazzy new PlexEasy DVD/CD burner, which aims to provide PC-free backups. It's a stand-alone optical storage solution, consisting of a compact 8X DVD/CD Writer with a built-in SD/MMC card reader and a USB connector. It has the ability...
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We just got word from Redbox that starting on Monday, October 31, the daily rental charge for DVDs will increase 20 percent to $1.20 per day. According to Redbox, the price hike is intended to offset rising operating expenses, such as increases in debit card fees. Blu-ray discs, video game rentals, and additional day...
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Netflix posted its Q3 results today, and they reflect what analysts generally expected. The company's price hikes, combined with its schizophrenic announcement that it would split the brand (followed by a retraction a few weeks later) took a toll on the total number of subscribers. The total number of subscribers fell from 24.59M in Q2 to...
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If you're waking up this morning to a feeling that something may have changed overnight, you'd be right. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings decided that now would be a great time to start a new business. So he did. It's called Qwikster, and it's a new company by Netflix. Excited yet? Hold your horses. After upping the overall...
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We hate to break it to you, but even with all the advances in medicine, you won't be around in 1,000 years. Neither will your children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren. If we're being particularly morbid and pessimistic, we could point out that the human population might be wiped out by then. That's the bad...
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Redbox, the DVD rental box service that's sweeping the nation, has just reached 1.5 billion DVD and Blu-ray Disc rentals. That's a pretty staggering number. The company launched their service in 2004, which means it only took 7 years to reach the milestone. Furthermore, they've also rented over 4 million video games during the period. 1.5...
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Sony Optiarc revealed a new dual USB bus powered slim portable DVD/CD rewriteable drive designed for use with notebooks, netbooks, and desktop PCs. The new DRX-S90U drive features a lightweight design. The drive supports up to 8X DVDR recording speeds. The drive can also record to 8.5 GB DVDR Double/Dual layer and 4.7 GB DVD-RW discs at 6X...
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Desperate times call for desperate measures. And while Blockbuster isn't exactly "out" just yet, they're definitely "down." At least compared to companies like Redbox and Netflix. But if there's ever a time to take advantage of a man being down, this is it. Netflix had to know full-well that the pricing changes would cause a major backlash,...
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