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, 2015, the price of video games will triple from $1 to $3 per day go from $2 to $3 per day. "This is only our second price increase in 12 years, and the first for Blu-ray discs and games, so you can be sure that we made this decision very carefully," Redbox stated in an email. "We know that hearing about a price increase isn't the best news, but we feel it's necessary in order to...
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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 metrics to see how many copies of a new release we could afford to buy and still turn a profit in our modest space, these big chains would receive shelves full of new flicks and share revenue with the studios. It was tough to compete with that (we weren't afforded the same or even similar deals), and like every other mom-and-pop video store, we eventually closed up shop. I find it a little...
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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 bringing its high-end home theater experience to a broader audience with the all-new Cinema One. It's the company's first product designed for retail distribution, which could see its products fit into the lives of a far wider crowd. Cinema One lets consumers store and instantly access up to 100 Blu-ray or 600 DVD-quality movies in the highest audio and video quality available. Cinema...
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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 group of researchers at Swinburne University say they can pack in 1,000TB (or one petabyte) on a single disc. In an article explaining the technology, the team explained that burners store data on optical discs by “burning” a string of 1s and 0s--represented by dots and performed by a single beam of light. To date, the limitation has had to do with the size of that light...
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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 subscribers (2 million of which are stateside) bring Netflix’ total to about 36 million. To put that in contrast to the company’s DVD business, the latter has shrunk to less than 8 million domestic. Netflix attributes some of the growth of its streaming business to original programming such as the hit “House of Cards”; a new season of “Arrested Development”...
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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 streaming is apparently unaffected, with the DVD side of the site taking a turn at laying an egg. Netflix sent TechCrunch this statement: “We are experiencing some technical difficulty with the Netflix DVD Web site, which as a result may not be available for all members. Our engineers are working to address this issue. Netflix streaming is not impacted.”...
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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 titles to Redbox kiosks 28 days after their retail release dates. That's a big deal for movie lovers, who probably figured they were going to have to wait a lot longer to see discs hit their local Redbox. Previously, the gap between shipping to places like Walmart and hitting kiosks from Redbox was over 50 days. In addition, Redbox announced plans to join the Digital Entertainment Content...
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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 alone, bringing the total number of global subscribers up to over 29 million (25.1million of whom are in the U.S.). Those users watched more than 3 billion hours of movies and TV shows on Netflix in this past quarter alone. Those figures, and the knowledge that its DVD business’ days are numbered, surely softened the impact of a fourth consecutive quarterly decline in DVD plan...
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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 all reality, the new drive may be more practical for ultrabook users who want to maintain portability. The new SE-218BB optical disc drive is 18% thinner than conventional DVD writers. Samsung says the SE-218BB is the "world's thinnest external optical disc drive" with a height of 14mm. The SE-218BB DVD writer also works with Windows 7 and Mac OS. The SE-218BB is currently available...
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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 involves Netflix's purchase of DVD.com, a move that many are saying was made to further blur the lines between offerings. Right now, it redirects to dvd.netflix.com, but some users are already reporting that queues are being treated differently. In other words, Internet-only subscribers can't see DVD queues, and vice-versa. At this stage, DVD rentals are...
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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 users to Vudu, Walmart's subsidiary movie streaming service. Here's how the service works. "Starting April 16th, 2012 in more than 3,500 stores, Walmart customers will be able to bring their DVD and Blu-ray collections to Walmart and receive digital access to their favorite titles from the partnering studios. An equal conversion for standard DVDs and Blu-ray discs will be $2. Standard...
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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 has now served up 2 billion rentals. The two billionth disc was rented at a McDonald's restaurant in Philomath, Oregon (the move was Drive, in case you're curious), and to celebrate the occasion, everybody is invited to enjoy a free one-night movie rental on Thursday, March 8, by using a promo code "THANKS2U" (minus the quotes), as posted on Redbox's Facebook page. "We've always known...
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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 movie studios and new age DVD rental services like Redbox and Netflix. "The multi-year agreement between Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Redbox represents a win for consumers, Universal and Redbox," said Galen Smith, senior vice president, Redbox. "Redbox is committed to forging relationships that provide our consumers with affordable and timely access to new release content."...
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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 a few bucks per month, why buy? There's hardly a good justification any more. But now, those who are impatient may find themselves buying more than renting. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has just forced Netflix to wait 56 days to receive new release and made-for-video titles on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. That's up from the prior 28 day window that used to...
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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 to connect directly to a wide variety of devices including both mass storage devices and Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) devices such cameras, smartphones, tablets, and camcorders. Now for the first time, users can burn photos directly from a camera (point-and-shoot or DSLR) or smartphone (iOS, Android, Blackberry, etc.) without going near a computer or...
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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 charges for DVDs rented prior to Halloween won't be affected, Redbox said. As as show of good faith and to help ease the transition, Redbox said it will discount the first day of all online DVD rentals to a buck from October 31, 2011 through November 30, 2011. Subsequent days will cost $1.20. Why 20 cents? Redbox says it "conducted several months of testing and with careful consideration,...
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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 23.79M in Q3. That's a net loss of 800,000 people, but the actual number of departures was likely much higher, given that the company undoubtedly added subscribers throughout the quarter. The company's letter to shareholders shed light on how the events were internally perceived.We think that $7.99 for unlimited streaming and $7.99 for unlimited DVD are both...
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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 price on their offerings earlier in the year, Netflix has now spun their DVD-by-mail business off entirely, hence, the newly formed Qwikster. As of today, "Netflix" refers only to the streaming side of things. "Quickster" refers to the DVD-by-mail side of things. And the fun is just getting started. In a lengthy blog post penned this evening on The Official Netflix Blog, Reed stated...
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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 news. The good news is your data will remain intact, so when some alien life form discovers Earth, or a new species of man pops up, everything they need to know about this generation will be preserved. How is this possible? Through the use of M-Disc technology, a new write once and read forever optical disc format developed by Millenniata. Unlike your current CDs, DVDs, hard drives,...
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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 billion rentals x ~$1 each… well, that's not a bad stack of cash to have rolling in. To celebrate, the company is launching 5000 more kiosks starting today, and with those in the rotation, they'll have a whopping 27,000 kiosks across the U.S. Any guesses as to how long it'll take for the company to hit the next 1.5 billion?...
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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 speeds, DVD+RW at 8X, DVD-RAM at 5X and CD-R/RW at 24X. In the box, you'll get the drive as well as a copy of Nero 10. The drive connects via USB 2.0. SONY OPTIARC AMERICA INC. ROLLS OUT SLIM PORTABLE DVD/CD REWRITABLE DRIVE SAN JOSE, Calif., July 14, 2011- Sony Optiarc America today unveiled its first dual USB bus powered slim portable DVD/CD rewritable drive...
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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, and Blockbuster has responded just like any major competitor would: by suggesting that they can help in a situation of need. The rental company that made DVD rentals famous is now claiming that they'll "rescue upset Netflix customers" by launching a limited time, nationwide promotion for every single Netflix user that decides to switch their loyalty over to...
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