Survey finds most Americans think in-store movie renting is fading out
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 24th 2008 1:55AM
posted Jul 24th 2008 1:55AM
[Image courtesy of Street Knowledge]
posted Jul 24th 2008 1:55AM
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Right, just like the cashless society and the paperless society too. Not to mention the flying cars and super highways that I can just let my car do the driving. The Jetson's here we come!!!
right and this is a survey from a digital company?
i know this had to be a push survey, which has leading questions.
I think in-store renting is fading out, partly because you have digital but also Netflix and even Blockbuster have their own delivery service. Who needs to go to the store when they'll send you the videos through the post? I certainly do not believe digital is going to be the preferred format for ownership for a very, very, very long time. Maybe resident trolls like Nfinity will buy substandard videos locked to their XBox 360 or whichever device for the same price as a DVD but no one else will.
"Blu-Ray, if it survives, will remain n niche market (similar to the same ones that still buy CDs over MP3s) but in the case of videos there are much stronger forces working together to make this expand at rapid rate. As we see studios are simply more willing to support digital downloads then even Blu-Ray."
I hate to burst your bubble, Nfinity, but CD's aren't a niche market. MP3's are lossy. Of course, many people were, have been, and are going to be taken in by Apple's iTunes (myself included) and their DRM-protected AAC songs that will only play on an iPod. Try hooking your iPod up to a good stereo and see how great (or not so great in this case) it sounds. I guess if you are listening to a No High No Lows Gotta Be Bose SoundDock, maybe your iPod sounds all right, though.
@Nfinity,
No way does Blockbuster/Netflix start going away in 1-2years. While I think we can all agree that B&M stores are not going to grow (and will actually shrink), the VAST majority of Joe Six-Packs do not download movies/shows/porn.
I live in a city @500k people and all the Blockbuster/Hollywood Video's are quite busy in the evening (especially weekends). Some families have other things to worry about than getting delivery vehicles for digital downloads.
Btw, the new avatar is good, but the old one is classic.
@Nfinity
Let it go. I was as big a supporter of HD DVD as you were, but Blu-ray has won. Trusting a press release from an organization called Cinemanow regarding media delivery is like going to the national beef council for objective information on the pros and cons of eating steak.
Lio, you can buy from Apple and still convert the music to WAV, then rip back to DRM-free MP3s.
I haven't rented anything from them, or online sources, in years. I buy what I want and try real hard to make sure of what I get is really weanted. Mistakes on my part are given or sold out of inventory. This goes for Blu-ray, too.
I also never contributed to PPV. I am their worse customer. :)
i have a 2nd job in a video store, and i can assure you that the majority of customers are perfectly happy loading up their kids and perusing the aisles of a brick & mortar store, as opposed to accessing digital content.
most of the posters here are tech savvy enough to say 'sure, this seems reasonable', but i promise you, there are far more millions of people out there with zero clue about delivered content versus physical. they can barely figure out how to hook up their dvd player to their tv, much less configure a home network or a set-top box, and that's not even taking into the consideration the multitude of people still happily chugging away on dialup because they don't see the point of spending more for broadband.
and hd content isn't an issue, because there are still more analog SD sets out there than there are HD ones, again because average people just don't care, just don't want to (or can't) spend the money to upgrade, so they can't see the benefit. you know, we still get people complaining on a regular basis because we no longer stock full-screen versions of movies.
if ISPs begin capping bandwidth or tiered pricing, there will be even less enthusiasm for using services that increase the cost of a household's net connection.
while i agree that delivered content is the future direction we're going, i don't see it happening for quite some time.
And if we could somehow show them an AppleTV, you'd never sell them the $19 popcorn/candy combo add-on kit again.
People go to crap stores like Blockbuster because they don't know any better. Tivo is failing with their weak implementation of Amazon Unbox, but I think AppleTV has it figured out. Except for two things, anyway, higher-def content, and (can't believe I'm saying this) marketing.
May the Apple-bashing begin.
Isn't HD-DVD much more like betamax than blu-ray is Mr. genius?
you ripped off my avatar
ABSOLUTELY CATEGORICALY 100% MEANINGLESS !!!
The survey was taken on Cinemanow.com's website... a website that caters to users who already download movies (rolleyes).
This is just a fluff / shock type article to make people click and read. It's utter and complete nonsense/bull$hit. Idiots like Nfinity and Truthteller will revel in the false truths this article is peddling (rolleyes).
This survey is like the equivalent of asking hybrid vehicle owners if they think gas only cars are going away... OF COURSE THOSE PEOPLE WOULD RESPOND BY SAYING YES! because they have already made the move to the new vehicles and are environmentally conscious. It would be like asking Vegetarians if they feel having a steak dinner is a good idea.
This survey did NOT poll Mister and Misses average American as I GUARANTEE that 97% of those folks would have responded "download wazza?" and that "NO" physical media and renting them (either via the videostore or online) is NOT going away. Also, the survey attempts to sku/steer the results their way by shamelessly guilting people into thinking renting physical movies is bad for the environment (rolleyes).
Is ANYBODY truly falling for this bull$hit?
As opposed to the books of the Bible the BDA constantly release??
EXACTLY! It's like trying to make a sweeping conclusion from a poll of the active membership of blu-ray.com. You can't possibly extrapolate a completely non-scientific poll like this to society in general.
I like my local Blockbuster. You can't beat $1 for an overnight rental but I don't know how they make much of a profit from that. Do you think downloading/streaming movies include the high def audio as well?
No matter how much people wish it wasn't so you only have to look at the fate of the video/DVD stores in our towns.
I do not expect my experience to be much different to most people's.
My town (and the several close by I would visit regularly - like the handful of other towns where my relatives live that I visit reasonably frequently) are not witnessing a growth in B&M video/DVD stores.
Quite the opposite.
When DVD came along it gave the (then) already clearly dying remaining VHS video stores a new lease of life, that is now well and truly a thing of the past.
My own town is now down to 1 DVD rental outlet with a couple of the petrol/gas stations operating (at a very low level) a small rental & sales stand.
My local grocery store does similar.
No more than 20 titles for sale @ around £4/$8 or rental (and with prices like that I would not expect much renting going on).
B&M stores are either going to have to find a way of offering something downloading can't......but that in itself means that the movie industry is going to have to bother and spend (even if it is only pennies) on a more attractive package offering 'added value' that the bald download (which they are simply going to have to get used to, you will never stop sharing) cannot offer.
I wouldn't take much refuge in stuff like the high def audio either, those preaching the benefits are merely a tiny & minute fraction of a market which, by and large, could not care less - and is even less inclined (especially right now) to shell out the large amounts of cash necessary to take advantage of that high def audio.
My 2 local Blockbusters have closed down in the past 2 years. I think since online DVD rental such as Amazon and LoveFilm became available, more people are using it as it is so easy and quick to use.
It's also relatively cheap - I am only paying £5.49 for 3 DVDs/Blurays per month as opposed to paying £3-4 to download ONE movie rental off of Apple TV etc.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, namely you Nfinity, (edit: too late) let's put aside the fact that this 'survey' was done by CinemaNow, which negates this by default. More and more people are using Netflix (no matter what this biased 'survey' says) and people are just buying their movies right out. Its easier than ever to have a collection.
Ask any parent, rentals aren't a good way to get movies for your kid(s). Also, Chimpuat makes a good point, there are DROVES of non-technical people out there who just go to a local video outlet to buy/rent movies.
We could go into the whole downloads vs. disc media thing for ages, and we probably will for some time to come, but this one isn't even worth discussing. Its pure bias bullshit, and only people looking for fuel for their own ends will find anything of use in this.
That's another great point. Piracy is rampant, let's be clear. I'll go as far as to say *I think* of all the 'downloads' being done, its probably illegal downloading by a good 70/30 split, if not more.
Because we can all trust surveys about the popularity of digital downloads from a digital downloads company! Right?? Right??!!
Reminds me of the "studies" financed by Big Oil that "discovered" that global warming isn't real.
Does anyone even know anyone out there who's not a geek that's eschewing their DVD player in favor of digital downloads?
Yeah right, like 99.9% of the "People" who rent movies even knows the difference between 4801/p, 720p and or 1080i/p? They can't even tell you the difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray or Plasma and LCD. Ridiculous this survey is. Why don't they do real questionnaires with the companies about things like, how long will it take to really get affordable final spec HDTVs? Or when if Blockbuster going to get it really rolling on Blu-Ray rentals? Better still why the hell does Netflix think that connecting with Microsoft's Xbox 360 without unlimited HD rental downloads is even an idea in today's market? So many better questions out there to be asking.
@Truth Teller
Where do you live? Just curious.
@ Ariel
In Ireland in a small town but not especially a rural area
(which ought to be a rental redoubt of a sort).
Previous to that I lived in London, England and have family dotted around Ireland & England
(and I saw huge numbers of VHS video stores and later those surviving DVD stores die out there - and I visit there regularly).
Guys, come on now.
You can try & spin this however you like but we all know (and can see with our own eyes) rental B&M stores are not a 'growth industry'.
B&M stores aren't going away - will there be 'shrinkage'; sure; but also boutiques will arise (aka Redbox) to fill the 7-11 mentality in America. Downloads will never take over rentals via mail or B&M - why? bandwith - and with companies looking to charge people per bandwith use it'll become harder for any viable download model to work. I've downloaded a movie from Unbox and was appalled at its quality - less than DVD! Unless a download service can download to your TV, with a monthly fee for unlimited use (like Netflix - 3 downloads at max, etc) - 'disc' rentals will never go away. And if those out there think there's no difference between HD (blu-ray) and regular DVD have never seen 'good' BD movies to show what difference there is (or they still have their 20" CRT and are scrambling to get a converter).
All the Hollywood Videos around here have closed. Which leaves only one rental store within any kind of reasonable distance, Blockbuster. That's a fairly serious reflection on the state of the market.
I'm not sure how significant HD downloads are going to be in the long term but I believe once the technology is well supported, it'll sound a deathknell for hard media. Just looking at my household's short term reasons for reducing the number of DVDs we buy (we used to buy about 4-8 a month, usually from the used DVD aisle at HV and BB, we'd have rented but it was more cost effective to buy given my atrocious library-returning skills...), the biggest significant reason was when we got a combination of a DVR, HD satellite service, and Dish Network's CineMAX-for-1c package. Now we pretty much know that anything we want to watch will be available in HD without commercial interruptions at some point in the future, it's just a matter of waiting for it, setting the thing up to record, and then watching it before we run out of space on the DVR.
Which means that we don't need to buy DVDs except for movies that are a little older and unlikely to be rebroadcast soon, and even then, there's limited time to watch them.
This survey has its flaws (especially given the source) but I suspect it's fundamentally closer to the truth than not. I don't see a bright future for B&Ms. High quality transfers of recent releases are available from a variety of outlets, it's not difficult to find something to watch without leaving the house. And as the choices increase, the need to go to a B&M reduce. In time, you'll have a considerable greater choice of movies to watch available via your cable and satellite services, and via downloads, than you'll ever see at Blockbuster. That time is fast approaching.
B&M stores aren't going away - will there be 'shrinkage'; sure; but also boutiques will arise (aka Redbox) to fill the 7-11 mentality in America. Downloads will never take over rentals via mail or B&M - why? bandwith - and with companies looking to charge people per bandwith use it'll become harder for any viable download model to work. I've downloaded a movie from Unbox and was appalled at its quality - less than DVD! Unless a download service can download to your TV, with a monthly fee for unlimited use (like Netflix - 3 downloads at max, etc) - 'disc' rentals will never go away. And if those out there think there's no difference between HD (blu-ray) and regular DVD have never seen 'good' BD movies to show what difference there is (or they still have their 20" CRT and are scrambling to get a converter).
They must be joking. Why would I prefer to buy a stripped down encode of movie that comes at lower quality in audio and video, no extras, no playback flexibility, no portability, and no ability to back up. They're must be out of their minds. Oh, and did I mention that the disc is also cheaper than the download version?
This "study" is as honest as the ones done by drug manufacturers.
At least for me, I dont go to Blockbuster or any B&M stores anymore since none of them (near me) have Blu-rays. I used to do Blockbuster Online & Netflix, but have stopped that as well. I mostly only buy Blu-rays or I download movies from my Directv HD-DVR. I would go to B&M stores, mostly b/c I'm a very inpatient person and sometimes I just want to see a movie that night, and there the best option, but unfortunately they have no Blu-rays. I'm hesistant of downloads b/c they are best able to download 1080i movies that were encode with a pretty slow bitrate, so the picture quality while decent, is nothing compared to a Blu-ray. So for now, if its just a decent movie, nothing epic, I might download it, but if its anything worthy of seeing, I will have to buy it or not see it.
As for the general public, I think digital downloads are still far from the norm. Most people dont even know that you can download movies or even know how to set up a DVR to do so, and I I see Netflix and like staying around for awhile. B&M stores will slowly decline (I'm against this, b/c its the quickest way to get Blu-rays if they have it), but it wont go away for awhile since most people are happy with DVDs and will want instant access to it.
Seems like folks are mixing up a number of points... whether B&M rental stores are disappearing (YES THEY ARE) vs. how this has an immediate affect on physical media (right now, it does NOT).
B&M rental declines have almost NOTHING to do with movie downloads. Instead, the Netflix and Blockbuster mail rental services have pretty much changed the rental landscape for physical media. They made it that much easier for folks to rent movies without having to lug themselves over to the local rental store.
Will physical media EVENTUALLY disappear (for movies)? Not for a while, but I'll admit DL's are the eventual future medium (duh) for delivering movie content. I just KNOW it isn;t going to be the leading form for quite some time. And until that time, BD can still carve out a nice market prior to the eventual mainstream adoption of DL's. Time will eventually tell if BD market ends up being a niche, which me personally, could care less as long as movies continue to be released on them. To me, it's a no brainer between BD and an "HD" DL from apple/vudu/XBL/etc just on quality and convenience alone.
It's sad, but I fear what happened to music will happen to movies... quantity and convenience over Quality. Most folks will only care about being able to fit 500 "HD" overcompressed movies into their "media servers" and not care about enjoying movies in the highest quality available. Heres to hoping that DL's will be offered in varied degrees of quality for download; high quality (both sound and audio) and some 720P "good enough" quality... and here's to hoping storage for these DL's are both much cheaper and reliable... a drive crashing/corrupting would be the equivalent of your DVD collection on a shelf burning down.
I would happily go all digital, if all movies and TV were offered that way.
As far as B&M stores, I haven't visited one in years. Netflix changed that.
I suspect once studios buy into offering everything in digital, my habits will change accordingly. I really don't need disc.
Here in South Charlotte, there are 2 Blockbusters within 3 miles of each other, and they are PACKED with parents w/ young children, teenagers and young adults on any given Friday or Saturday night, so many, in fact, that I tend to stay away on those nights and rent earlier in the day or on weeknights (the same goes for the movie theaters). I tend to believe these stores will be around for longer than a couple of years.
Digital downloads may be the norm some day, but I think it's still quite a ways off. I don't want to watch a movie while sitting in a chair in front of my PC and the HD On Demand offerings from Time Warner Cable are slim. I recently rented Cloverfield in HD on my PS3 but it took nearly 10 hours over my wireless network to download. I could have driven to Blockbuster, rented the BD, drove home, watched the feature film and all the extras (which you don't get for the download version), and driven the movie back to Blockbuster and been back at home in less than that amount of time. I think I'll stick with renting from Blockbuster for now.
Also, a NEW Best Buy is being built less than 6 miles from current BB location where I live. That actually came as a (welcome) surprise to me, but BB is always overcrowded as well, so I appreciate another store, especially since this one will be closer to me.
Oh, and it's relatively common for companies to conduct their own surveys and publish results that reflect positively for the product or services they sell. Take them for what it's worth I suppose.