As Blockbuster
flounders around in an attempt to
determine what it
really wants to be, we're seeing that it's finally taking advantage of that whole
Movielink purchase from last year. A new
download section on the company's website has gone live, encouraging XP / Vista users running Internet Explorer (feel alienated yet?) to simply pick a flick, download and watch. In related news, the rental outfit has announced an expanded partnership with NCR that will see 50 DVD rental kiosks deployed in a pilot test, which is separate from the download-only kiosks which are being tested in Dallas, Texas. Anyone tried out the new download service? Do you prefer it more / less than Netflix's
Watch Now?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - Blockbuster download service
Read - Blockbuster DVD kiosks
posted Aug 5th 2008 10:17PM
The new site was up for about an hour earlier today but then went off line and now we are back to the "old" BB site. Not enough time to fully check it out but I believe down load rentals were $1.99 to $3.99, good for a month but once started have to be viewed within 24 hours.
I am a blockbuster online subscriber - 3 at a time level. Clicked around the entire site, and did not see any download links. If someone finds it, can you post the url? thanks!
Forgot, was using IE tab in Firefox and it seemed to work fine but the system was not up long enough to give it a try. I also checked out the Movielink site after the "new" BB site went down and it all seemed to be essentially the same thing (which makes sense I guess).
I saw it earlier in Safari on my work PC, but now it's gone.
It was up last night, gone now, most movies were $3.99 and good for a month but only for 24 hours after hitting Play
You have to pay for each online rentals? That's lame. I'll stick with Netflix's unlimited online rentals for now.
Theres a free unlimited rental part with old stuff akin to Netflix's.
And also new stuff rentals for a fee. SO instead of driving down or waiting on a disc to be mailed to see the latest flicks, you dl it.
Site is back up:
http://www.blockbuster.com/download
Just as soon as I posted it's back down. From what I saw:
Rentals are $1.99-3.99
Purchases are $9.99
There is also a free rental section but I did not see what was in there since it did not work in Firefox without the IE tab extension. I clicked to download the extension and by the time I came back to the site it was down.
If they develop a Vista Media Center plugin, I'll be sold. But they won't.
blockbuster shoud test closing their stores and going the way of redbox/netflix.... i hate going into a blockbuster....
back in the day it was cool to go into your local video store and rent movies... you could actually have a good conversation with the employee most of the time because the people who worked at teh local store was a movie buff...now blockbuster has put a lot of local places out and when i go into a blockbuster, half the time im talking to this pimply faced kid that doesnt know jack about anything...and on top of that trying to assert this "authority" he thinks he has with checking id's and whatnot when im trying to rent a movie...
I recently re-joined Blockbuster because I was sick of Netflix lack of availability with Blu-Ray titles. Now I have an account at both BB and NF.
And I have to say that the instore option with some BB accounts has actually been pretty useful (though still far from my main source of HD movies, which still remains mail rentals and satellite TV).
--
I hope that this online video service actually offers up something I want to watch. I have unlimited free access to all of the Netflix movies online -- and watch perhaps 2 hours a month, at most, because the quality (even at the highest speed bit rate) is so bad and the selection is mediocre. I won't even mind paying for quality. Lemme download a 1080p movie in a high bitrate and I'll gladly fork over $5 for an online rental.
DON'T VIST BLOCKBUSTER MUCH ANYMORE. WHY PAY ALMOST FIVE BUCKS TO RENT A MOVIE WHEN I CAN GO TO A REDBOX AND GET ONE FOR ONE DOLLAR. DAHH