The Future of Home video

Money's tight. Where it used to make sense to buy the DVD at $12.99 or $14.99,because once you paid the late fee, or the gas to get to the store, you could have purchased the movie, now those extra bucks don't exist anymore.
A good many people use a subscription service like Netflix or Blockbuster where late fees aren't an issue. Another good many people use on demand from cable or satellite, and those left behind might browse a video store or use the newest thing in home video, vending machines.

In the Atlanta area, Red Box machines are popping up everywhere and boy are they convenient and cheap! One dollar plus tax- per night. Get movie back by 9pm the next day and it cost you a whopping $1. Now, I haven't actually been in a Blockbuster store in a while, but I went over the weekend and noticed that it was $4.99 plus tax to rent a video. That makes it over 5 bucks for one video, so using Red Box saves $4.00, provided you get the movie back the next day. At 2 days, it's still half the price of Blockbuster. This is a no-brainer, especially right now. I've been pleased with the selection at the Red Box machines. I even rented Doubt, an artsy fartsy movie from Red Box. No complaints here.

Some movie studios see the future and are working to provide Red Box their new releases when they are new. Some studios are suing to keep distributors from selling DVDs to Red Box because of the ultra low price point. The big issue isn't rentals, it's DVD sales, which are in the toilet this year, lets say beyond the toilet and near the sewer. Purchasing a home video is an obvious luxury. While folks still go to the movies and the box office is breaking records (because of price inflation- not attendance)people aren't picking up DVDs willy nilly and taking them to the check out stand. This is taking a big bite out of bigger budgets at the studios. They had banked on home video being a cash cow for years. Read the headlines folks, that cow is now hamburger, never to return. In fact the whole home video model has gone the way of newspapers.

Enter Roku, it's a Kindle of sorts. For $99 you can buy a Roku and stream movies on to your big screen TV, instantly. Or if you have an X-box or TiVo, you don't even need a Roku to stream movies. A good deal of the Netflix library is available to watch instantly. In the coming months and years, all of it will be. The days of finding the little red envelope in your mailbox and opening it like it was Christmas day are waning.

My point to the studios is, for $14.99 a month, unlimited views, and movies that don't even have to be shipped anymore, why would I ever purchase a copy of DVD? Let's say your kid is hooked on Cars, or Wall-E, with the Roku, you can watch Wall-E over and over again, with out a single little thumbprint on a DVD. If I ran a movie studio, I would stop counting on DVD sales and focus on getting my entire library available for a hefty price. In the mean time, I would start trimming movie budgets and A list salaries. It's a waste of time to sue Red Box and give them all that free publicity. All studios are doing is alerting people that there is a dirt cheap, legal way to get the same entertainment. Let the free market work. If $1 is the going rate, the $1 it is. There will always be folks who rent videos. Let them work it out. As for me, Roku is high on my Christmas list.