Gizmodo: DVD Rental

Fox's Rental DVDs Will Be Crippled, Lack Special Features

Jason Chen — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 19:40:00 EST

Fox plans to make two classes of discs, one version for retail and another, crippled, version for rental stores.

For example, Slumdog Millionaire's retail DVD will have deleted scenes and commentary, but the rental will not. It will have the movie (obviously) and trailers (why would they take out ads?). On the other hand, Blu-ray discs will be the same in both version, but lack the digital copy that you can import to your computer.

Each movie will be different. Marley & Me, that movie starring a dog or something, will have special features on both editions. Fortunately enough, rental chains can go to retailers, buy that version, and rent those. But we doubt many customers will really care either way once they get the disc home. [Variety via BBG]

Blockbuster Fires Off Email Notifying Customers of Price Increase

Charlie White — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:15:01 EDT

What kind of price war is this? Yesterday we saw proof of Netflix cutting a dollar off its three-disc at-a-time plan resulting in a $15.99 monthly tariff, and today a tipster shows us an email from Blockbuster talking about raising prices. But there's some good news in that email for existing customers.

The good news is that Blockbuster has decided not to raise prices for its existing customers. Our tipster was understandably relieved to see that his plan won't be affected by these changes. The tipster's two-DVDs-at-a-time unlimited plan (as long as exchanges are made in the store) runs $14.99 a month, but he's telling us Blockbuster will be charging $21.99 for that same unlimited plan for new subscribers after August 31.

Blockbuster decided to make those changes a few weeks ago—we knew about its crippling of its unlimited plans back on July 27. That was long before Blockbuster heard about that Netflix price cut announced yesterday, which some commenters here on the Giz told us was not applicable for subscribers living on the East and West Coasts. But then we heard that a Netflix call center employee got a memo saying that the Netflix price decrease on its "three discs at a time" plan affects 6.7 million customers. Sounds like a majority.

It's great that existing Blockbuster customers won't see a price increase unless they change plans. But come on, Blockbuster, you can do better than that. It's your move. Netflix has a three-movies-through-the-mail price of $15.99, and your price for that same plan is $16.99. Let's see a corresponding price cut for 6.5 million of your customers. [Thanks, Ben!]

MovieKlub Destructo-Disks to Begin Short March to Extinction?

Charlie White — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 14:56:28 EST

MovieKlub, yet another mail-order DVD service, is set to begin this summer offering two DVDs a week for $24.99 per month. But MovieKlub is a bit different, because it foolishly re-hashes an idea that failed miserably in the past. Remember Divx, that ill-fated Circuit City idea that let you keep discs that expired after viewing? That's similar to what happens with MovieKlub disks. As soon as you expose a disk three times to the laser light of your DVD player, it won't play any more. Using a die that is bleached by light absorption, the disk is able to detect when you've played it three times, and then, it's toast. But you can keep that disk if you want, or send it back to MovieKlub for recycling.

No thanks. What were they thinking? Aren't those who don't learn from the lessons of the past condemned to repeat it? But then, why did Divx fail, and how is this different? Was it because Divx was too expensive? Readers?

MovieKlub Mail Order DVD Service [Zatz Not Funny]