Gizmodo: videorental

Blockbuster Gets With the Program, Rolls Out Blu-Ray Nationwide [BluRay]

AddyDugdale — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:15:22 EDT

So, here's the thing. In February, HD-DVD breathed its last. In March, Netflix announced that it was quadrupling its Blu-ray selection. And now! Mid April! Blockbuster announces it is rolling out Blu-ray throughout its 4,000 stores in the US, as well as over the border in Canada, after a successful trial run in 1,700 of its outlets. *clapclapclapclapclap* [Blockbuster via Home Theater]

More Evidence Apple Readying iTunes Video Rentals [Appleflix]

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 17:10:22 EST

iPhone developer Pumpkin plugged "rental" into a string search of the iPhone's lockdown daemon file—which authorizes the iPhone for services—returning a curious set of hits:

pumpkin:~ pumpkin$ strings /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem/usr/libexec/lockdownd | grep -i rental
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not initialize FairPlay context
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not verify the rental bag response: %d
load_rental_bag_request: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
load_rental_bag_request: Could not initialize FairPlay context
load_rental_bag_request: Could not generate rental bag request
.....

There's some code there, so where's the goods?

There are actually a few more lines of code, but you get the point. If you recall, this is the second set of code that's been found pointing toward upcoming, or at least potential, video rentals.

The "could not retrieve FairPlayID" lines are probably the most interesting, or at the least ones begging most to be read into, since a rental setup with auto-suiciding content would require a variation of the current FairPlay scheme. On the face of it, it looks like the content's gotta be DRM-okayed with a kosher FairPlay ID as it's loaded.

The more relevant FairPlay DRM question for rentals is what kind of restrictions we're looking at. Rumors popped up this summer Apple was chatting up studios, which the Hollywood people confirmed. But they also confirmed they told Apple to take a hike, since they wanted more stringent rental windows, crippled portability and a higher pricepoint.

So unless Apple's compromised on the position we heard earlier—Hollywood's not getting any looser, see: NBC—it could be still be a while before we welcome Appleflix to the world. [TUAW]

Blockbuster Essentially Concedes to Netflix [We Have A Winner]

Matt Buchanan — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:15:52 EDT

Buried in the pile of bad news that was Blockbuster's Q3 earnings report (losses more than tripled vs. last year to $35 million) was the quote from CEO Jim Keyes that "the company will no longer be narrowly focused on its online subscriber count but instead will concentrate on the growth of, and report on, its total membership." In other words, Total Access=total fail.

Besides basically handing the online rental space over to Netflix, it leaves it the sole powerhouse movie rental company to remain profitable—Movie Gallery, the no. 2 B&M chain, is bankrupt—and therefore the undisputed heavyweight champion of the rental world. Make no mistake about it, folks, things are looking grim for the corner rental store.

It's not like Blockbuster was totally unaware of this. Moving into new distribution channels is increasingly looking like the only way to survive the video wars—hopefully Netflix doesn't stop following through on their bolder, more intuitive ideas, lest we write about it sinking with the physical media rental market altogether in several years. [Forbes via Consumerist, Flickr]