Redbox Attempting To Launch Another Streaming Service

Megalith

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I feel like this is a little too late with so many established video services around, but you can’t blame Redbox for trying, in light of their floundering kiosk operation.

The DVD rental company had launched a streaming service dubbed Redbox Instant in a joint venture with Verizon in early 2013, only to shut it down some 18 months later. But while Redbox Instant aimed to challenge Netflix with a subscription bundle, the company now seems to have more modest plans. Redbox Digital is being built as a video-on-demand store similar to iTunes, Vudu or Google Play. Consumers will be able to rent movies or TV show episodes for streaming, or purchase digital copies.
 
There is a kiosk 3/4 mile from my house and it almost never has the movies I am looking for in it. Checked it three or four times for Mockingjay Part 2 (available for rent since Mar 22nd) it was never there. I like the kiosk idea, just blows when the new movies appear to have a lifespan of about four second before they get rented. I think they should charge more for the new movies and the normal price for movies over 30 days old.
 
A dinosaur trying to swim.
It must suck for the employees who are supposed to implement all this streaming technology, they know they can't compete with Netflix and yet they still have to do their job.
 
A dinosaur trying to swim.
It must suck for the employees who are supposed to implement all this streaming technology, they know they can't compete with Netflix and yet they still have to do their job.

I'm not sure you can call them a dinosaur. They haven't been around that long.
 
There is a kiosk 3/4 mile from my house and it almost never has the movies I am looking for in it. Checked it three or four times for Mockingjay Part 2 (available for rent since Mar 22nd) it was never there. I like the kiosk idea, just blows when the new movies appear to have a lifespan of about four second before they get rented. I think they should charge more for the new movies and the normal price for movies over 30 days old.

There used to be a way to reserve movies at a kiosk and search locally for kiosks that have the movies you want to rent. Depending on how many movies you rent per month and your location (gas) Netflix Mail Order might be a better deal.

One thing I dislike about both Netflix Mail Order and RedBox is that neither one of them have some of the really great indie movies and movies from other countries that are sometimes amazing.
 
Kinda pointless because the studios set the prices on digital rentals/sales. Cost/catalog is pretty much the same on Google Play, VUDU, Windows Store, etc. Loyal Redbox customers might use it but it will be just another me-too VOD service of little value.
 
There is a kiosk 3/4 mile from my house and it almost never has the movies I am looking for in it. Checked it three or four times for Mockingjay Part 2 (available for rent since Mar 22nd) it was never there. I like the kiosk idea, just blows when the new movies appear to have a lifespan of about four second before they get rented. I think they should charge more for the new movies and the normal price for movies over 30 days old.
That would seem indicative of demand... Kioks around me also get depleted of new stuff weekends.. Why are they failing?
 
My biggest complaint with Redbox is that they are rife with 3rd rate clones of whatever big movies are out. They care more about making cheap money than providing quality entertainment.

Current example is Robert the Doll taking advantage of people who saw previews of The Boy
 
There used to be a way to reserve movies at a kiosk and search locally for kiosks that have the movies you want to rent. Depending on how many movies you rent per month and your location (gas) Netflix Mail Order might be a better deal.

You can still search other kiosks and reserve titles for pickup via their website. But I've seen that fail too, Redbox doesn't really take care of those kiosks- and those screeens lose calibration and stop working. And I can't stand waiting in line at a Redbox kiosk to pick up or return while someone else is merely browsing.

I still have a one-disc at a time tied to my Netflix. ($9.99/month including $2.00 for Blu-ray) Which boils down to one disc a week when you factor shipping time.
 
You can still search other kiosks and reserve titles for pickup via their website. But I've seen that fail too, Redbox doesn't really take care of those kiosks- and those screeens lose calibration and stop working. And I can't stand waiting in line at a Redbox kiosk to pick up or return while someone else is merely browsing.

I still have a one-disc at a time tied to my Netflix. ($9.99/month including $2.00 for Blu-ray) Which boils down to one disc a week when you factor shipping time.
That's my problem with it. There's quite a few kiosks local to me, but every time I want to stop by one I'm stuck standing behind someone wanting to spend 5+ minutes casually browsing the selection, so I eventually just end up walking off without a movie.

Even worse is when you just want to return a movie, and get stuck behind someone. It's kind of like the problem with those coke machines that have 100+ flavor combinations that you can pick on a touch screen. Sure, the ability to make a raspberry coke is great, but when you're stuck behind someone just poking at the screen for a solid 2 minutes only for them to just end up going with a regular coke... which they could have done without the nonsense, it's tiresome. Same goes for self checkouts in grocery stores, it's as if people never paid attention to watching the cashier scan a barcode at any point in the past 30 years and they hold up the line.
 
That's my problem with it. There's quite a few kiosks local to me, but every time I want to stop by one I'm stuck standing behind someone wanting to spend 5+ minutes casually browsing the selection, so I eventually just end up walking off without a movie.

Even worse is when you just want to return a movie, and get stuck behind someone. It's kind of like the problem with those coke machines that have 100+ flavor combinations that you can pick on a touch screen. Sure, the ability to make a raspberry coke is great, but when you're stuck behind someone just poking at the screen for a solid 2 minutes only for them to just end up going with a regular coke... which they could have done without the nonsense, it's tiresome. Same goes for self checkouts in grocery stores, it's as if people never paid attention to watching the cashier scan a barcode at any point in the past 30 years and they hold up the line.


Those of us from the video store age can only look at this and mutter "damn impatient lazy kids." ;)
 
I think even the days of Netflix are numbered. For the most part, it's just too easy for the content creators to be able to distribute their content to people directly now. You already see this with sports streaming to a large extent. What motivation does a company like Disney have to let a company like Netflix make money off of their movies?
 
I think even the days of Netflix are numbered. For the most part, it's just too easy for the content creators to be able to distribute their content to people directly now. You already see this with sports streaming to a large extent. What motivation does a company like Disney have to let a company like Netflix make money off of their movies?


Convenience and centralization will eventually be what matters to people. Unfortunately, what that means is as Netflix is not supported, and eventually goes under, all these individual streams will be out there, until someone begins to buy rights to unify them, and then for the convenience, starts charging an extra fee on top of it - welcome to the birth of digital Comcast.

The only way to prevent that, is to support what we have now in the Netflix and yes, even Hulu, and hope they get enough cash and vision to fold into their already established business model, where if they tried a Comcastian move, their user's would revolt, keeping them in check (vs my previous example, which would dupe the consumer into thinking its the greatest thing since digitally sliced bread.)
 
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