Blockbuster joins the movie set-top-box game with 2Wire MediaPoint player
by Darren Murph 
posted Nov 24th 2008 at 9:48PM
We've rubbed our eyes four or five times now, but the factual heat remains: Blockbuster -- of all companies -- has decided to dive headfirst into the movie set-top-box arena. We wanted to believe the rumors were false, but sure enough, it has joined VUDU, Apple TV, Roku and the Xbox 360 in the highly competitive market place for your digital download dollars. For a "limited time," the outfit will offer the 2Wire-built MediaPoint player for free with the "advance rental of 25 first-run movies, TV shows, foreign or classic films from Blockbuster On-Demand (previously Movielink) for $99." After that, rentals are $1.99 to $3.99 apiece, and a Blockbuster subscription is not required. The unit itself measures 8- x 8- x 1-inch and includes two USB ports, an SD slot, Ethernet / WiFi and an HDMI port, and it should be available at the company's website and in select retail stores very soon. So, are you interested in the à la carte approach?
Filed under: Media streamers, Set-top boxes, Others
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gamedude360 @ Nov 24th 2008 10:57PM
maybe if they offer HD donloads (i dunno if they do or not yet) and charge $8-10 a month for unlimited rentals like netflix. then i see no reason not to have both services
Eric @ Nov 24th 2008 10:55PM
If content distributors think they will start a digital download revolution with competing, propietary boxes they're nuts. I'm very likely to sit it out until the industry figures out a workable hardware/software standard. You'd think they'd learn something from the high-def DVD format wars, but you'd think wrong.
Rob78 @ Nov 25th 2008 12:39AM
The only competition is between Vudu (HDX quality, best selection) and AppleTV (might sell more just because it doubles as a music player!). Blockbuster releasing a set-top box, how the hell could anyone take this seriously?
JDS @ Nov 25th 2008 7:38AM
streaming is not downloading
squiggleslash @ Nov 25th 2008 10:06AM
There's an open standard for digital downloads that works, is proven, integrates well with hard media, and has superb audio and video quality. It was built by a coalition of the industry with such heavyweights as Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft, and others making it work.
Alas, Warner announced they weren't going to support it any more last January, and Toshiba - who thus far had made most of the players but had omitted most of the features necessary to make them work as STBs for the downloads side of the standard - pulled the plug in February.
Yes, I'm talking about HD DVD.
It's all fairly funny in many ways. Warner pulled support because, supposedly, it didn't want a "format war". Yet it pulled support in favor of the format that competed with - instead of embracing - online downloads. So we're stuck with a format war anyway.
Eric @ Nov 25th 2008 8:37AM
@JDS: True, streaming isn't the same as downloading, but I think most consumers think of it as basically the same except for the convenience of starting a streamed movie right away. Consumers will be annoyed when studios start lining up exclusive deals with competing services and their proprietary set-top boxes. Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this HD-DVD and Blu-Ray all over again?
Big Wizz @ Nov 25th 2008 9:41AM
"So, are you interested in the à la carte approach?"
Nope, I'm not. I felt like a sucker everytime I rented a movie off Xbox Live and now that I have Netflix (with Xbox360 streaming) I don't think I'll ever do a "one-time" rental again.
Blockbuster held out as long as they could, I think, because they realized that broadband penetration is fairly low for country like the U.S. But with everyone and their brother offering streaming/downloading they couldn't hold off any longer.
scyber @ Nov 25th 2008 9:45AM
Netflix has the right approach. Partner with whatever hardware manufacturers want to and put the streaming capabilities on as many boxes as possible. Even if blockbusters sells tons of these boxes, it is never going to equal the amount of boxes netflix streaming will be on. By the end of the year, netflix will be on:
XBox 360
Tivo Series 3 Boxes
Roku Netflix player
A LG Blu-ray player
A Samsung Blu-ray player
squiggleslash @ Nov 25th 2008 10:01AM
Not enough answers here.
Is this streaming or downloading?
The word "downloading" appears in the articles about this but the context is missing enough for me not to know if the journalist doesn't know the difference. $2 for a downloaded HD rental of a recent release isn't that bad. $2 for a streamed video (thus restricted to your bandwidth in terms of quality) may be better than most VOD services, but it's still not something I'd be likely to use unless I had a very good broadband connection. And I don't.
Another question concerns the audio quality. Everyone focusses on HD video, but are we talking about Netflix style stereo? Or AppleTV style low bitrate Dolby Digital 5.1? Or is someone going to do what I actually want and give the option of DTS or DD+?
At the price, it isn't bad. 25 $2 downloads included brings the effective price of the box down to $50. Considering the number of movies most of us just watch once and never bother with again, it's not bad.
But I have to say right now the only way I can see the downloads "user not allowed to keep any copies" model working in the long term is with the subscription model. And it has to be high quality, both audio and video, which means biting the bullet and allowing downloading of content.
The only other thing to note is that I find it interesting the device has an SD card slot. SD incorporates support for the kinds of DRM Hollywood would be amenable to. What might make me be willing to accept the Blockbuster model is if they allow you to "buy" titles you've downloaded, saving them to an SD card. A subscription model is fairly compelling, but so is a "Try for $2, buy for $10" model, as long as the quality is acceptable.
Summary:
- If it's streaming, forget it.
- If the audio is stereo, forget it.
- If it's all fairly high quality, and if the option exists to buy the movies, I'll jump on this one.
- If it's all ok, I'll certainly consider it. $100 including 25 downloads is a fairly reasonable price, as long as the quality is reasonable.
squiggleslash @ Nov 25th 2008 11:37AM
Ok, there are some answers but they're not necessarily good ones on Blockbuster's site:
First, it's downloads (Yay)
Second, it's "DVD quality", not HD (Boo)
Third, the sound is stereo, not surround, according to the manual (Huge boo. Forget it.)
The manual reports that the box has enough storage to store "five movies" which sounds suspiciously like it's enough to allow for a future HD upgrade. The manual also says that the box itself supports HD, even if Blockbuster doesn't at this point. There's no mention of future upgrades to 5.1 audio, though the optical out would presumably make this possible.
So right now, no go for me.