OT - Where Have the Video Stores Gone

[rounder]

Just wondering. I saw going out of business signs for our neighborhood Blockbuster store the other day. I went in and everything was for sale including the overhead monitors and display racks. I thought it was pretty depressing, but at least we still had our neighborhood Hollywood video store (that i had not been to for a few weeks). So, i went there and it looked like they had also left town. Is that happening all over and, if so, what are people doing these days. Thanks.

[rwsaunders]

Netflix.

[Dekonick]

and redbox (I use netflix)

[jlwdm]

People are downloading the movies also.

Blockbuster is doing a redbox copy also.

Jeff

[daker13]

Torrents (I use Netflix). After all the late fees Blockbuster fleeced me out of, I have the least possible amount of customer loyalty.

[Charles M]

What's a Video Store?

[rounder]

For me....you walk into the place, hoping to be be overwelmned with awsome flics you have not yet seen. Instead...the flics are mainly vampire movies and others about pop stars of the day.

[MattTuck]

I haven't rented a movie in a long long time, but my suspicion is that those big national chains are probably going out of business for a simple reason... they don't have a "back room". :banana:

[Ray]

More and more people have "on demand" movies available from their cable/satellite/FIOS system. I still rent movies, but I almost never handle a physical disk to do it - it's all essentially online through my cable provider. Prices are basically the same and we get plenty of art-house movies that come out the same day (or before) they come out in theaters.

Kind of like MP3s are killing off record stores (most are already gone, the rest sure to follow), the online transmission of video is killing off video stores. And who knows what e-readers will eventually do to bookstores?

-Ray

[Climb01742]

but the killer app for movies is still out there. we do a combo if netflix and on-demand but neither is truly satisfying. on-demand is immediate but its limited choices (particularly of older films) is truly frustrating. and netflix has great selection but i often find that the film i wanted a few days ago isn't the film i want to see now. for me, films can be very "mood-sensitive". which is what makes an ipod and itunes so perfect: infinite choice and immediate gratification, perfectly in-synch with your fleeting moods. i guess compression technology is the hurdle but once all films can be "ituned"_and_run on your big screen TV, BINGO! for me films need a big screen.

but there's one other interesting scenerio....folks think that the mythical apple tablet device will revolutionize reading...maybe...and may save the print media...maybe... but it could also be what makes films itune-able...and watchable... and a huge revenue stream for hollywood that will replace the DVD revenue.

[znfdl]

I can stream Netflix through my sony play station 3, why go to Blockbuster for almost $5 per movie.

[goonster]

I was willing to go to a store for a movie, but I hated making the trip to return it. Enter Netflix . . .

On-demand still falls short of having the disk, because you don't have access to the special features, etc.

[1centaur]

I have watched Blockbuster through the years as an investor and it's been a fascinating case study, a good example of the difference between a trade and an investment.

The first time I wrote off Blockbuster as an investment was the early 1990s - I thought it was a dying business. It's been dying ever since but there were plenty of remissions along the way and more to come. A few years ago, there were Bockbuster (50% of video rentals), Movie Gallery (more rural locations so a longer perceived business life - what's Netflix?) and Hollywood Entertainment, plus moms and pops. Netflix and downloadable movies did their predictable thing and started killing off the Moms and Pops who had to struggle against Blockbuster anyway. Then Movie Gallery bought Hollywood (which was more urban, hmm) using a lot of debt and went bankrupt, closing tons of stores in the process. Blockbuster also had lots of debt and a minimal stock price that brought in activist investors looking to change the cash flow stream from something suited for stock guys to what is called a cold tail that needs to be milked (notwithstanding an odd proposal to buy Circuit City that was later dropped). Along the way, Blockbuster has been rapidly closing stores (i.e., getting out of unprofitable leases). It's faced challenges from so many directions along the way: cheap DVDs sold at Wal-Mart, Redbox, Netflix, illegal downloads, Hollywood's potential elimination of the exclusive rental window as they examined their distribution costs online, the cable cos increasing their on-demand libraries, Amazon via TIVO, etc. Blockbuster talks about emulating many of these strategies while leveraging its power with Hollywood (DVD rentals are still a huge profit source for most movies), but the writing's very much on the wall.

Climb's right, the perfect solution is not here yet (instant downloads of full selections of new releases and back catalog to our TVs (buh-bye Netflix) or any other Net-connected device but the DVD is going to be extinct in a few years (VHS anyone?). The experience of walking into a video store and finding something interesting to try will be something we remember and young people don't. But really, it was just a passing moment in history anyway.

[chuckroast]

Does anyone remember National Video from the early days of VHS? It was our kid's favorite store.

[avalonracing]

Be sure to take your film to the Fotomat when you are running out to the video store.

[Ray]

The experience of walking into a video store and finding something interesting to try will be something we remember and young people don't. But really, it was just a passing moment in history anyway.
But then, so are we...

-Ray

[veloduffer]

Just wondering. I saw going out of business signs for our neighborhood Blockbuster store the other day. I went in and everything was for sale including the overhead monitors and display racks. I thought it was pretty depressing, but at least we still had our neighborhood Hollywood video store (that i had not been to for a few weeks). So, i went there and it looked like they had also left town. Is that happening all over and, if so, what are people doing these days. Thanks.

It's a dead business model, like record/CD stores. Streaming via internet will overtake the retail store and mail order movie rentals (Netflix). It's inevitable - faster, on-demand delivery and less cost (no store fronts, less labor and inventory). A few years ago, the CEO of Netflix stated that his business model was a dinosaur and the future was streaming via internet, which is why Netflix was smart to invest in the future while they were hot.

And this has been facilitated by the faster broadband service, since video content is very data intensive.

[malcolm]

Apple TV. It has some quirks but works pretty well for television and movies, you can purchase or rent, although if you rent you have 30 days to watch it but once you start only 24 hours to finish.