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Blockbuster MediaPoint is the latest AppleTV competitor
11 comments- TAGS:Blockbuster, Netflix, set top
- IT TOPICS:Macintosh & Apple, Personal Technology
The format war that Blu-ray fought against HD-DVD was in a sense a much smaller, easier battle to win than the current war it faces against Internet distribution. Even Blu-ray's biggest allies are lining up into the digital distribution corner. That's not a very good sign if you are looking at the big picture.
This week's Blu-ray bad news is that Blockbuster has joined Netflix in starting to move its model away from DVD and Blu Ray distribution to Internet distribution. They've released a set top box called MediaPoint.
The MediaPoint player by broadband device maker 2Wire allows Blockbuster customers to download high-definition quality movies to their TVs via broadband lines for $1.99 - $3.99 apiece. That's after an initial $99 for the box and 25 films.
Currently, there is no HD content, but expect it in the near future.
Jim Keyes, chairman and chief executive of Blockbuster said:
"We are bringing Blockbuster, and the thousands of movies in our digital library, straight to customers' televisions. The player is simple to use, delivers DVD quality video, and there's no monthly subscription commitment."
"Even though this is a very small market, the movies and the devices are the differentiators,"
This "very small" (currently $1.5-2.2 billion) market is likely to take off over the next few years as people become more comfortable with purchasing movies over the Internet. Also, as more avenues open up, like MediaPoint, more demographics will join in.
Blockbuster's biggest competitor, Netflix has had an Internet player since May. They launched the $99 Roku set-top box, and followed that with deals with TiVo Inc, Samsung, LG and Microsoft that allow video from the "Watch Instantly" service to be streamed to television.
The "Watch Instantly" Web streaming service has a library of more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes, mainly older titles, and is offered free to its more than 8 million subscribers. Blockbuster's movies must be downloaded entirely before playing.
Netflix obviously has a big lead on Blockbuster and its brand name obviously lends itself to the future of video distribution. But that isn't the biggest thing from keeping people from downloading movies.
One barrier to entry is the lagging state of broadband in the US. This is one reason why music files, which are around four megabytes per track or 40 megabytes per album, are much more palatable a download than a 700mb feature length movie or a 200mb half hour sitcom.
On the other hand, video is a medium that lends itself much better to the "soft" form: watch once or twice and delete. Music is something much more personal for many and something people plan on keeping around forever. This hurdle should be much easier to overcome.
The biggest barrier to entry, however, is the media companies. At the start, Blockbuster will only have 2500 titles. More are likely to follow, obviously, but every step is a battle. Competing players, codecs and DRM will all cloud the industry for the next few years.
That brings us to the "Torrents". I won't get into it, but 1080P content has been illegally available in this world for a long time ... without DRM of course. The long term goal is to point people toward the legal means of distribution where the artists are fairly reimbursed for their efforts.
To that end, we have a long term battle of four big industry titans. Amazon, AppleTV, Blockbuster and Netflix. Blu-ray has already lost.
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