Blockbuster Finally Launches MediaPoint Movie Box

The twenty-first century welcomes Blockbuster Inc. and its Internet set-top box dubbed MediaPoint. The box will go head-to-head with others of its ilk by competitors like Netflix and Apple proving that the ailing company still contains signs of life.

Remember when Blockbuster was a giant in the entertainment biz? It was so influential because it singlehandedly owned a significant slice of total film revenues. Even film critic Roger Ebert believed its near-monopoly on movie rentals hurt the film industry by promoting pan-and-scan versions of movies and its policy not to carry NC 17 films which he believes hurt the creative freedom of directors. Ebert once said:

“It's my belief that no true movie lover has any business going into Blockbuster…”

Well, Roger Ebert would be happy to note that the once mighty Blockbuster has seen better days. The movie rental giant’s stock has been in free-fall since 2004. Unfortunately that’s not due to a rapid surge in cinephile purity. Rather, it’s more about Blockbuster’s inability to adapt to changes in the movie consumer.

The stop-off at the video store may have satisfied us back in 1982, but it’s gone a little stale in the decades since. Sure, Blockbuster has adapted the same business model to bring on DVD and now it even boasts a budding Blu-ray collection. But competing in the modern age has eluded the company. You’d think Blockbuster would have at least tried to be a little quicker at following the competition.

The rental super-store dominated back in the 80s with the sheer volume. It was an example of the power of scale the main business principal outlined in the book “Long Tail”. It goes something like this:

Every corner video store in town carries the top ten video rentals. But it’s the one that will also carry last month’s top ten and a dusty old copy of Lawrence of Arabia that won customers. No wonder so many of us were greeted with smiling faces adorned in Kaki and blue with an exuberant: “Welcome to Blockbuster.”

Welcome to the Internet

Blockbuster never adapted its power-of-scale to the possibilities introduced by the Internet. It sat by as Netflix pillaged its market share with web-based mail order movies. No brick-and-mortar store can compete with the scale offered by a decentralized movie collection.

As we’ve seen recently, Internet technology is allowing a more immediate large scale distribution model we call – On Demand!

Netflix jumped on board the on-demand, set-top box game – we’ve also seen offerings from Apple, Amazon, Vudu and many others. It’s getting crowded in your home theater system.

Blockbuster has finally joined the fray with MediaPoint. The box sells for $99 and includes 25 movie rentals. Rentals from its collection of over 2,000 titles start at $1.99 and go all the way up to $3.99 each. You have 30 days to view your rental but only have 24 hours after you initially start viewing.

What’s the difference? MediaPoint downloads movies before playback rather than streaming like Netflix. Of course everything is a pay-to-play rental, unlike the current Netflix set-top box solution. Blockbuster says its download-before-playing model provides superior video quality over the competition. The tiny box even has an HDMI port for HD viewing, though no HD titles are yet available. All we can say is it’s about time Blockbuster showed signs of modernizing. But it will surely see significant late fees.