First off I guess I should apologize for not posting so much news this last couple of weeks.
I have been on a vacation with the family for a couple of weeks, lots of fun, and more recently working on new features for the Blu-ray Stats site.
I know that some readers reside in the UK - this story is for you.
There is a site that covers the DVD rental scene in the UK and they now have an article up that discusses Blu-ray rentals in the UK.
Blockbuster is running a new promotion to encourage new users to sign up for Blockbuster Total Access. You can get $10 CASH BACK when you sign-up with your PayPal account!
This offer applies to both the ‘half off first month’ promotion and the ‘2 weeks free’ promotion.
A number of you have no doubt seen the DVDPlay machines in the local grocery store, renting DVDs for $1.49. This concise article reports that DVDPlay will be adding Blu-ray Discs to the kiosks, at the same rental fee as DVD, with first titles being Untraceable and Men in Black.
I like my food fresh, so I find myself at the Safeway every couple of days, making it a very convenient place for me to rent movies - the addition of Blu-ray Discs could mean that I actually do!
Blockbuster is rolling out Blu-ray to all of the corporate stores in the US and Canada, as well as select franchise locations, and installing Blu-ray kiosks in over 5,000 stores.
They’re also adding a Blu-ray preference setting to the Blockbuster online rent-by-mail service.
Speaking of the rent-by-mail service, Blockbuster also have a new trial deal for this month - sign up for Blockbuster Total Access and get One Month FREE.
The promotion is set to end May 8th and includes 2 DVDs per month, 1 at a time, with up to 2 In-Store Exchanges per month. The price after the trial will be $9.99 per month for this level of service.
Via Gizmo Lovers
My work place is right next to a Netflix hub. While that could be a good thing (they won’t accept personally returned discs - you have to mail them), we do get quite a few of the plastic wrappers from DVDs blowing across our parking lot.
Today I noticed a distinct change in the trash coming from Netflix. Instead of the usual DVD plastic wrap, there were distinctly Blu-ray wrappers littering the parking lot, with the oval Blu-ray sticker that we have all come to know.
So I guess that Netflix is indeed boosting the quantity of Blu-ray discs in hand along with the Blu-ray trash in the parking lot … at least in my neighbourhood.
Blockbuster has a new, slightly more interesting perhaps offer than their previous ‘half off the first month’ offer.
The new offer is a ‘free trial‘ - you get the first two weeks for free.
While monetarily it is really the same deal, in this case you get the free weeks first I guess. In any case, thought you would like to know.
In this article about Netflix success, we found a nugget regarding their Hidef Disc plans.
Chief financial officer Barry McCarthy said today that Netflix will add as many as 1,500 Blu-ray titles to its existing 400 titles this year as customers ditch Toshiba’s discontinued HD DVD format and converge onto a Sony’s Blu-ray format. He said he didn’t know what effect more Blu-ray titles would have on earnings.
“It seems apparent that content will cost us more,” McCarthy said. “Whether we raise prices will be entirely a function of churn, subscriber acquisition costs and gross margins.”
I think most people will just be happy if Netflix keeps enough copies on hand to satisfy demand.
Subscribe to Twitter
Subscribe to Email Feed