Blockbuster upgrades its downloadable movies

Blockbuster to Netflix: "I'll see your Roku box, and raise you $99."

Today, Blockbuster rolled out a set-top box that lets people watch movies downloaded from the company's website the way they'd watch any other Blockbuster rental -- on a television screen. The MediaPoint box, made by 2Wire of San Jose, sells for $99, but it comes with credits good for 25 free downloadable movie rentals. Those downloads are worth $3.99 each, so the price effectively is zero. Schweet! Oh and yes, the box supports high-definition video, although it's hard to find HD titles in the Blockbuster OnDemand service (formerly known as Movielink, back when it was owned by a group of Hollywood studios).

It's a compelling offer on paper, and it helps Blockbuster overcome the biggest hurdle to mainstream acceptance of its download service -- to wit, how hard it has been for most customers to watch a downloaded film on their TV set.* Consumers, however, can choose from a growing number of devices capable of bringing content from the Web to the TV. And although the competitors may not beat Blockbuster's price, some offer a stronger set of features. At least for now....

... I haven't played with the Blockbuster box, so I don't know how well (or poorly) it works. But the company's approach has one advantage over sites that stream movies: It uses a technique called progressive downloading to cache scenes from the movie on the set-top box before playing them. The technique means you can't play a movie instantly -- the slower the Internet connection, the longer the delay -- but  it typically produces better picture quality than a stream. 2Wire says the images are "DVD quality" regardless of the customer's connection speed; Roku, by contrast, delivers "VHS quality" pictures to those with less bandwidth. Customers can also download movies in advance onto the MediaPoint's 8 GB of flash or, soon, to a storage device connected to the box via USB. Blockbuster rentals can be kept for up to 30 days before viewing, but the files' DRM software disables the movies 24 hours after you hit the Play button for the first time.

Unlike the Roku and other Netflix-enabled boxes, the 2Wire device isn't attached to a subscription service. You pay by the movie, not by the month, as you would with Netflix of Blockbuster's Total Access. If you already have a Blockbuster Total Access account, you'll still have to pay the same price to rent the downloadable titles as anyone else would. (Blockbuster doesn't have the rights from Hollywood to offer a subscription-based version of the download service; those are hard to come by, as Netflix has found.)

A bigger drawback to the MediaPoint set-top, though, is that it connects to only one source of content online. Jonathan Symonds, vice president of marketing and product development for 2Wire, said the MediaPoint software is designed to support a variety of online audio and video services, whether the content is downloaded or streamed (in H.264, not the popular Adobe Flash format). The software also can act as a bridge between home PCs and the TV. But "Blockbuster from a business perspective wanted to come out of the gate with a very clean message," which meant starting with a single-purpose box, Symonds said. The company has already developed a more full-featured set-top for AT&T's Homezone service, and may do more for its other telephone-company clients. In the meantime, though, the new MediaPoint has to compete with Apple TV, the XBox 360 and the new Neuros LINK (more on that one shortly), among other multi-purpose set-tops. On the other hand, none of them are free.

*Movielink relies on Microsoft's DRM, which conventional DVD players can't decrypt. So instead of just burning a downloaded film onto a disc, customers who wanted to watch them on a living-room TV would have to hook their set to a laptop computer or stream the film from a PC to the TV through an XBox 360 (provided their PC had Microsoft's MediaCenter software).

2Wire MediaPoint image courtesy of 2Wire.

-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

Comments

[Comment Guy]

I love waiting several hours to watch a downloaded movies from Blockbuster as much as I need a hole in my head.

Download video sucks. I'd never buy a download set top box. I want an instant streaming set top box from a service provider where I can get high definition 1080p blu-ray quality video on demand and live tv from one place over a low bandwidth connection (3Mbps or less) on both PC Player for PC and set top box for TV. Oh wait, it already exists, it's called MyTVPAL! and Netflix! (WWW.MYTVPAL.COM) / ( WWW.NETFLIX.COM ) Blockbuster is just trying to keep it's stock up until it dies!

It has no flare innovation. Those who do not innovate do not survive. On demand means instant playing. So we should call it "wait several hours then never use the box again because your fed up of download boxes, just like AKIMBO". That's right! Just like Akimbo.

Congratulations Blockbuster on once again missing the mark and sailing below our expectations.

Long live 1080p blu-ray instant streaming on MTP and NF!

[Jon Healey]

Hey, Comment Guy -- according to Blockbuster, the wait time for downloading is a few minutes, not a few hours. Because it uses progressive downloading, people can start watching long before the last of the file's bits have arrived on their computers.

And Akimbo was an online VOD service that streamed video to customers -- it wasn't a downloading site. See this TechCrunch piece: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/23/akimbo-jumps-into-deadpool-takes-56-million-with-it/.

[Comment Guy]

Hello Jon

Seeing is believing and streaming as in MyTVPAL and Netflix are the future. If what you say is true then blockbuster should call it progressive download technology, not on demand. That would imply instant playing / viewing. But who are we to take their word for it.

For starters you should ask the Blockbuster CEO, what the file size is for each 480p ( 720 x 480 ), 720p ( 1280 x 720 ), and ( 1080p ( 1920 x 1080p ). That will give us a better understanding of your point above.

Another point is that I was never a fan of set top boxes with hard drives. Once the hard drive dies, then that's the end of the STB and all the data. No hard drive. No STB to die for a long time.

Also Akimbo was a download box where you had to wait several hours to get the content you wanted, and like other download boxes, it along with it's company sucombed in the end.

In video streaming, the words, (1) instant (2) 1080p blu-ray quality over low bandwidth are all I know, and services like MyTVPAL ( www.mytvpal.com ) and Netflix ( www.netflix.com ) deliver.

Still the bandwidth usage is much higher for netflix streaming than MyTVPAL. And I have a hardtime to think that Netflix will be able to gain many customers for 720p ( not 1080p ) when they need 8mbps minimum on the XBOX 360 only to deliver instant streaming. Where as MyTVPAL only requires 3mbps for 720p and 6mbps for 1080p from the end user to deliver both video on demand and live tv channels.

To conclude, download and progressive download video are technologies of the past and streaming is taking over in so many ways, because it's the type of world we live in. What world do you say that is. It's called the on demand world. Something that Blockbuster has yet to be able to realize.

Comment Guy