Page 1 of The latest victim of the digital revolution is...

Blockbuster Video, apparently

I`m not surprised really. I can`t actually remember the last time I used my BB card. Physical movie rental is becoming old hat very rapidly, when fast internet speeds means a full movie can be legitimately downloaded while you`re making that evening`s dinner, why step outside into the real world?

Plus the prices of their `fun bags` of M&Ms put bloody cineworld to shame.

Downsize to a HMV-styled outlet, that`s my advice, Mr Executive-type person. They`ve been ripping the public off for years and no-one`s batted an eyelid

{low-key rant over}

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Writer`s Release
My Collection

We`ve got a Blockie at the end of our street - and it`s an absolute menace.  So much so that the council has taken the excuse of a Cycle Britain grant to turn our street into a cycle run.  They`re going to block off the top end of the street to stop morons rat-running down at speeds up to 60.  It`s a miracle the only fatalities so far have been cats.  They`re doing the whole street in brick paviers from property boundary to property boundary and putting in trees every forty feet.  The car owners are going mental about parking, but most of the selfish bastards park on our front because we don`t have a car when it suits them - so we`re hoping for a tree.

The Blockie has annoyed me in all kinds of other ways for years.  I keep going in looking for bargains in the "preowned" section as occasionally there have been some bargains to be had in the past.  Not any more, of course.  This is about the third year running that they`ve hiked the price of preowned stuff above the price you could buy brand-new product online.

I don`t blame the staff, who are mostly lovely people (the managers tend to be a bit charmless, but they seem to move on pretty quickly).  I blame upper management for being greedy.  I mean - £14 for a second-hand Blu-ray??  £12 for a rental-copy disc of a DVD you can buy for a tenner with a second disc of extras online?  Gimme a break.

The bit that`s really annoyed me in the past are the Bargain Buckets.  Time was once they were knocking out titles at four for a tenner.  Then they became three for a tenner.  Now they`re something like three for £12 and the quality of the discs is atrocious - I swear some people take an angle-grinder to discs before they take them back to the shop.  And the range of titles is pathetic.

Unfortunately, I have a sneaky suspicion that Blockbuster UK isn`t going to be affected by the parent company`s woes in the US - it may even (I don`t really know) be a completely separate company like the UK Woolworths was to the US original).

J Mark Oates

Its another Woolworths, a once huge retail monster who failed to move with the times. Every dog has its day as they say and like it or not life moves on. When I first moved to darlo there were 4 Blockbusters I think, the one up the road from me closed shortly after, followed by the one the other side of town a couple of years ago, I have a card for the one in the town somewhere but I cant remember the last time I was in there, it must be easily 5 years or more and even then I wasnt a regular visitor.

Its not just the `digital revoluton` Ive not rented a film for years in any form, I remember when I was a kid that the video shop was the only place you could see the films you wanted - remember when a film took years to become available to buy and the only way you could watch most films was to rent it from the video shop? The video shops days were numbered right from the time that films were released to buy on VHS within months of the theatrical release, when finaly you could have a movie collection of your own, now with cheap DVD`s in the supermarkets you can probably buy most films cheaper than you can rent it!

If the do vanish, Id feel the same as I did when Woolies went, Id feel sad that its gone but then think to myself `hang on...when was the last time I went into the place?`

The 2 nearest us in North Cardiff have closed over the last few months, once again we rarely used them in recent years.

Since Sky increased their film channels from 2 to god knows how many, plus all the other channels on sky regularly showing films we just didn`t bother. Probably went there 2-3 times per year in the end just because you called in to the shop next door and sort of drifted in.

As said earlier it was a bit of a joke, when they are renting films for £4 per night and Sainsburys next door has got the retail version on offer for £8. Then they want £2.00 for a bottle of fizz and £1.50 for some fancy crisps, again you can buy the same items next door at half the price.

All the best

Gerald.



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This item was edited on Saturday, 28th August 2010, 07:21

Quote:
remember when a film took years to become available to buy and the only way you could watch most films was to rent it from the video shop?

Yes. Yes I do. There was a VHS rental shop about half a mile away and the manager was a very pretty young Lady (I was about 16-17 so I used to frequent that particular establishment a lot).

Time was a VHS release of a major title would be a hotly anticipated event. There would be a waiting list just to rent the film, but if you wanted to purchase the video ahead of the retail releases (about another 6 month`s wait - none of this straight in the supermarkets malarky back then) you`d have to pay about £60-£70 - for a VHS cassette!

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Writer`s Release
My Collection

My first VHS video of Star Wars cost me £60 ex-rental. It was my most prized possession.

It is a different world now.

Maybe Blockbusters should consider doing digital downloads to people`s phones/laptops if they take them in for no more than £3 a time? Could suit people with a download limit on their BB package, or slow computer.

As said before, they haven`t moved with the times at all.

I`m going to be really hacked off if they go under. With three teenagers we use the rental side loads but never pay as we use the Tecso BB vouchers on their points system.
Must`ve saved us a fortune over the years.


Snaps

Every Third Car

Quote:
Pete-MK says...
you`d have to pay about £60-£70 - for a VHS cassette!
Unless it was a Paramount release. Every month they did one (to the trade at least) at £10-00

Quote:
There would be a waiting list just to rent the film
Lol, I remember that, there used to be a strip of card in the case and they`d write your name on and give you a call when it came in!

I remember the first VHS films that cost £60-£80 as well one of the reasons was they had to be recorded in real time until they figured out how to mass duplicate them at high speed, also got a trade magazine offering blank Ferguson VHS cassettes(trade only) for £9.50 each and on the letters page is a complaint about certain retailers selling their video recorders to cheaply at £650 and undercuttng them.
Anyone remeber when you could hire a VHS machine and a couple of films for about £30 for the weekend.