Digital Home Thoughts: Blockbuster Brings Another Box to the Home

"We've rubbed our eyes four or five times now, but the factual heat remains: Blockbuster -- of all companies -- has decided to dive headfirst into the movie set-top-box arena. We wanted to believe the rumors were false, but sure enough, it has joined VUDU, Apple TV, Roku and the Xbox 360 in the highly competitive market place for your digital download dollars. For a "limited time," the outfit will offer the 2Wire-built MediaPoint player for free with the "advance rental of 25 first-run movies, TV shows, foreign or classic films from Blockbuster On-Demand (previously Movielink) for $99." After that, rentals are $1.99 apiece, and a Blockbuster subscription is not required. The unit itself measures 8- x 8- x 1-inch and includes two USB ports, an SD slot, Ethernet / WiFi and an HDMI port, and it should be available at the company's website and in select retail stores very soon."

This has been rumored for a while and it hit the news today: Blockbuster has jumped into the set-top box business. While there are several other established options (Apple TV, VUDU, Tivo/Amazon, Roku/NetFlix, etc.), internet-delivered video-on-demand is still a very young market. Given Blockbuster's history, this is a logical step. The Blockbuster OnDemand library is seriously lacking, however. They only have about 2,500 movies available and it all appears to be SD content. It will be interesting to see how this whole market plays out!

Have you made a choice in the internet-delivered VOD space? Let me know in the comments.