Technology catch-all thread

[Jake]

We had a Blockbuster in town that was still hanging around up until last week. They finally closed down. I don't think we have any in the area anymore.

 

We do have a place called Family Video that still seems to be thriving. We haven't caught onto the netflix/streaming thing yet so we still rent/return DVDs. We definitely aren't alone either. It actually gets pretty busy on Friday nights.

 

My town (much smaller than Rockford) has a Family Video as well and it seems okay, I keep hearing reports about them opening up new stores in other towns. Don't know what they're doing, but it seems to be working.

 

I go to school in Memphis and there is only one video rental store in the entire metro area, and that is just some guys who bought out the stock of all the closed Blockbusters and sells them out of this old house he owns. It's actually pretty cool though, despite only having about 5 parking spots and the craziest selection ever (there is a "John Waters Room")

[Brian]

Only thing near me are a few Redboxes

[Jenksismyhero]

My town (much smaller than Rockford) has a Family Video as well and it seems okay, I keep hearing reports about them opening up new stores in other towns. Don't know what they're doing, but it seems to be working.

 

I go to school in Memphis and there is only one video rental store in the entire metro area, and that is just some guys who bought out the stock of all the closed Blockbusters and sells them out of this old house he owns. It's actually pretty cool though, despite only having about 5 parking spots and the craziest selection ever (there is a "John Waters Room")

 

I think Family Video has a good business model. In La Grange they just took over an old blockbuster store and appear to be doing well.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

Y2HH's alternative:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tec...ry.html?hpid=z3

 

[Iwritecode]

I think Family Video has a good business model. In La Grange they just took over an old blockbuster store and appear to be doing well.

 

I'm not sure what they are doing different than Blockbuster.

 

Although I think Blockbuster shot themselves in the foot when they went to their "no late fees" program but then upped their rental prices. We stopped going there soon after that.

[Steve9347]

Although I think Blockbuster shot themselves in the foot when they went to their "no late fees" program but then upped their rental prices. We stopped going there soon after that.

Blockbuster made a lot of mistakes back-to-back. They were really humming along when their prices were reasonable and they had one-night rentals. Basically, you knew if you went to Blockbuster on Friday or Saturday night and hung around for 20 minutes, you'd land the new release. They over-stocked that s*** and always had the good stuff.

 

Then enter the no late fees. First, people were confused. Trust me, I worked there and dealt with the patrons. They couldn't understand that if they kept the movies more than two weeks they'd be charged for it as if they bought it. I'd kindly explain - listen, you had the movie for 45 days, it's not a no-limits thing. It was just a dumbass concept. People will not return movies without some sort of reason to do so.

 

So they crank up the fees to rent (from something reasonable like 1.99/2.49 for one night to 3.99, 4.99 even 5.49) and then deal with tons of customer service and return issues. And then, of course, bare shelves for all the best, new films (the only real reason to go to Blockbuster).

 

Then add the absurdity of charging $11.99 for a 5-day video game rental?

 

They took all their value and the reason for people to come to the stores and s*** all over it. Regardless of how many exclusive deals they made with different film studios to have the ability to rent before anyone else, it didn't matter, because the movies were rarely on the shelf.

 

They just completely f***ed up, and also waited way too long to get their Blockbuster Online/In-Store program figured out - they resisted the new wave and thought raising prices was the answer to recouping lost traffic. Brilliant.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Steve9347

[Jenksismyhero]

I'm not sure what they are doing different than Blockbuster.

 

Although I think Blockbuster shot themselves in the foot when they went to their "no late fees" program but then upped their rental prices. We stopped going there soon after that.

 

Lower prices and they didn't over expand. It's been years since I rented a video, but I used to always go to Family Video over Blockbuster. It was like 2 bucks versus 5 to rent a movie, and that was mainly due to the fact that blockbuster bought 100 copies of the new movie whereas family video bought 25. I was willing to wait a few days after a release to get the new movies and save myself some money in the process.

[StrangeSox]

Same here, we rarely went to BB. There's still a Family Video in Woodridge that still seems like it does okay, but I haven't been there in years now.

[lostfan]

Blockbuster made a lot of mistakes back-to-back. They were really humming along when their prices were reasonable and they had one-night rentals. Basically, you knew if you went to Blockbuster on Friday or Saturday night and hung around for 20 minutes, you'd land the new release. They over-stocked that s*** and always had the good stuff.

 

Then enter the no late fees. First, people were confused. Trust me, I worked there and dealt with the patrons. They couldn't understand that if they kept the movies more than two weeks they'd be charged for it as if they bought it. I'd kindly explain - listen, you had the movie for 45 days, it's not a no-limits thing. It was just a dumbass concept. People will not return movies without some sort of reason to do so.

 

So they crank up the fees to rent (from something reasonable like 1.99/2.49 for one night to 3.99, 4.99 even 5.49) and then deal with tons of customer service and return issues. And then, of course, bare shelves for all the best, new films (the only real reason to go to Blockbuster).

 

Then add the absurdity of charging $11.99 for a 5-day video game rental?

 

They took all their value and the reason for people to come to the stores and s*** all over it. Regardless of how many exclusive deals they made with different film studios to have the ability to rent before anyone else, it didn't matter, because the movies were rarely on the shelf.

 

They just completely f***ed up, and also waited way too long to get their Blockbuster Online/In-Store program figured out - they resisted the new wave and thought raising prices was the answer to recouping lost traffic. Brilliant.

They did the no-late fees thing a few months after I stopped working there. I wondered how they made money off that? Evidently, they didn't. They reason they charged late fees in the first place (or Extended Viewing Fees, giving it to the customer for another full rental period, another poorly marketed concept they didn't communicate well if at all) was because they couldn't make money off the copy the customer was holding if they had it another 4 days after they were supposed to bring it back. Especially with new releases, that movie was going to be rented out at least twice more in that period.

 

I think the last thing they did a solid job marketing was the "return by noon" concept. A lot of customers were confused by this and I honestly felt if you didn't understand it, it wasn't Blockbuster's fault, you were just dumb. I had people cuss me out about changing the return time without their consent and one guy said it was 12 hours less and we were being deceptive. No, dips***, it would've been due "tomorrow by midnight" like it's been for the company's entire existence, but we gave you an extra 12 hours. You can still return it the following evening if you want but now you won't be late if you return it in the morning, and the store loses no money because the movie's not gonna be rented early in the morning anyway.

[lostfan]

Lower prices and they didn't over expand. It's been years since I rented a video, but I used to always go to Family Video over Blockbuster. It was like 2 bucks versus 5 to rent a movie, and that was mainly due to the fact that blockbuster bought 100 copies of the new movie whereas family video bought 25. I was willing to wait a few days after a release to get the new movies and save myself some money in the process.

Nah this isn't really true. Blockbuster had a massive distribution center, and generally handled a lot more volume than somewhere like Family Video. If they got 120 copies of a hot new release (let's say, something like Zero Dark Thirty) then trust, all those movies would be off the shelves for the first week, and every Friday/Saturday/Sunday for the next 3 weeks. You'd get one if you hung around and waited for someone to drop one off (ask the employee who's running movies to hold it for you when they see it) but it wasn't out for more than a few minutes once it got back on the shelf.

 

Occasionally we'd have a f***up or accounting glitch somewhere above our level where we'd get way too few of a really hot movie. We got 12 copies of American Beauty once (Calumet City store)... that sucked. Sometimes when I got the rare copy returned I'd hold it for one of the good customers I knew had been asking for it and call them to tell them to hurry and come get it. They loved that.

 

To your point, what did Blockbuster in was its outdated operating model (brick and mortar stores everywhere, large inventories) they couldn't do anything about while Netflix and Red Box were lighter and agile with much lower operating expenses.

[Jenksismyhero]

Nah this isn't really true. Blockbuster had a massive distribution center, and generally handled a lot more volume than somewhere like Family Video. If they got 120 copies of a hot new release (let's say, something like Zero Dark Thirty) then trust, all those movies would be off the shelves for the first week, and every Friday/Saturday/Sunday for the next 3 weeks. You'd get one if you hung around and waited for someone to drop one off (ask the employee who's running movies to hold it for you when they see it) but it wasn't out for more than a few minutes once it got back on the shelf.

 

Occasionally we'd have a f***up or accounting glitch somewhere above our level where we'd get way too few of a really hot movie. We got 12 copies of American Beauty once (Calumet City store)... that sucked. Sometimes when I got the rare copy returned I'd hold it for one of the good customers I knew had been asking for it and call them to tell them to hurry and come get it. They loved that.

 

To your point, what did Blockbuster in was its outdated operating model (brick and mortar stores everywhere, large inventories) they couldn't do anything about while Netflix and Red Box were lighter and agile with much lower operating expenses.

 

Here's a recent write-up I just found on how FV is still alive:

 

http://www.bnd.com/2013/02/25/2506834/few-...ill-thrive.html

 

The big thing appears to be that they own their property, whereas the others were leasing. I still think it comes down to pricing too.

 

Edit: I think in 20 years you probably won't see a FV anywhere. Everything will be digital at that point. But for now there is still a sizeable portion of the country that doesn't have good enough internet and/or they like the idea of a hard disc at a cheap price. Same with gaming. We'll get to that point eventually, but probably not for another decade or more.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[lostfan]

Here's a recent write-up I just found on how FV is still alive:

 

http://www.bnd.com/2013/02/25/2506834/few-...ill-thrive.html

 

The big thing appears to be that they own their property, whereas the others were leasing. I still think it comes down to pricing too.

 

Edit: I think in 20 years you probably won't see a FV anywhere. Everything will be digital at that point. But for now there is still a sizeable portion of the country that doesn't have good enough internet and/or they like the idea of a hard disc at a cheap price. Same with gaming. We'll get to that point eventually, but probably not for another decade or more.

That is what I was getting at. Blockbuster needed a lot of space and it's not like they could just pick up hundreds of stores and move them. It was a pretty huge corporation at its peak and those supply chains started becoming a burden. I notice how he said streaming isn't killing the business, I had been saying that too. Streaming is a lot of hype until we actually get the broadband infrastructure for everyone to do it, and then people actually get hardware that can do that.

[Y2HH]

This is where Blockbuster went wrong, and it had nothing to do with late fees, etc...that was their attempt to band-aid their original gaffe, which started the dominoes falling. I vividly remember this occurring, as I was one of the very early adopters of DVDs. I was so happy this occurred, because the old deal was that within the "window of rent", movies would cost upwards of 80$ each only going on sale for a normal price AFTER the rental period expired.

 

"In 1998, at the dawn of the age of the DVD, Blockbuster made a decision that would change the future of Hollywood. Warren Lieberfarb, who then headed the home-video division of Warner Bros., offered Blockbuster CEO John Antioco a deal that would have made the DVD the same kind of rental business as that of the VHS tape, which, at the time, provided the studios with $10 billion in revenue. Lieberfarb proposed that Warner Bros. (which, along with Sony, was launching the DVD) create a rental window for DVDs during which sell-through DVDs would not be available for new movies."

 

"With this window, Blockbuster, which then accounted for nearly half of the studios' rental income from new movies, would have had the opportunity to rent out DVD releases before they went on sale to the general public. In return, the studios would receive 40 percent of the rental revenues that Blockbuster earned from DVDs, which was exactly the same percentage they received for VHS rentals. In fact, it was Sumner Redstone, whose Viacom conglomerate then owned Blockbuster, who personally pioneered the revenue-sharing arrangement for video. Only a few years earlier, Redstone had told Lieberfarb, "The studios can't live without a video rental business—we [blockbuster] are your profit." Yet, even though Lieberfarb was only asking that the same deal be extended to DVD, Blockbuster, perhaps not realizing the speed with which the digital revolution would spread, turned him down."

 

In the end, after WB was turned down, WB was successful in showing the DVD selling business was vibrant, and no such deals needed to be made with the big chain rental shops in order to turn home movies into money. The original thought in Hollywood was that people would only buy very very specific movies, but never "collect" them in mass quantities that could essentially replace revenue sharing with rental. The remaining studios quickly copied WB's new model, and Blockbuster was history in the making.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_hol...new_zombie.html

Edited April 9, 2013 by Y2HH

[lostfan]

This is where Blockbuster went wrong, and it had nothing to do with late fees, etc...that was their attempt to band-aid their original gaffe, which started the dominoes falling.

 

"In 1998, at the dawn of the age of the DVD, Blockbuster made a decision that would change the future of Hollywood. Warren Lieberfarb, who then headed the home-video division of Warner Bros., offered Blockbuster CEO John Antioco a deal that would have made the DVD the same kind of rental business as that of the VHS tape, which, at the time, provided the studios with $10 billion in revenue. Lieberfarb proposed that Warner Bros. (which, along with Sony, was launching the DVD) create a rental window for DVDs during which sell-through DVDs would not be available for new movies."

 

"With this window, Blockbuster, which then accounted for nearly half of the studios' rental income from new movies, would have had the opportunity to rent out DVD releases before they went on sale to the general public. In return, the studios would receive 40 percent of the rental revenues that Blockbuster earned from DVDs, which was exactly the same percentage they received for VHS rentals. In fact, it was Sumner Redstone, whose Viacom conglomerate then owned Blockbuster, who personally pioneered the revenue-sharing arrangement for video. Only a few years earlier, Redstone had told Lieberfarb, "The studios can't live without a video rental business—we [blockbuster] are your profit." Yet, even though Lieberfarb was only asking that the same deal be extended to DVD, Blockbuster, perhaps not realizing the speed with which the digital revolution would spread, turned him down."

 

In the end, after WB was turned down, WB was successful in showing the DVD selling business was vibrant, and no such deals needed to be made with the big chain rental shops in order to turn home movies into money. The original thought in Hollywood was that people would only buy very very specific movies, but never "collect" them in mass quantities that could essentially replace revenue sharing with rental. The remaining studios quickly copied WB's new model, and Blockbuster was history in the making.

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_hol...new_zombie.html

I never knew of a specific deal until reading that but I did always wonder, why were movies available for rent several weeks before you could buy them but this didn't apply when we started getting DVDs in 2000?

 

To an employee, the way this looked is the sale price would show on the computer screen of a new release VHS for something like $109 (next to the rental price of $3.99 or whatever) until it was designated "for sale," when Blockbuster would start selling it in stores along with other stores. But when we started selling DVDs, the sale price was the standard $19.99 or $24.99 and you could get the movie at any other retail chain.

[Y2HH]

I never knew of a specific deal until reading that but I did always wonder, why were movies available for rent several weeks before you could buy them but this didn't apply when we started getting DVDs in 2000?

 

To an employee, the way this looked is the sale price would show on the computer screen of a new release VHS for something like $109 (next to the rental price of $3.99 or whatever) until it was designated "for sale," when Blockbuster would start selling it in stores along with other stores. But when we started selling DVDs, the sale price was the standard $19.99 or $24.99 and you could get the movie at any other retail chain.

 

Yep, originally, the studios didn't think there was a big market for "buyers", but there was for "renters", so they made these deals with the chains that after a movie was released on VHS, it would be available to purchase for like 80$+, OR you could rent it for cheap, and the studio would share in the revenue. Blockbuster (and others) figured the same thing would happen with DVD as what happened with Laserdisc, meaning they never thought it would take off like it did, so they didn't think making such a deal was necessary.

 

After the offer was turned down, WB was forced to go retail with DVD, and it took off like a rocket. The writing was on the wall as the other studios quickly piled on, because now the entire profit was theirs and theirs alone...they no longer needed to share anything with Blockbuster or anyone else.

 

This was a HUGE blunder on Blockbusters part...nearly as big as the epic of all epic blunders committed by AT&T when they turned down the US Govt/DARPA for taking complete ownership over what we now call the Internet. AT&T told them, it's too expensive to maintain, and regular people would never use it anyway.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Y2HH

[iamshack]

Yep, originally, the studios didn't think there was a big market for "buyers", but there was for "renters", so they made these deals with the chains that after a movie was released on VHS, it would be available to purchase for like 80$+, OR you could rent it for cheap, and the studio would share in the revenue. Blockbuster (and others) figured the same thing would happen with DVD as what happened with Laserdisc, meaning they never thought it would take off like it did, so they didn't think making such a deal was necessary.

 

After the offer was turned down, WB was forced to go retail with DVD, and it took off like a rocket. The writing was on the wall as the other studios quickly piled on, because now the entire profit was theirs and theirs alone...they no longer needed to share anything with Blockbuster or anyone else.

 

This was a HUGE blunder on Blockbusters part...nearly as big as the epic of all epic blunders committed by AT&T when they turned down the US Govt/DARPA for taking complete ownership over what we now call the Internet. AT&T told them, it's too expensive to maintain, and regular people would never use it anyway.

I don't know why I ever buy movies...I can probably count on 1 hand the number of movies I have ever watched more than once or twice.

[Steve9347]

They did the no-late fees thing a few months after I stopped working there. I wondered how they made money off that? Evidently, they didn't. They reason they charged late fees in the first place (or Extended Viewing Fees, giving it to the customer for another full rental period, another poorly marketed concept they didn't communicate well if at all) was because they couldn't make money off the copy the customer was holding if they had it another 4 days after they were supposed to bring it back. Especially with new releases, that movie was going to be rented out at least twice more in that period.

 

I think the last thing they did a solid job marketing was the "return by noon" concept. A lot of customers were confused by this and I honestly felt if you didn't understand it, it wasn't Blockbuster's fault, you were just dumb. I had people cuss me out about changing the return time without their consent and one guy said it was 12 hours less and we were being deceptive. No, dips***, it would've been due "tomorrow by midnight" like it's been for the company's entire existence, but we gave you an extra 12 hours. You can still return it the following evening if you want but now you won't be late if you return it in the morning, and the store loses no money because the movie's not gonna be rented early in the morning anyway.

Blockbuster customers were mostly idiots, in my experience.

[StrangeSox]

I don't know why I ever buy movies...I can probably count on 1 hand the number of movies I have ever watched more than once or twice.

 

One of my friends has a huge "DVD Collection." Whoops.

[Y2HH]

I don't know why I ever buy movies...I can probably count on 1 hand the number of movies I have ever watched more than once or twice.

 

That's exactly why. For the most part, if you watch a movie more than once, you may as well have bought it, since the rental fees were approaching 5$ anyway. Besides, now you have it and can rip it to digital format.

 

I ripped my entire collection, and have a library ready to stream to any of my AppleTV's of over 700 movies, completely cataloged by name, year, synopsis, and even a movie poster image.

[Steve9347]

Sometimes when I got the rare copy returned I'd hold it for one of the good customers I knew had been asking for it and call them to tell them to hurry and come get it. They loved that.

I was the same way. It was a fun place to work during high school/college.

 

I stole a lot, too.

[BigSqwert]

I don't know why I ever buy movies...I can probably count on 1 hand the number of movies I have ever watched more than once or twice.

I stopped purchasing movies about 5 years ago.

[lostfan]

I was the same way. It was a fun place to work during high school/college.

 

I stole a lot, too.

lol we could never get away with stealing b/c our store had probably the highest theft rate in the district. The DM would always talk about firing the whole staff in the store and we'd look, like "have you noticed this store is kind of in suburbia's hood?" You think employees stole 100 DVDs and left the lock boxes out there on the floor?

[RockRaines]

That's exactly why. For the most part, if you watch a movie more than once, you may as well have bought it, since the rental fees were approaching 5$ anyway. Besides, now you have it and can rip it to digital format.

 

I ripped my entire collection, and have a library ready to stream to any of my AppleTV's of over 700 movies, completely cataloged by name, year, synopsis, and even a movie poster image.

How do you rip the DVD collection?

[Jenksismyhero]

I stopped purchasing movies about 5 years ago.

 

Same here. I was a "collector" until my mid 20's and now my wife and I have 2 DVD shelves full of movies we will never, ever watch.

[Y2HH]

How do you rip the DVD collection?

 

Install a program called Handbreak (free), and an encoder/decoder like VLC (free), works on either Windows or OSX. Handbreak is a ripper, VLC is used by Handbreak to decrypt the DVD.

 

You insert the DVD, then select any one of a number of presets that are pre-configured, such as AppleTV3, which is basically a maximum quality, full 480p rip (which is DVD quality).

 

You then click Start. And depending on the speed of your computer, it will take 15-30 minutes to complete, and you have your digital copy that can be imported into iTunes, or whatever streaming media player you use where you can tag it, add album art, etc.

 

There are a few other things, but nothing complicated. You just have to make sure you rip the right track, as sometimes there will be multiple tracks and one will be Fullscreen and the other Widescreen (you can use a preview button to see a sample image, and you'll be able to tell if it's widescreen or not, either with that or looking at the resolution width.)

 

----

 

It takes a long time...it's not something I did overnight, but I did it slowly over the past year whenever I was sitting at my computer. But now that it's done, it's really cool having a huge library of movies to watch at any time. I have an AppleTV on both of my larger televisions, and of course the stream works to any iPad/iPhone on my WiFi, too. It's really kinda cool.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Y2HH