Blockbuster may have a bigger range of movies, but it also charges late fees. And we all hate late fees. Picture: Nick Broughall Source: news.com.au
LIKE meat pies and barbecues, the Friday night trip to the video store is an Aussie institution.
But with the meteoric rise of on-demand movie download services, are the days of renting DVDs from your local Blockbuster coming to an end? News.com.au plugs in the Ethernet cable to find out.
There are dozens of devices that let you rent movies over the internet, but none have the same market penetration as the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3.
The games consoles also work exactly the same way no matter which internet provider you're with, making them the perfect devices to compare with the local rental store.
What's available
The first challenge facing any internet movie rental service is ensuring you have a good selection of films on offer.
A quick calculation puts the number of DVDs at the local Blockbuster somewhere around the 4500 mark. Even with the inevitable double ups, that's still significantly more than the 766 movies available for rent via the PS3.
The Xbox 360 has just over 1050 movies on its movie service, but a significant number of those are only available to purchase.
We picked up five DVDs from Blockbuster ? Avatar, Happy Feet, Misery, a randomly-selected horror flick Loch Ness Terror and the TV series My Name is Earl.
Only Avatar, Happy Feet and Misery were available through the online services and even then, Avatar was only available to purchase in standard definition on the Xbox and Happy Feet and Misery were only available on the PS3.
Neither offered Loch Ness Terror or My Name is Earl.
Winner? Blockbuster
The five DVDs we picked up from the local Blockbuster. Picture: Nick Broughall
Getting what you want
Walking into the Blockbuster store, the first thing you see is a wall covered in multiple copies of the same movies. But when it comes to older films, generally only one or two copies are available.
Here, the Xbox and PS3 services have the advantage. No matter which movie you want from the selection, you can download it and enjoy without having to wait for someone else to return it.
Winner? PS3 / Xbox 360
How long can I borrow that for?
Hiring a movie online is a pretty standard affair. You pay your money, download it, and then have 30 days to start watching it. Once you press that play button though, you have to finish watching it within 48 hours.
Traditional DVD rentals are a little different. Some new release movies you can only rent overnight. Others you can get for three nights. Others still are available for a week. Once you have the disc, you can watch the movie as many times as you like.
Winner? Blockbuster
High def v standard def
In a world of large flat panel televisions, being able to rent movies in high definition is becoming more important.
While both the PS3 and the Xbox support HD rentals, there's no easy way of discerning which movies are available in HD on either service. Not only that, but renting an HD movie can put significant strain on monthly broadband caps, and the quality doesn?t compare to that of a Blu-ray disc.
Winner? Blockbuster
Late fees
Only video stores have late fees. Online service rentals simply stop working after a set period of time. It may restrict how long you can watch a movie for, but it avoids expensive fees for not returning a disc on time.
Winner? PS3 / Xbox 360
Try before you buy
Both the Xbox and PS3 video services offer video previews of movies, allowing you to watch the trailer of a movie before paying your money. Blockbuster offers trailers on its website, but you still need to pre-meditate your rental decision.
Winner? PS3 / Xbox 360
Browsing movies on the PS3. You can watch trailers before you rent. Picture: Nick Broughall
Price
On the PS3, older movies cost $3.99 for SD, $4.99 for HD, while newer movies cost $5.99 for SD and $6.99 for HD.
Microsoft makes things harder to calculate by using their Microsoft Points system to pay for movie rentals, but it works out at about $4.13 for an older SD movie or $5.12 for the HD version, while newer movies work out at $6.11 for SD or $7.10 for HD.
Comparatively, the local Blockbuster has a sliding scale of pricing for new release movies, starting at $7 for one new release, with subsequent rentals getting cheaper the more you rent.
It's also cheaper at Blockbuster to rent more films between Monday and Thursday night, while older films are $3.50 for a week, or $10 for eight weeklies.
Winner? Blockbuster
The last word
There are some major hurdles facing on-demand movie download services before they kill off the humble video store.
The biggest hurdle is the number of films available. The internet is infinite in its scope ? there's no good reason why every movie ever made shouldn't be available to download as a rental for a suitable fee.
Once the movie studios begin to make everything available online, and broadband allowances become large enough to accommodate many high definition rentals each month, then stores like Blockbuster are going to find it exceptionally difficult to survive.
However the truth is that it's going to take a while for those things to happen, so your local DVD store is safe ? for now.
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