The Blockbuster movie rental store in the Denver suburb of Broomfield, Colorado.RICK WILKING/Reuters
I never thought I'd be saying this, but I miss Blockbuster.
I wasn't always a fan of the video rental chain. At first, their prices seemed high and their selection seemed narrow. Plus, they were part of a big, homogenous, faceless corporation and my husband and I preferred our local indie rental store. But in the last couple of years, Blockbuster seemed to be working hard to earn our business. They added the "Critic's Pix" section, which included the latest buzzy foreign flicks and arthouse fare. They pretty much eliminated late fees, allowing renters to take out films for a week or more without incurring any extra charges. Their staff was knowledgeable and nice, and they even gave me a box of truffles one December for being their best customer. (I watched a lot of movies during my maternity leave.)
But one of the most reassuring parts about Blockbuster was that if you wanted to see the big release of the moment, it would definitely be there. This was particularly true as movies "on demand" grew in popularity and the store got less and less busy.
Now that the company's gone into receivership and our neighbourhood Blockbuster is shutting down, we are finding the alternatives are just not cutting it. And it's not just a matter of preference. Losing Blockbuster is costing us money. Let's run through the alternatives:
Alternative #1? Rogers On Demand. Yes, it's convenient, but it just doesn't have a wide enough selection, either in the new releases or the general library. Plus, there's no proper "search" function, which makes looking for films a tedious, scrolling chore. And, most importantly, the prices are very high. It's $7.99 for an HD new release movie and you only get it for 48 hours, which is tough with two busy people who aren't always able to find the time to watch a flick together.
Alternative #2? The independent DVD rental store. The one down the street has a fabulous selection of films, and we've frequented it over the years. But there are two major problems. New releases are always rented when you want them -- especially now with Blockbuster gone, the competition is fierce. And we are getting destroyed by late fees. Admittedly, we became accustomed to having many days to watch a rented film. Perhaps we need to organize our time better, but life always seems to get in the way, and we often return the movie one, two, three or more days late. Cha-ching.
Alternative #3? Netflix. Sorry, not convinced. Yes, it's cheap -- $8 a month is awesome. But after repeatedly hearing its praises sung by friends and colleagues, I decided to conduct a little experiment. We all know the new releases are slow and sporadic, but I plugged a whack of older favourites into the search function to see what was available. By the end of it, my husband was killing himself laughing. Star Wars? Nope. Blade Runner? Naw. Goodfellas? Nuh-uh. The Godfather? Nada. Mean Girls? Like Water for Chocolate? The Sweet Smell of Success? The Thin Man? No, no, no. And no. I cannot fathom being disappointed time after time.
Alternative #4? AppleTV (we're considering it). It's $119 to purchase the AppleTV unit from the Apple Store, and once we have that, we can download movies from iTunes and then stream them to my TV. When renting from iTunes, users can keep a downloaded film for up to 30 days before they start to watch it. Then they have 48 hours to finish once they hit play. The selection looks promising, and at first glance, the prices don't look too bad: $5.99 for renting an HD new release like True Grit or Biutiful.
But is the technology dependable? I've been checking out message boards and have found reports of technical problems and other difficulties. I myself have downloaded a couple of half-hour HD TV shows from iTunes and found that it took a very long time -- hours, in fact. You could argue that it's because of my crummy computer but it makes me wary of relying on iTunes for movie rentals.
And then there's the bandwidth issue -- if we are going to be renting a couple of movies a week, in addition to music and whatever else, would I end up blasting through my data cap and need to spend more on my monthly internet fee? Perhaps I'll need to follow the advice of The Globe and Mail's Michael Snider and switch to TekSavvy for unlimited data at a decent price.
So switching to AppleTV might be a viable option for us. But it will mean purchasing the unit for $119, probably changing my internet service provider and possibly facing technical glitches and selection limitations. Not to mention that the process of seeing a movie will become much more complicated than simply popping a DVD into our PS3.
Farewell, Blockbuster. As the song goes, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.