CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

So yesterday I just happened to order a wireless card for my old HTPC, which I plan to bring back out for some streaming experiments in the HT. This would handle older TV shows since you can't stream new releases and such. I know we have netflix already cuz the wife and kids stream to the ipad.
Then last night I return a movie , and find out the stores closing. ALL the stores are closing and the mail order thing will be gone by January. Shocked

This Saturday is the last day to rent, then they close for week to organize the fire sale, then next Saturday open for the inventory blow-out.
Seems surreal, I mean BB has just always been there. I remember going into the first video stores late 80's and renting VCR tapes. Then the BB's came along, anyone remember the $1. charge if you didn't rewind the tape? Surprised

Anyway, I've loved and hated BB at times, but still find it sad to see it all go. I rather liked popping in and seeing tangible things on the shelf instead of even more "cloud" services from an LCD screen. Sad

I think I need to go spin some Vinyl now.

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 7:02 pm Post subject:

Classic example of a big business that was extremely slow to react to market and competitive forces. Adapt or die. They did the latter.

Sad on one hand, but not sad on the other. Think of it like an elderly person dying or a forest fire. The old die out, it's sad, but by dying, they make way for the new. It's a rebirth of sorts.

If you still want physical discs like many of us here do, there are still places to get them, including Netflix.

I have to say... I used to mix most of my rental between Redbox and a couple of local Family Video stores. Redbox started renting games, so the box doesn't have as many movies as it did before games, which leaves you with only a few mainstream titles. Family Video is a bit of the same problem... Too much mainstream, very little indie or special-interest, and if they do have those genres, they aren't Blu-ray.

Left with little other choice, I've been watching a lot more streaming, and I have to give it a thumbs-up. The selection is FAR beyond what any mainstream physical store every carried, there's nothing to go out and get, nothing to return, and no late fees to worry about. We use both AppleTV and Vudu, and I have to say the quality is very good. AppleTV is fine for most stuff... It's far, far superior to DirecTV's HD offering picture-quality-wise, so for a lot of the stuff we watch, it's very adequate - even in the theater. Not BD, but very good!

When we wanted to take it up a notch, we've rented a few VUDU HDX movies on the Oppo... I have to say... It's DAMN close to Blu-ray. Unless you're watching a tweaked nine-inch machine with a large viewing angle, I think you're going to be hard-pressed to tell the difference.

Just trying to point out that it isn't all thorns and sadness.

SC

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Streaming is pretty limited on Netflix -- you can never stream the movies you want, just 2nd-tier movies you're not all that interested in. My understanding was that it was because once the federal requirement expired that FORCED the studios to allow streaming, they wouldn't give Netflix access to it. They kept it for themselves. Have AppleTV and Vudu worked around that so you can actually watch recent and first-run flicks?

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 7:37 pm Post subject:

draganm · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 8990 Location: Colorado

ecrabb · Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:44 pm Post subject:

**AnalogRocks** · Posted: Thu Nov 07, 2013 10:31 pm Post subject:

Man I'm going to miss Blockbuster. Especially the sale prices. 5 movies for $20 previously viewed.

I watched Blockbuster come in here back in the 80's and put all the little guys out of business. Now they're gone. Too bad.

nettwerkjohn · Posted: Mon Nov 11, 2013 9:33 am Post subject:

i hate cloud based delivery. its painful here in nz, our internet is way too flaky and the selection is crap. the biggest difference is in the sound - where is the lossless audio (which for us is a huge jump from dvd). let alone the fact that i couldn't get any of the last 3 movies that i rented on my desktop from itunes to stream to our apple tv. unimpressed. besides, what happens if the net goes down? with a disc, long as i have power i have movies...