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 Commentary Fock You, Blockbuster! By Swanni Washington, D.C. (August 26, 2011) -- I have been a longtime supporter of the Blu-ray high-def disc; the format delivers the best HD picture in the world, far better than any cable, satellite or telco service. The colors are remarkably vivid and Blu-ray's detail is so lifelike that you could fool yourself into thinking you're sitting next to the director while he films the action. But my recent experience with Blockbuster Video and its kiosk sister, Blockbuster Express, has me questioning whether Blu-ray's future could be in jeopardy. For background, I live in North Beach, Maryland, a small town along the Chesapeake Bay which is about a 45 minute drive from Washington, D.C. There is no Blockbuster retail store -- or any other video store -- in my town or in my neighboring community of Chesapeake Beach. In fact, the closest video store is about 20 miles away. So as you can already guess, I don't rent many Blu-ray movies at retail. But what about a kiosk, you ask? Well, there is a Blockbuster Express kiosk in Chesapeake Beach, which is a five minute drive from my home. The kiosk has been there for roughly a year which is nice considering the lack of a video store nearby. But here's the problem. In the last several months, the Blockbuster Express kiosk in good old Chesapeake Beach has either not carried a single Blu-ray title or carried just one -- Little Fockers, that dog of a comedy starring Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro.  Little Fockers: I'm not laughing. That's it. One Blu-ray title. And it's not even a good one. It's Little Fockers for fock sake. So a few weeks ago, I broke down and called Blockbuster Express to complain. I told the customer service rep that my local kiosk had only one Blu-ray title and I would like to see more. She said she would refer my complaint to a "technician" and started to hang up by saying, "Thanks for calling." "But, wait," I interrupted. "I haven't told you the location of my kiosk yet. How are you going to refer my complaint if you don't know where the kiosk is?" She hung up on me. I called back and got another customer service rep who was much nicer, but somehow couldn't find Chesapeake Beach, Maryland on a map. I said she could certainly find it using any search engine, but she kept saying, "That's weird. I don't even see Chesapeake Beach on our kiosk list." She said she would investigate and try to resolve the situation -- and I have to give her some credit. Two weeks later, the kiosk has changed. Now, Little Fockers isn't even available on Blu-ray; there are now no Blu-ray titles in the kiosk. Okay, go ahead and say it. This is just one kiosk in one town. But in Dunkirk, Maryland, which is about 10 miles from my home (and it's the closest kiosk to me after Chesapeake Beach), the Redbox kiosk has had just a handful of Blu-ray titles over the last several months. Now I'm sure you could find a kiosk in a big city overflowing with Blu-ray titles, but my guess is that a lot of small to midsize towns are coming up short. My point here is that it's getting increasingly difficult to rent a Blu-ray movie. Video stores are closing and kiosks are unreliable. And Netflix? How long do you have to wait for a new Blu-ray movie? Too damn long; the company clearly isn't investing very heavily in Blu-ray inventory. It's hoping that the whole world goes streaming sooner than later. If this doesn't change, more and more people will figure out how to connect their Net TVs and Net-enabled devices to stream the latest videos directly to their home. Sure, the HD picture isn't as good as Blu-ray, but it's good enough that you'll watch it rather than drive yourself fockers trying to rent that elusive high-def disc. |
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