Posted on 12/31/2008 7:40:09 AM PST by Troll_House_Cookies
Blockbuster. Are they still owned by Viacommie? Parent corp to SeeBS, VH1, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, LOGO, and the publisher of Hillary Clinton’s autobiography?
It depends on the quality of your Internet connection.
I use a cell phone modem, which is a very slow connection, but the movies are watchable.
If you want HiDef, nothing can beat the free OTA broadcasts of your local TV stations. It's the best signal there is, because bandwidth is not an issue and the transmissions are uncompressed. Cable, satellite and Internet real-time quality will never come close.
I will NEVER buy it if I cannot hold it in my hand and use it whenever I want... they can jam this download Pay Per View you know where!
LLS
Agree completely. Who do they think they are? The Auto Companies?
4 bucks a download, and a 24 hour restriction on viewing = I'll go someplace else or just pick up a DVD. At least I can take my time to watch in most cases.
Lately I've just been holding off until the flicks I want to see are $5 at Walmart, then I own the thing and don't have to worry about it.
By the time I migrated to Blu Ray, I had over 700 DVDs. My daughter had a fantastic garage sale with them.
I'm not that bad (Nearly maybe..). ;)
What might get my attention: $2 per movie, they go on a menu, remain for 30 days and I can watch as many times as I wish.
Not against innovation or free enterprise, I simply will not be ripped off for somebody to do it.
Redbox is a buck for 24 hours.
Yea, I'm cheap. I can buy mo'guns that way. ;)
No, they are more than that. You have to drive to get them, drive to take them back. I make my living charging for my time and gas while down, still costs. ;)
I'm full of excuses... Or Something... ;)
Normally, I pick them up when I’m at the store for something I need so I don’t factor in the other costs.
Dad drops them off on the way home from work.
What’s nifty about the Redbox $1 movie rentals is that you can rent from any Redbox and return to any Redbox. When we moved across country last summer with our two children, (6 and 10), we had a dvd player in the car to entertain the kids for the hours of driving from Pennsylvania to Washington State. (With side trips to New Hampshire and Louisiana to see family). We could rent a few dvds from a redbox, then at night search online for a redbox enroute the next day to swap them out for freshies.
What are the loopholes?
the setbox top concept has been tried.
It is going nowhere fast. It is going to be the same as those self destructing DVD that walmart or best buy tried.
Didn’t realize this.....Thanks!
I stopped going to Blockbuster awhile back. I got tired of their anti-conservative lefty political excrement that they had prominently displayed on their rental shelves.
My computer is hooked up to my 50" high-def flat screen plasma. This is the wave of the future.
You can rip DVDs to your hard drive and create a library to watch on demand (and you don't have to worry about breaking or damaging the DVD disk.)
You can use your PC as a DVR and record shows (cheaper and more fexible than TIVO.)
You can watch content from the internet (more full movies and TV shows are becomming available, including good free sites like hulu.)
It is cheaper to install a blu-ray drive in a PC (<$100) than buy a standalone one (200-300).
Windows Media Center is darned good (a potential "killer app" over time.)
You need two cards.
1. A video/sound card with a HDMI output (I found a Radeon card for about $60, just make sure it is one that has the HDMI port on it. Plug the card into your computer, install drivers, and connect it to your TV via the HDMI port.
2. A TV tuner card (Hauppauge makes good cards $70-$110.) Install in your PC and hook cable input (or antenna) to it. Windows Media Center shoud recognize it as a tuner. Now you can watch TV on your computer.
Ther other thing you want to do is add a seperate drive to hold you recorded content (DO NOT record TV and save programs to your c: drive, you will live to regret it.) The external usb/firewire drives work fine (and at about $100 per TB they are a good cost option also.)
For $300 max, you can turn you PC into an entertainment center. The options becomming available via the internet are jumping by leaps and bounds. It won't be long before not having an internet entertainment center will be like not having cable (which, imho, will eventually be replaced by the internet.)
I use Amazon. The rentals are $1 to $3.50 and you can watch instantly. I have never had a problem with their service.
The way I do it on my TV is a hacked AppleTV
with XBMC and Boxee loaded.Tons of free movies
and TV shows new and old
Hope Hulu has Netfix soon
I don’t suppose us poor rural saps on dial-up can use it?
Wow - thanks for that. Good stuff to know.
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