Blockbuster’s war against Online and mail DVD giant Netflix continues, with the introduction of a new set top box. The service will supply movies to your TV on demand.

And the great news is that it;s free! Well, there is a small catch, you have to agree to rent 25 movies for $99 and in return will get a brand spanking new set top box which shows movies straight from the Internet in DVD quality instantly.

It’s been a long time coming as Blockbuster watched its rivals surging ahead in the internet tv on demand service.

Blockbuster chief exec. Jim Keyes commented:- “Our goal is to be able to deliver whatever movie a customer wants to watch to whatever screen they want to watch it on in whatever format they want to receive it,”

There will be an initial selection of around 2000 movies to choose from with the new On Demand rental setup.

After you have used up your first 25 movies, the cost will be between $1.99 to $3.99 per rental.

Users can select from an on screen menu, and the title will download instantly and be ready to view in under a minute.

The quality will rival that of DVDs, say Blockbuster officials, and a limited number of high definition (HD) titles will be even better quality.

Blockbuster’s initial selection for their On Demand system trails its rivals including Amazon, Apple and Netflix. These companies offer tens of thousands of movie rentals on demand.

The Netflix system supplies over 10,000 titles to download and also provides free content to anyone who buys a compatible box and subscribes to its mail DVD rental service.

The difference according to Blockbuster is that the titles offered by their rivals tend to be many months to many years old. Movies from Blockbuster on the other hand, will have movies available on the service at the same time they reach video stores and get almost every fresh title the same day it hits DVDs.

The new Blockbuster On Demand service isnt expected to be a major revenue generator for the immediate future however.

The entire video on demand industry generated just $1.5 billion in revenue last year, while DVD sales and rentals totaled $22 billion.

Blockbuster, after a slow start in on demand TV has now embraced it with open arms and wants to provide customers with more options than its rivals. In July, the company used technology it acquired from the purchase of Movielink to allow users to download movies to PC.

Also planned is an in store kiosk that will burn any of its thousands of titles onto a blank DVD or portable player. This will allow stores to carry unlimited copies of every movie.

Wireless connection of all users home screens is another plan.

“Once you find a way to connect more devices to the Internet, all sorts of interesting possibilities open up,” said Keith Morrow, Blockbuster’s chief information officer.

“The coolest stuff is still a few years out, but the services we’re rolling out now will make life better for a lot of our customers.” to deliver its own set-top box before the end of the year, and it’s free—that is, as long as you’re willing to cough up $99 in “advance” rentals first.

Due to be shipped for the holiday season the HDMI and Wi-Fi enabled 2Wire MediaPoint player will put Blockbuster in direct competition with the likes of Apple TV, Vudu, and Netflix’s $99 Roku streaming player.

Rental policies are similar to those on Apple TV and Vudu; you get a 24 hour viewing window, and rental prices range from $1.99 for bargain titles to $3.99 for new releases.

Its going to be a bloody battle for the on demand TV market and another army have just joined.

worldtvpc.com

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