I am intrigued

Because I'm so often in Biggs, I noticed a while back a new bit of vending technology near the checkouts: a redbox.

It seems that somebody has created a Frankensteinian DVD rental machine to compete with the online, to-your-mailbox presence of Netflix.

The machines seems to be simple enough. You pick from their fairly limited selection of new releases (not much of an older stock that I can find - particlarly since every movie they stock has to be sitting inside the in-store vending machines. You sweep your credit card, and the DVD drops down (at least I assume that's how it works - I haven't tried it m'self as I continue to frequent a less espensive source for my videos). You can then drop the DVD back into any redbox location where, I'm guessing that charge is totalled ($1 per day plus taxes, days end at 7pm).

It's an interesting idea and one that could be marvelous in certain circumstances. Imagine you're in an airport with your laptop and want something to watch on the flight. Simple enough: you pop into a redbox, drop your $1, kill some plane time, and drop the movie into another redbox at the other end of the flight.

To quote their website...

That's right. Rent a DVD at any redbox. Rent a few. Doesn't matter. Here's the deal: You don't have to return it to the same redbox. Just another great part of renting your DVD's from redbox. Hey, as we expand in Minneapolis, Houston, and more cities, you can even - get this - rent one in Denver and return it in the Twin Cities. Now that's convenience, my friends.

Well, they're now beyond those few cities, but they're not exactly ubiquitous

Here in the Cincy area, there are something like nine redbox machines, all in Biggs grocery stores and all along a loop around the area. With this low a density of machines, I'm not sure it's an improvement to "return it to any redbox location" just yet.

And their selections seem pretty limited, only offering about thirty different rentals at any one time (and many of those being multi-DVD sets that rent as different DVDs - like the current four-disc My Name is Earl).

There are folks who like the idea, and it's getting some online press. Others, however, are fully jazzed about the possibilities in two particular areas...

It turns out that Redbox is a wholly-owned subsidiary of McDonald's Corporation, which was a delightful surprise: while McDonald's might not be where I personally go for something to eat, I certainly recognize that it's an omnipresent company with a remarkable reach into both our society and culture. Who better to tilt at the windmill of traditional DVD rental than a multi-billion dollar mainstay of the corporate world beloved by millions of people?

...

Even more interesting is the potential impact on companies like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video because one of the main costs of running a rental store is the square footage: if you could have the entire store automated and have a simple kiosk delivering up the individual films, you could theoretically offer thousands of popular movies in a fraction of the real estate. Less overhead = lower prices or higher margins. (Meanwhile, Blockbuster and Hollywood Video still require that you return your rental to the same outlet you rented it, a ridiculous limitation in this day of high-speed pervasive networking and highly automated systems0

Just for a moment, also imagine what it would be like if the Redbox kiosks could produce self-destructing DVDs (e.g., 72-hour DivX, for example) as an option so you wouldn't even have to bother returning them. Now it's just a matter of hard disk space within the kiosk computer: the system could foreseeably have a library of tens of thousands of movies, erasing one limitation of the system. Since you'd never have to return them, they can be less pervasive too: $1 for a regular DVD or, say, $2.50 for a self-destructing DVD would be a lovely set of options.

It's kind of similar in idea (and oddly, in name, too) to a DVD rental chain down in New Zealand and Australia: redroomdvds.

It's all kinda cool, but I'll be intrigued to see whether it takes off.