New DVD Burning Kiosks Coming to Retailers Near You.
October 5, 2007 By Matthew Paulson
In an increasing number of super markets and fast food restaurants, you’ll see vending machines which allow you to rent movies for around a dollar a day. These systems are operated by an advanced computer system and are house in a kiosk about the size of a vending machine. Normally the selection is limited to around 100 titles or so, but now new technologies are being developed which will change all of that. New DVD-rental kiosks are being developed which will put nearly the entirely Blockbuster or Netflix catalog at your fingertips.
The basic premise of the technology is that instead of physically storing the DVD’s, allowing users to rent the DVDs and return them at a later date, the kiosk will instead store the information that would normally be on the DVDs onto a series of hard-drives and then burn the customer a copy of the DVD. Instead of just being able to rent DVDs as you have in the past, you’ll now be able to purchase them if you choose to as well.
Movie studios have been somewhat hesitant about allowing legally burned DVDs because of piracy concerns. They now feel they have the technology worked out so that the DVDs will not be able to be copied, whether or not savvy computer users will find away around these new copy protection schemes remains to be seen.
This second generation of DVD rental kiosks will add a lot of convenience when it comes to getting movies. Instead of having to make a second trip to Blockbuster to get the latest release, you’ll likely now be able to just get a copy when you’re buying groceries or going out to eat. It seems that Americans place a very-high value on convenience as these DVD rental kiosks have shown to be very profitable and new DVD kiosks that burn DVDs on demand will likely continue that trend.
The only remaining question is cost. There are a number of companies that plan on making these devices and even more companies placing these devices in stores, so the prices will vary somewhat. You’ll likely still pay anywhere from $1.00 to $3.00 to rent a movie, but the prices for DVDs that you can take home, keep, and add to your collection remain to be seen, although it would be very unlikely for the pricing of DVD-purchases through these machines to be much different than that if you were to purchase a DVD from a big-box retailer.
