If you’re a chronic DVD (or Blu-ray) renter, you’ll be less than impressed by today’s news that Warner Bros is looking to extend the delay between DVD sales and rentals from 28 days to 56. This could be the end of DVD rentals as we know it.
Although Warner is yet to make an official announcement, The Associated Press is reporting that the entertainment company is looking to make its official announcement at CES this week.
The move is largely to counter dropping profits in the the US from the likes of Netflix and Redbox. It’s not immediately clear how it will influence Australian companies like Quickflix, but it’s certainly not going to benefit the consumer.
AP expects other DVD companies to follow suit, which could very well end DVD rentals altogether. Do you think it will come to that?
[via Brisbane Times]
Jackson Bison
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:11 AMSmart move – increase the motivation to download…
Daniel
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 8:00 PMThank god they already are trying to stop any and all downloading in america…
Extending dvd rental release should make america happy!
olearymo
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:30 AMer… how is this going to make them money, again?
Barry
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:14 AMI can only guess that a delay in rentals will give WB the chance to gain money from Blu-Ray or even the download movie web site that they are creating or are in partnership with.
Timmahh
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:30 AMI’ve never actually downloaded any movies, I prefer to rent and rip from there for the quality. I may have to change that now though! Just as well I have a “BT Guard” subscription then isn’t it?
olearymo
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 1:25 PMwell said, i have a similar policy. That way, the dvd rental place is getting profits, which means they continue to buy the dvds, which means I’m still supporting the industry.
Call me a goodie goodie if you like, but if noone buys things noone makes them. The only things I download are things I *can’t* legally get.
Timmahh
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 2:30 PMEh, I’m no idealist. I just like getting the best quality for my viewing pleasure! Otherwise I would be downloading movies like I do TV shows.
olearymo
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 4:52 PMwell I guess that’s up to you, just as it’s up to you to throw garbage out the window of your car. Just don’t complain when the road’s covered in garbage.
Timmahh
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 5:09 PMWTF? Garbage out the window? What is your problem man?
klaw
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:31 AMGood way to ensure movies get torrented instead – talk about self-defeating, these guys are their own worst enemies.
Dan Miller
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:33 AMI have not rented a DVD in over 5 years. I just buy what I want to watch these days. Torrenting of content is not all it’s cracked up to be.
mango
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:35 AMDang this sucks. I love to rent DVD/Blu Ray’s because they always have specials and $2 new releases at Video Ezy. So much cheaper than renting from iTunes or Bigpond.
tc
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7:52 AMI agree! There’s a reason I have Tuesday off- it’s $1 movie rental day! We usually rent at least 1 per week…
Dj_Noc88
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:16 AMINCORRECT
“Warner Bros Looking To Delay DVD Rentals By 56 Days”
CORRECT
“Entertainment
Warner Bros Looking To Delay DVD Rentals “TO” 56 Days
OR
Entertainment
Warner Bros Looking To Delay DVD Rentals By 28 Days
Lol incorrect titles annoy me! lol
Dr Zoidberg
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 3:29 PMYou’re complaining about text that annoys you and book ending your comments with Lol?
Daniel
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:57 AMFox were going to trial doing this with the release of ‘In Time’. The BD and Combo packs were going to be released on 29th February with the DVD following 2 weeks later. For some reason they have reversed this decision.
It won’t completely kill the rental industry but it will cripple it. Most movie releases are coming in Combo packs now so a lot of rental stores just by those instead. At the store I work at we get 15-20 combo packs of the big titles and then split them up into DVD and BD rentals separately. We only put 3 or so BD copies to rental and sell the spare ones for below RRP. Digital copies get sold of for a few bucks as well.
Daniel
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:00 AMSo what I was getting at is that rental stores will still be able to rent out DVD copies if this becomes the norm.
Simon
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:26 AMThis is not relevant to Australia. We have day and date simultaneous retail and rental releases here.
The only windows we get are in favour to rentals (usually a month where its not available to buy) and that is usually with crappy DTV titles.
Cameron
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 1:02 PMI’m pretty sure they can’t do this kind of thing in Australia.
Vaporeon
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 3:20 PMGood, cause’ I don’t want to lose my job.
Kroo
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:18 PMWith pirating on the rise, this is just dumb. Shoot yourself in the foot while the war wages around you. The better access people have to first release movies, and quicker, the better. If they see it in their video store or on the shelf to buy they have a better chance of paying for it than downloading it. If you don’t give the people what they want, they’ll find it elsewhere. WB needs to get its head out of its ass and step into the 21st century.