Kiosk.net

TELeasy has announced the release of its latest DVD rental kiosk, the Mini Quik Flik, a modular system that takes less than square feet of of floor space and can store up to 300 DVD discs. The kiosk accepts credit card payments for rentals and purchases, and it also allows rental customers to return the DVD to the kiosk.

The Mini Quick Flik is meant for “smaller locations like gas-stations where space is limited” and will be sold “to many vending machine operators that simply could not justify” TELeasy’s standard Quik Flik DVD vending kiosk.

More product details as well as an unsatisfactory software demonstration can be found at TELeasy’s web site.

TELeasy Mini Quik Flik press release.

According to recent reports, Toshiba is planning to release two HD-DVD players in Europe that are expected to retail in the ballpark of 599 to 999 euros ($768-$1,280). Toshiba says that the dramatic price increase (one can find a Toshiba HD-DVD player in America for as low as $499) is due to the fact that these players are slimmer and have more features than do ones released to the American market last spring.

This is the most recent move in the fight to the death between the HD-DVD (cheaper) and Blu-Ray (more storage capacity) formats, as manufacturers are obviously not listening to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ pleas for format agnosticism. In the first six weeks after the release of the respective technologies, HD-DVD had a 33% sales advantage over Blu-Ray players (which were released by Samsung and will be released by Sony in October–see here), but the sales of both technologies have disappointed.

[Via Reuters]

Apple recently announced that it will be holding a special press event on September 12th, leading many to speculate that the meeting will be a long-anticipated product launch. Number one on the wish-list for Apple enthusiasts is the the announcement of an iTunes-fueled movie downloading service, which has been rumored about for months. If this service is finally made official, we should also expect the announced release of new iPods with better video capabilities.

Wal-Mart, of course, is not happy about this impending service from Apple, as it will not only assuredly cut into their DVD sales, but will also affect their plan to offer their own movie downloading service in the near future. The recent kicker is that Apple is expected to offer downloads for less money than the wholesale price Wal-mart has to pay studios for the rights to sell DVDs in-store.

In an attempt to flex its retail muscle, Wal-mart (which accounts for roughly 40% of national DVD sales) is pushing studios to drop wholesale prices and is trying to discourage them from forming licensing agreements with Apple by threatening to not sell certain titles.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. (Actually, scratch that. Screw Wal-mart. I hope they get smoked on this.)

Thanks to JK on the Run.

British director Gabriel Range has made a documentary-style drama entitled “Death of a President,” which explores the consequences of the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush. While the film’s announced premise has already generated controversy, the buzz has been increased by the fact Range doctors real footage of Bush with CGI in order to realistically portray the assassination.

The film’s first screening with be at the 31st Toronto Film Festival, held next week. In response to charges that the film aims only at sensationalism, festival director Noah Cowan has commented: “Range simply seeks to explore the potential consequences that might follow from the president’s policies and actions.”

Click here for the festival website and schedule and here for the story at CTV.ca.

A recent article in USA Today by Gloria Goodale of the Christian Science Monitor uses Netflix’s screening of Clint Eastwood’s “Escape from Alcatraz” at the long-defunct island prison as a starting point for a discussion of how Netflix has changed consumer behavior. The article goes on to discuss, however, how Netflix will soon be facing challenges from newer distribution models like video downloading.

Branding expert Morris Reid accounts for the recent dip in Netflix stock (which was the result of the company’s failure to meet analysts’ predictions for the last quarter) by pointing out that “the biggest challenge for Netflix is distraction” from its primary role as a content-delivery firm. Sponsoring film festivals or concerts is better suited for the Netflix brand, and while the Roadshow stops may have been unique, they are a “waste of time and money.”

These sentiments are mainly in agreement with those expressed several weeks ago by Kiosk.net contributor Megamark, who makes the further point that dragging people out of the house may ultimately be contrary to Netflix’s mission. I agree with this when in comes to popular classics, all of which were seen in droves by theater-goers, but when it comes to sponsoring things like indie film festivals (as suggested by Reid), Netflix would be well served to simply have its name connected with that of Sundance, etc. After all, these sorts of films are simply not available to most viewers in a theatre-setting, thereby making Netflix the only option.

In any case, this seems to be Netflix’s strategy, as it has actively sought to become the go-to content provider for the indie movie biz.

Peter Jackson has just announced that he will be producing a remake of the British war film “Dam Busters.” The film chronicles the development and use of bouncing bombs to blow up German dams WWII. The original film, which Jackson admired as a boy (the original was released almost a decade before he was born, in 1954), suffered from the fact that much of the information about the actual military project had still been classified by the Royal Air Force. This is not the case anymore, which should mean that Jackson’s version will certainly be an improvement in terms of historical authenticity.

Jackson had looked into doing this project a decade ago but was surprised to find out that the rights to the film had already been purchased by Mel Gibson, who planned to direct and star in a remake. This remake, of course, never happened, given Jackson the opportunity to bring on Christian Rivers, the animation director of King Kong, to direct the sure-to-be blockbuster.

As much as I’d like to see Peter Jackson give us an entirely original generation-defining epic, the likes of which we could expect from a young Speilberg or Lucas (emphasis on ‘young’ in both cases), the quality of both LOTR and King Kong have to make you excited about anything Jackson’s name is attached to. It seems, however, that Jackson’s taste for films that aren’t remakes or adaptations of classic novels or video games is limited to smaller projects like “Heavenly Creatures” and “The Lovely Bones” (or camp-horror–like his earlier films).

[Via Playfuls.com]

I have commented before on Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’ call for format agnosticism regarding Toshiba’s HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray technology. Now that Sony has pushed back the American release of its Blu-Ray DVD players to October, Hastings has reiterated this demand, citing the presence of consumer anxiety in the face of competing formats that will assuredly dampen DVD sales for both Toshiba and Sony. And to make matters worse, Samsung apparently has a third type of Hi-Def DVD player on the market (although it is almost impossible to find).

I think Hastings is completely correct. Unless Sony, Toshiba, and maybe even Samsung, get on the same page with this, Hi-Def DVD technology will never be embraced. Consumers need to be confident that in buying a new type of DVD player they are not buying another Sega Saturn, MiniDisc Player, Panasonic 3DO, or any other destined-to-fail piece of home entertainment technology.

[Via Net Music Countdown]

According to this just-published press release, the features on Netflix’s website will now include a previews section that filters trailers in accordance with the user’s rental history and assumed preferences. You can watch this uninterrupted stream of trailers for as long as you want, and even add films to your queue directly from the “Previews” interface. As of now, there are 1,000 trailers available for viewing, but Netflix hopes to bump that number up to 10,000 by year end.

I like the idea of showing a steady stream of random trailers; it makes it feel like you’re at the movies. But good luck trying to cater to my random scatter-shot movie interests (although I guess my eclectic taste could actually be easier to ‘figure out,’ given that they could reasonably show me just about any trailer).

Looks like there is another player in the internet-rental forum. The recently launched Creepyflix.com prides itself on being able to satisfy the demands of horror and sci-fi fans looking to rent harder-to-find titles and editions of their favorite, most disturbing movies. A review and discussion of the service at Cinematical.com suggests that the site is a tad bit better than Netflix for hardcore creepy movie fans, although delivery times are unavoidably longer. My guess it that Netflix doesn’t see sites like this as a threat (most of the comments at Cinematical are given by people who have accounts with both companies) but as the offspring of its wonderfully successful rental model.

I just came across a cool little Netflix-based software application for Macs that allows you to more efficiently and conveniently navigate and arrange your queue than is possible via the standard Netflix interface. Full use of the Netflix Freak application only costs $15 (you get a free 30-day trial period). It allows users to organize their queues via dropping-and-dragging or cutting-and-pasting, make notes to themselves, work with several queues at once, and more. I don’t have a Mac so I haven’t been able to try the app myself but it sounds like a great idea.

Click here for reviews, information, screenshots, and to download Netflix Freak 2.4.3.