Blockbuster Canada Closes Remaining Stores

[SnowmaNick]

While not a big Blockbuster fan of old, after the most recent price increase at Netflix I figured I'd give big blue a chance. So far, I'm really happy with it and hope that Canada closing it's stores doesn't really portent the demise of America's stores.

The reasons are manifest. Streaming quality is generally nowhere near as good as Blu-Ray and in many, many cases not as good as DVD. Why spend a ton of money on a home theater setup up to feed it garbage?

I also watch a lot of movies, not so much TV. Netflix, Hulu, etc, all push the heck out of TV shows on their streaming services (Hulu for very obvious reasons, as that is their business model). I don't care what happened on season three of the Office, or the Closer, or the bachelor. I do however like watching films, here physical media has a very large catalog difference compared to legal streaming sources (I'm sure I could find a ton of stuff that is pirated, but I'd personally rather not).

Streaming also adds other fee's beyond the $8 for Netflix subscriptions. I am not a heavy computer user (I don't play online games, I don't send/watch videos via the computer, etc). Normally a basic "high speed" connection is fine for all my usage (something like a 1.5 connection is blazing fast for text based pages/searches/emails). That lower connection speed however created some issues when I tried streaming via Netflix, who was by far the best streaming service I tried. The recommended fix, up my internet speed, which lead to a dramatically higher internet cost (once the "promo's" went away, my bill went from $24,95 to $55.95 plus an additional $8 month for a new modem rental fee).

Add in consideration/concerns about future media costs and availability to streaming sources, and it looks like costs will most likely go up again.

So in the end, streaming was costing me more than my old physical media plan, plus the cost of the physical media plan for a modicum of "convenience" while realizing a lower performance from my home theater in video and sound quality.

I realize that I may very well be swimming against the stream, but I doubt I am the only one here. As such, I think "video stores" and kiosk's such as RedBox fill a pretty big void for people such as myself.

 

[GranteedEV]

Back when Iron Man 2 came out, we ordered it in HD via streaming instead of going to the rental store...

Unfortunately what I got was a crude encode that made .rm files from the late 90s look about equivalent.

Last friday it was 10:40 PM and we went to go rent X-men. I get to blockbuster and find out they're having a clearance sale, no rentals anymore. I was pretty choked.

Here's hoping that Roger's Video doesn't bite the bullet. They do now have a monopoly after all.. right?

 

[kstich]

Blockbuster going out of business makes me sad. I still enjoy trips to the video store. Blockbuster was just down the street from us and made for a fun outting. I am 30 and like renting videos. The stores were usually pretty busy too. Damn you downloaders (pardon my language). This closure has nothing to do with streaming services. The business was stolen by pirates and torrents.

 

[billy p]

Back when Iron Man 2 came out, we ordered it in HD via streaming instead of going to the rental store...

Unfortunately what I got was a crude encode that made .rm files from the late 90s look about equivalent.

Last friday it was 10:40 PM and we went to go rent X-men. I get to blockbuster and find out they're having a clearance sale, no rentals anymore. I was pretty choked.

Here's hoping that Roger's Video doesn't bite the bullet. They do now have a monopoly after all.. right?

Yeah... my overall experinces having streamed HD video or renting via PPV has always fallen below my expectations..... That is why I prefer driving to our local BB or Rogers(now) and renting BRD's. It's really difficult to view any video/movie nowadays unless it's in a true format.

Given our limited choices(here in Canada)... I rather like Rogers and feel thery're the lesser of 2 evils when comparing to Bell...JMO.

 

[Freethrow14]

Totally incorrect

Please look-up Blockbuster Canada on the The Globe and Mail for a story with correct facts.

It's called "Blockbuster to pull plug in Canada"

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Blockbuster just gave me 30 days free trial membership, even though I used the same email address and home address and everything!


So now I have a month free BB membership. You guys should try too.

I just rented "The Eagle" BD via mail. Then traded in for "Hanna" via in-store trade-in.

 

[3db]

I thought BlockBuster US declared bankruptcy a year ago.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I thought BlockBuster US declared bankruptcy a year ago.

Yes, but look what happened:

"The Canadian operations had acted as a guarantor for Blockbuster's U.S. business, which went into bankruptcy protection in September and was later auctioned off for $320 million US to American satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp.. Dish did not buy Blockbuster Canada, which was left to pay the bills."

It's bizzare that Blockbuster USA gets a second life after going bankrupt, while Blockbuster Canada, which was still relatively healthy, ends up going kaput.

I dropped by my local store yesterday after work to see what they had that I might like to purchase. I felt like a scavenger picking over a roadkill carcas. I did however, pick up BDs of Snatch and Defiance for $7.50 each and Battle: Los Angles for $15. Not sure why I grabbed the last one for that price - spur of the moment decision, I suppose.

 

[3db]

Yes, but look what happened:

"The Canadian operations had acted as a guarantor for Blockbuster's U.S. business, which went into bankruptcy protection in September and was later auctioned off for $320 million US to American satellite TV provider Dish Network Corp.. Dish did not buy Blockbuster Canada, which was left to pay the bills."

It's bizzare that Blockbuster USA gets a second life after going bankrupt, while Blockbuster Canada, which was still relatively healthy, ends up going kaput.

I dropped by my local store yesterday after work to see what they had that I might like to purchase. I felt like a scavenger picking over a roadkill carcas. I did however, pick up BDs of Snatch and Defiance for $7.50 each and Battle: Los Angles for $15. Not sure why I grabbed the last one for that price - spur of the moment decision, I suppose.

Wow. Thats a dirty move by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[skizzerflake]

Today's announcement, the return of Blockbuster, will be interesting to watch. whoever bought the brand name wants to bring back BB as a streaming service, ala Neflix. Due to their movie contracts, they might end up having a lot of movie titles and they are talking about ten bucks per month. Who will win?

 

[3db]

Today's announcement, the return of Blockbuster, will be interesting to watch. whoever bought the brand name wants to bring back BB as a streaming service, ala Neflix. Due to their movie contracts, they might end up having a lot of movie titles and they are talking about ten bucks per month. Who will win?

Not us Canadian, thats for sure. We have ridiculously low bandwidth caps in Canada and increasing them costs us our left or right nut. I still the physical media any day to jitter, dropout and frozen pictures that would happen if we began to stream on mass.