ReelTime another nail in the coffin, but the video store refuses to die

Adam Turner
Wednesday, 06 December 2006 06:30

Your IT - Entertainment

Personal Video Recorders are also knobbled by the fact networks refuse to share their program schedules - which are useless anyway as they refuse to start programs on time. This has encouraged tech-savvy people to use the internet as a form of Video on Demand, downloading DVD-quality scary movies and TV shows watching them, ad-free, when they please. When sharing, or stealing as some like to call it, becomes mainstream perhaps networks will stop treating viewers like zombies.

IPTV is yet another threat to the video store, with Australian ISP Internode recently beefing up its ADSL2+ network before embarking on an IPTV push.

My local video store is also fending off an attack from the post office down the road. Online services like Quickflix and Telstra's Bigpond Movies deliver your favourite slasher flicks to your door. You can only have a few out at once but there are no return dates, thus no late fines. Delivery is free and they even supply a replied paid envelope for returning them. Of course this still involves getting off your butt and finding a post box, a horrifying thought for the people they're targeting - those who can't be bothered finding a video shop.

If they could resurrect Freddy Kruger for seven Nightmare On Elm Street movies and a short-lived television series, they can always squeeze another sequel out of Video on Demand. The Return of the VoD is screening in Canberra, with local telco TransACT's Anytime Movies on Demand. If you were stuck in Canberra you'd be hoping there was something better on the telly than the comedy re-runs from parliament house.

TransACT's high-speed DSL network can pump data into Canberra homes over phone lines more than 60 times faster than standard aDSL. This allows TransACT to offer true Video on Demand -- you push the button and the movie starts straight away with full DVD-like controls. Some "Video near Demand" providers really just screen The Sixth Sense every 15 minutes and expect you to wait for the next one to start, while others like ReelTime expect you to download the whole movie before you begin watching it.

The video rental industry is watching all these new services closely but, from my chats with Video Ezy, they believe rumours of the video store's demise have been exaggerated. Video stores will survive the competition, just as record stores survived the music industry's battle against file sharing. The success online music retailers such as Apple's iTunes proves the movie industry should take electronic delivery seriously. Players like Video Ezy are branching into electronic delivery models in the hope these offerings will exist alongside video stores, rather than replace them.

So, in true horror movie tradition, the video store at the end of my street once more refuses to die.