interestrateripoff Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Sign of the past? DVD rental chain Blockbuster Entertainment has gone into administration again. In March it was sold to private equity firm Gordon Brothers Europe but has suffered from poor trading since. Breaking news on the BBC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomandlu Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Breaking news on the BBC. Isn't the model intrinsically dead? I really don't get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 They need hire prices Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCountOfNowhere Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 They need hire prices They are to be renamed. Block-Bust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
19 year mortgage 8itch Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Not so sweet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darwin Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Didn't even know they were still going. The nearest one to us turned into a Tesco ages ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quicken Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Ghostbusters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecrashingisles Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 (edited) BTL DVDs not matching BTL houses then. Blockbuster should just stick it out and wait for capital appreciation to bail them out. They need to be in it for the long term. Edited October 29, 2013 by thecrashingisles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eddie_George Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 LOL! An imbecile could tell you that DVD Rental was dead. Someone must've made a lot of money trying to keep this going. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Executive Sadman Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 shame. They seem to be the last remaining workplace one can find the pre-hipster/trendy/annoyingtwat/glee genuine nerd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spot Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Shame.... I sort of enjoyed having a browse through the racks for something interesting whilst waiting for an Indian takeaway (opposite our local Blockbuster) to be cooked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spxy Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Hope they can find a way to restart, picture quality on all of the video steaming networks is awful... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Hope they can find a way to restart, picture quality on all of the video steaming networks is awful... Finding Netflix and Now TV box (sky News and iPlayer) pretty good. As always its down to quality of the broadband (being a Council scuzzer 60 Mbit fibre here ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dryrot Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 (edited) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nightmare_on_Face_Time Edited October 29, 2013 by dryrot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spxy Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Finding Netflix and Now TV box (sky News and iPlayer) pretty good. As always its down to quality of the broadband (being a Council scuzzer 60 Mbit fibre here ) I have 60 Mbit broadband and a good quality 42" screen TV , streaming is no where near DVD quality let alone blueray ..bbc iPlayer is particular bad.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozen_out Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I have 60 Mbit broadband and a good quality 42" screen TV , streaming is no where near DVD quality let alone blueray ..bbc iPlayer is particular bad.... I get HD quality iPlayer and Netflix down a 30MB connection, although iPlayer is admittedly patchy and some of the legacy BBC content on Netflix has been compressed to within an inch of its life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saving For a Space Ship Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 (edited) Isn't the model intrinsically dead? I really don't get it. Maybe P.E. firm bought if for the tax losses, like Comet Comet investor seeks to 'buy' losses http://www.insolvencynews.com/article/15453/corporate/comet-investor-seeks-to-buy-losses The former owners of Comet are reportedly in talks to buy’ the collapsed electrical retailer’s tax losses.The Mail on Sunday reports private equity firm Hailey Acquisitions Limited intends to use £27m of Comet tax losses to offset against its own profits. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) was left with a £50m tax bill following Comet’s collapse – £27m in unpaid taxes and £23? million in redundancy payments to staff. Hailey Acquisitions, a vehicle set up by OpCapita and other investors to acquire Comet, has previously been reported to have gained up to £60m from the retailer’s demise. Companies that lose money one year are able to offset them against profits the next – in some cases it is possible to buy another company’s losses to offset against profits. Hailey Acquisitions bought Comet for just £2 from Darty plc in February 2012, as well as a receiving £50m investment from Darty. Edited October 29, 2013 by Saving For a Space Ship Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workingpoor Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I'll have a 'D' please Bob.......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I'll have a 'D' please Bob.......... what D is a Dodo, or a well known DVD hire Company? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wonderpup Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 This is like one of those movies where the corpse springs momentarily back to life just before the credits roll- Blockbuster has been dead for a long time- the one near me went dark a year or more ago and still sits empty. It's incredible to me that the company that had the Branding and the Consumer base to become Netflix chose instead to cling to it's outdated model- but there is precedent for this- it was a guy working for Kodak's R&D who brought them an early prototype digital camera- they chose to ignore it on the basis that their strong position in film would be undermined by diluting it with such speculative technology. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnionTerror Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Hope they can find a way to restart, picture quality on all of the video steaming networks is awful... I was thinking about Blockbuster on-demand....I find Netflix really useful on slower broadband speeds...My broadband can waver up and down, so whereas iplayer would buffer if I'm struggling to get 2 meg, Netflix adjusts the amount the bandwidth it needs...doesn't noticeably effect the quality either...I know that it isn't going to be blu-ray quality anyway... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workingpoor Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 The other big thing with this other than Netflix etc is that for more than a few years now you can pick up a top title DVD in your local super market while you shop for not much more than what blockbuster we're charging to hire it and you get to keep it! another business model nailed by the big supermarkets!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I was thinking about Blockbuster on-demand....I find Netflix really useful on slower broadband speeds...My broadband can waver up and down, so whereas iplayer would buffer if I'm struggling to get 2 meg, Netflix adjusts the amount the bandwidth it needs...doesn't noticeably effect the quality either...I know that it isn't going to be blu-ray quality anyway... Netflix uses Silverlight. Maybe its better than Flash (iPlayer etc) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozen_out Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 Netflix uses Silverlight. Maybe its better than Flash (iPlayer etc) That's my understanding of Netflix, it adapts to the bandwidth you have available. It's a triumph really, they're well positioned to become a massive success over the next 25 years. You got to have unblock.us with it though The other big thing with this other than Netflix etc is that for more than a few years now you can pick up a top title DVD in your local super market while you shop for not much more than what blockbuster we're charging to hire it and you get to keep it! another business model nailed by the big supermarkets!! Word. Why rent, when you can buy a top title for about £3 in Tesco? It's incredible to me that the company that had the Branding and the Consumer base to become Netflix chose instead to cling to it's outdated model- but there is precedent for this- it was a guy working for Kodak's R&D who brought them an early prototype digital camera- they chose to ignore it on the basis that their strong position in film would be undermined by diluting it with such speculative technology. Same happened at Polaroid, in fact if I'm not mistaken Polaroid actually invented the digital camera. or at least the neccesary hardware. What they couldn't get their heads round was that people would prefer to look at their snaps on a screen rather than physical media. I guess what they didn't predict was the ultra-fast development and penetration of small, high resolution display devices. Thinkining about it, maybe the JPEG didn't kill Polaroid, it was actually the flat screen TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Masked Tulip Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I was wondering today whether Mountain Warehouse is going the same way perhaps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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