WOW…Slum Dog Millionaire for $1

After looking for the “Pure Cane Sugar” Coke tonight at the local Harris Teeter, I decided to check out the Redbox by the exit which boasted $1 rentals.  I was thinking with todays marketing schemes like “up to 50% OFF,” or the Mega Bus $1 fares (If you book 3 years in advance.), that the $1 rental would be reserved for “The Breakfast Club” and other old classic movies.  I decided to research these mysterious “Red Boxes” when I got home.  I discovered that the machines are loaded weekly and DVDs are reserved online.

$7 Previewed DVDs

For those of you that don’t know, I tend to buy great movies the day they come out to get the best price, and for other movies that I like….wait until they go to the “3 for $20” or “4 for $20” at Blockbuster.  So when I saw $7 for a relatively new movie “Bolt,” I swiped my debit card….and in a few moments, out popped by DVD.  While it came in a rental box with no cover art or inserts, I did get a genuine DVD!  

My Idea…..

I was thinking that the machine would burn DVDs on the spot which would simply require a network connection or a server of digital movies inside with a high speed DVD burner.  This way there would be no need to reserve movies online, and the kiosk would never be out of a title and have every title!  I would rely on Light Scribe to provide the DVD label and not sure about the sales.  

Perhaps I would make DVDs that would work for a few days and expire like current rentals available at some truck stops across the country..I actually bought one for $4.99 to see if it indeed become unreadable after 72 hours…and it did!  If this was the case, I would put a deposit on the DVDs….once they were returned, and recycled, the deposit, probably $3 would be refunded to you.

Another option, sell the DVDs as the Redbox does.

Perhaps DVD burning is not fast enough yet, or the industry would not allow such media to be created, but my idea really is very easy and low maintenance!  All that you would need to do is stock blank DVDs and sleeves, probably paper or cardboard which is very recyclable, and update the machine with new movies if not directly connected to a high speed network connection.  The high speed connection would be the best actually.  I would have the new titles downloaded in the early morning to be cached on the server for instant burning.

So..not sure that I will subscribe, though it seems very nice at this point if there is no monthly charge, I may be stopping by to check out the “previewed” collection as they all cost $7.