IPTV me baby!

I got pretty excited when I heard the news that Video Ezy-Blockbuster is planning to launch an IPTV movie rental service, probably because I'm a bit of a geek, but mainly because it represented a big step forwards for an industry that has changed very little since its inception.

As a parents, the better-half and I don't get to go out that much, so the DVD shop is our friend - such a good friend that we often get the odd free rental because of the sheer volume of DVDs we rent....OK, a little bit sad I know, but I don't care. I actually like getting home on a Friday and settling in to a beer and watching a good movie, so the idea that there could be an IPTV movie rental service about to launch here in Aus is pretty appealing.

For those fellow DVD-a-holic parents, the main issues are always the same: What are we going to watch and who's going to get it? It seemed to me that the answers to both of these questions had been supplied by our new "friend", the IPTV movie rental service, but then I went digging around the net to find out a bit more. The service requires you to rent a Java-based set-top box so that you can play the movies - which is fair enough, but I'd probably prefer to by a box myself - however, the absolutely ridiculous thing is that you still need to go to the actual store to get the movie! Basically, you go to your nearest store with your iPod or other storage device and you download the movie you want and take it home, which is just - let's face it - ridiculous. Having said that, the one problem the may have solved is the availability issue, the "sorry, we're all out" response...but we don't know for sure.

MyTake - People of Video Ezy-Blockbsuter, thank you for doing this and for pulling the movie rental industry into the 21st century. But, we're big, grown-up people and we can be trusted to download the movies from a website straight to our IPTV set-top boxes. I've been saying for a while now that the future of movies is not in discs and that the video industry is going to have to do something if it is going to survive - a move like this is not only logical, it's smart. But.....why do we have to go to the stores? The only reason I can think of is the cross-sell and up-sell, i.e. the chips, soda, snacks and other movie offers. Come on guys, live the broadband dream!