DVD, Blu-Ray

Disney Revamping Website to Stream Movies

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*Image taken from http://allthingsd.com

Not a day goes by without news from the major studios announcing their new digital initiatives – and Friday was no exception.  Disney announced they will be revamping their website to be able to handle selling movies via VOD, SVOD and Ad-Supported streaming – and that the user will have the option to pay using PayPal, among other methods.

At a technology conference, CEO Bob Iger stated, “We have a unique opportunity as Disney because it really is the only true global entertainment brand…” He added, “People go to Disney because they know its brand. We believe we have an opportunity to go with our content directly to the consumer.”

This should be a big move, considering the brand that is DISNEY.  Their bread and butter will continue to be video sales via hard goods for the next few years but this puts them in an advantageous position to provide newer release content to their own platform and stagger their distribution to other platforms. However, it remains to be seen whether or not those are the actual plans for Disney considering they’ve always been in favor of a wider distribution model approach, often monetizing from every platform they can get their hands on (as opposed to Warner).  Regardless of what they decide to do with availability windows, I’m sure they’ll be able to get a good portion of potential consumers to the disney.com site due to the name.  The direct to consumer approach will also play into their favor if they decide to get their ‘Cloud’ service off the ground and give consumers a “watch anywhere” option.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE IGER INTERVIEW AT “ALL THINGS DIGITAL”

Dish to NCR: Drop “Blockbuster” label from Kiosks

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Interesting story over at Home Media Magazine. Apparently Dish (now owner of Blockbuster) has asked/demanded that the kiosk giant NCR stop using the Blockbuster brand on its kiosks. NCR up until now has used the Blockbuster brand on their kiosk to distribute DVDs and Blu-Ray in convenience, pharmacy and grocery locations across the nation. This will most likely result in NCR changing the name and undertaking an updated branding campaign for the new kiosk label – unless the two sides can come up with some sort of agreement.

Personally, I think the existing NCR kiosks are a lot better than Redbox’s kiosks. Redbox pioneered the DVD kiosks and I think NCR perfected it with their Blockbuster launch – equipped with eye-catching video, large library and easy navigation. That said, NCR kiosks have no where near the number of locations that Redbox has.

In regards to NCR – if they were to have a name change – I’m not sure how this would effect possible “first time users” to these kiosks with a new name not as recognizable as the “Blockbuster” brand. Conversely, I think existing NCR kiosk users will probably have no problem with the change so long as the kiosks don’t go anywhere.