In St. Louis over the weekend, I saw billboards advertising $1 DVDs at McDonald’s. Mickey D’s has a deal with Redbox to install red DVD rental kiosks. The machines are manufactured by DVDPlay and have internet connectivity.
Alas, the kiosks are glorified vending machines. Before I looked into the technology, I wondered whether it was feasible to build a DVD kiosk out of a DVD burner, a credit card reader, and a high-speed internet connection running, say BitTorrent. Not yet, maybe. Not that Hollywood would be likely to go down this road, but a studio that licensed its library and created a real Celestial Jukebox — at $1 to burn a disk — might put a real dent in Blockbuster’s business, and even take some wind out of the DVD-burner supply house known as NetFlix.
Have it your way?