Imagine go to blockbuster store with you thumb drive and download movies from some kiosk and bring them home:) WOW lol :)

Blockbuster is too damn expensive. I rented a video game about a month ago, haven't rented anything in years, and it cost me $11 for a week! $11 for a rental! I'm in Canada, so im assume its a little lower in the US, but still...

Now they want to charge us $4.25 for a 1954 movie lol to rent a digital copy seems a little expensive to me.

Place is a total ripoff and their selection is absolutely terrible unless you want to rent all of the well-known movies. Their selection is insulting to anyone who actually has a brain and wants to be educated.

As online renting becomes more main-stream, Blockbuster Video will slowly fade away. I give it about 5 years.

If you can just download movies online (from a huge library) for a price a little less than Netflix (about 5 movies/week for $5/week), people will flock. Then transfer them to your own mobile video player.
The only way I can see the kiosk working is if for $20/30 a month you can download all you want from the kiosk (10 min a day or so a day). Or the kiosk is damn cheap, like < $1 per movie.
I highly doubt Blockbuster will do any of this. Blockbuster (any many others) want to sell the way they want sell. Not the way people want to buy.
Just my 2 cents. I'm focused on work, so all this may be dumb anyway.

Honestly! People would flock to a torrent site maintained by blockbuster that you pay a monthly fee to use (say $35 a month) for unlimited downloads of any movie in their database. (See: all movies ever made)

They just provide the initial seed and maybe a knock-off client, and maybe a social networking site to discuss movies / promote movies, etc. You could tie a service like this into a digital set top box, and BAM, you've revolutionized the way people watch movies.

Why wont they do this? Corporate greed - the idea of unlimited downloads is too scary.

Until the movie and music industries realize you can't stop hundreds of millions of people from downloading stuff anyways (and just 'give in' to the reality of the internet) and make an "official" way to download their stuff (and pay a monthly fee for access, of course) they will never be as powerful as the current way most 20-somethings get their media - ie the big torrent sites with millions of users and millions of files available at their fingertips.

For example, with the big trackers like ISOHUNT and PirateBay, anyone has access to pretty much any of the "new" and popular TV shows, movies and music.

The only way to combat this 'hydra' is to open a legal version of it with realistic prices. Trying to shut down a torrent site "permanently" only results in the users of that site moving to another site. For example, Oink.cd was shut down, and now STMusic has 40k more users. (Hmmm!)

Well considering most people have high speed internet, (definalty eveyone within a close drive to a blockbuster store as they are all close to heavily populated areas!) I cant see the point! why would i want to burn $1-$2 dollars in gas to go to the store and stand there while i download a movie??
The selling coffee and books idear just shows how desprate they are, they are not barnes and nobel, or starbucks and never will be! they need to learn how to adapt. I LOVE the idear netflix has. You pay $14 a month get mail in movies and 12 hours of downloadable content on the computer. This is the way of things to come. I dont want to pay the cable company $80 a month for 6000 channels of crap i dont want to watch. how about i buy 20 hours of downloable content in a package, then i hook my Laptop to my tv. Most new LCD and Plasma TV's connect to you PC and give HD quality! Taken to its logical conclution this is the ultimate pay per view system! $1 an hour for what ever you want to watch, be it Movies or tv episodes. Then package the number of hours you want AKA cell phone plans! heck if they get together with Nintendo for the WII PS3 and Xbox 360, and create a DRM system to stream via these systems, i wouldnt even have to mess with hooking up my PC! and if you dont think DRM could work, Then they need to go talk with Valve there Steam subscription system, is still bullet proof. I dont hear to many people playing half life 2 without a valid copy!!

Blockbuster had a good system with the free movie when you return the mail in movie to the store, but they cant make it work finatialy. if they dont eveolve from the briks and morter store they are then they will be in chapter 11 by 2009. People buy vidoes in walmart now. I thought the idear of self destructing DVD's where the Dye degraes in 72 hours after contact with air, was the way to go! no messing around with returning the movie, just watch it throw it in the trash, ren another one on your next trip to walmart for the groceries! Shame it never caught on. But ultimatly with teh speed of DSL and Cable no downloaded content will be the way to go. if they can do it with some sort of torrent system with a built in encryption then the cable companies would be in trouble to! Other than the fact they have us over the barrel on the intenet connection that you would still have to buy from them! Fair play to the cable companies though $99 for the triple play cable tv intenet and Phone is a decent deal. What does irritate me though is these deals are always for a 256K link whitch is to slow by modern standard so in reality you have to tack on another $10 for a half decent connection speed, so its really $119.

Family Video is beating Blockbuster on the in-store rental market, Netflix is beating them online. This is a company that tries to reinvent itself every quarter. The problem is they really don't do anything well. Proof is in the pudding as they announced this week the closing of hundreds of more stores.

Looks like offering only BluRay isn't helping much.

Well, I'd rather have a disc rental over a digital download anyday. What, am I supposed to watch the movie on my PC vs home theater system? I think not. And if I'm supposed to burn that digital file to disc, well, I have no time for that either.

People are watching videos on the internet for free
nowadays.
Why are they going to bother to go to a video rental store to rent a video.
I used to go to video stores to rent videos. Now I haven't been to a Blockbuster store for years .
Video stores in our neighborhood have all gone out of business
So much on video is free nowadays
and it's click and play
Here's some examples of how businesses are using video on the internet
www.tvwebpro.com

In Response to John Doe's "I Like Blockbuster" Post:

Your statement about wanting a disk over a digital download "because you don't want to watch it on your computer" is a very ignorant position. You need to experience the Xbox Media Center; it basically turns a 6-year old xbox into a media center for your home theater that allows you to display any media content from your PC over the network onto your "big screen". Its a glorious application that allows anyone to build a massive library of TV Shows and Movies on their PC's hard drive and then access them easily from their Home Theater.

It would be child's play for BlockBuster to partner up with, say, Scientific Atlanta, to bring a "set-top" box, not unlike Apple's iTV or XBMC, to allow you to access downloadable content. Microsoft's Xbox 360 IPTV solution is another good example; however its far too expensive for far too small a selection of media.

PC vs home theater? Get a Media Center PC to complete you "home theater" man. My Media Center PC combos with a 67" HDTV. It's a PC, DVR, game machine... you name it. Anything can be done on a PC or DVR, I have it on my "home theater". It's all wireless: bluetooth keyboard and mouse, MCE remote and Wifi-N. The quality of streaming Netflix is slight off from DVD but still looks great. Unlimited instant watch makes you feel free, only if Netflix can put up more titles. Blockbuster should do streaming too. PC and TV will merge, that means TV and Internet media contents will merge. You should stay ahead of the curv my friend.

The whole system is a scam to get your cash. Whether you have cable, go to the theatre, xbox or go to the store for rentals, you are going to shell out. Come on... 20 dollars for two movie tickets. 25 dollars for a blue ray dvd. 6.95 for a temporary copy on your xbox. Hey! No more late fees but we want you to pay for our monthly service. Netflix!? Do you realize how much time they have wasted of my life advertising on yahoo video? I'll never be a customer of theirs!

What I need and what I want is an unlimited selection of movies/media, in hi-def of course, exactly at the time I choose for 2.99. At that price I would watch oldies I haven't seen in a long time. And if I choose to watch the same movie every weekend, who cares because it'ld only be 3 bucks. Is it really that difficult? The closest thing we have imo is ppv. ppv already cost $50-80 a month because you have to purchase cable. And when you get hbo you can look forward to watching the same movies for a month and then watch the same movis on cinamax for another month. What can I do and what should I do? I'll probably keep, sadly, shelling out for cable. And save buying hd dvds or blue rays or going to the movie only except in the choicest of movies. A need is cleary there for many people. Who is going to step up and provide the kind of service we need.

You can plug a USB drive into a PS3 and watch movies that way, though it takes a little navigating, I don't know if the 360 does something similar.

This would really only work if all televisions had USB ports or the equivalent. A box could be used to do it as well, but who'd buy one just for this?

This sounds like something that'll appeal to only a very small audience.