Walmart Launches Video Streaming Service

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sunflier

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But unlike Netflix, Walmart won't offer monthly plans. Twenty-four hour rentals will span in price from $0.99 to $5.99, depending on the quality and current promotion. As an example, Battle: Los Angeles costs $3.99 to rent the SD version, $4.99 for the HD version (720p), and $5.99 for the HDX version (1080p). Digital movie purchases typically cost up to $14.99 for standard versions. All digital rental versions become available the same day DVD versions are released. Some titles are even $2 for two nights.
All newcomers start out by offering seemingly low prices. That is until they get too many customers and have to raise prices to "handle the demand". Netflix, case in point.
 

jackbling

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With all the red tape associated and forced by the mpaa/studios, this seems like a tough market in which to get a foothold. There is just too much greed in the industry, as netflix found out.

Studios want top dollar for titles like Beverly Hills Cop despite having loooong since made their money; they saw netflix making some money, and suddenly realized they could demand whatever price they wanted, leaving netflix no option but to increase prices and pay what the studios wanted, or offer less streaming content, both options lose customers.

Blockbuster is sending out the "tired of seeing red" emails, but i just cant imagine how any company can compete with even netflix's increased prices, for an extened period of time. Once a studio get $1.00 per stream(arbitrary number for example) they arent gonna charge the next guy $0.75; more than likely they will push for $1.25.

That being said, i am too lazy for the netflix rentals anyway, i only subscribe to the streaming service, and im still pretty happy with the price/convenience ratio.

For the price of renting the above exampled Battle for Los Angelos twice, you can pay for one month of netflix's streaming service which has the aforementioned movie and many many others; how do you market this service? Seems like a money pit for walmart, but i guess they can afford it.
 

dalethepcman

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/feed the troll - My netflix bill just went down by $2 a month.

Who would pay $6 to watch a movie the day it comes out, when they can pay $10 and buy the DVD, or 10$/ month and just copy the DVD when it arrives via netflix? The only people that would want a pay as you go plan, are those that watch one movie a month. Everyone else will use Hulu or Netflix. epic fail, just like google movies
 

jayb10

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"Twenty-four hour rentals will span in price from $0.99 to $5.99," That doesn't seem very cheap to me. It would cost more to watch a whole season of just one tv show at .99 an episode than it would for a month of streaming Netflix.
 

cknobman

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This pricing on this sucks donkey balls. I may as well just pay Dish Network for video on demand, oh wait........that sucks donkey balls too so never-mind.
 

warmon6

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[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]How many video streaming services are there now?[/citation]

there just over 9000..... not really that many. :lol:
 

dayblade

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Very odd to have the "standard" price streaming of their example @ $3.99. Wasn't that the same pricing model the old BlockBusters and Hollywood Videos used to have?
 

gm0n3y

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That pricing scheme is just horrible. $6 for a streaming rental is insane. $15 to buy a digital copy of a movie is just as bad. If media companies want users to stop pirating, let us rent a movie for $1-2 and buy it for $5. Even then, Netflix at $8/month just keeps looking better, now if only they could get more content and get new content earlier.

I just want a service that can compete with torrents for convenience at a reasonable price. I'd probably pay up to $50/month for a service that will allow me to stream any movie or tv show as soon as it comes out and with high quality video/audio. My digital cable costs more than that now and it only does TV.
 

Pawessum16

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I'm sorry, but I think movies should cost the same no matter what picture quality they are. Epic FAIL!! The movie industry could die in a hole for all I care. Hello torrents
 

demonhorde665

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"Consumers can also stream video to their desktop or laptop although playback quality will be locked to Standard Definition (SD)."

Even with the reccent netflix price hike this right here spells FAIL!

i'm a netflix customer and ahve been for a year and a half now, sure i'm a bit miffed about the price hike, . but i hope netflix might actually deliever on thier promis of more streaming content , even with the status quo many of net flix streaming movies are in HD (some in 720p flavor and i've seen a few that i swear had to be 1080p ) . if walmart's service is locked to SD then they can kiis any chance of competeing with netflix out the window.

Further more i personally hate walmart the reasons listed below.

1. they destroy small buisness in every place they pop up

2. they force thier political and moral slants on consumers by - A) censoring music for profanity or political content (they did this with mega deth) . B) not carrying products they deem "profane" even though in some cases they wil carry acompetitors product that does the same thing ( example FHM magazine they dropped , while continuing to carry BMM magazine which is the same thing as FHM but geared towards african american men). C) they support right wing political groups

3. they fight Unions and BS thier employees about the turth of unionization

4. they are ruining our economy (see # 1)

5. they treat thier workers like s--- .

 

vegan00

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Obviously Wal-mart doesn’t have fans everywhere, but I’m not so sure they should take on the world of rental entertainment My family and I all have various tastes so we went with the 3 months free of Blockbuster from my employer, DISH Network (http://bit.ly/l2OWJ8). I did so because I like having various choices from old DVD’s to Blu-ray’s and video games all from one place.
 
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I use NetFlix, I discontinued my DVD rentals when they raised their prices and am concidering dropping the streaming because they won't add new ones to it. I am currently shopping around for something better. (If you look at the number of movies (streaming) that they have, please know that about 1/8th of them are not in english and some are in such low quality that there isn't any person on this planet that would watch them.
 
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