Blockbuster Broadband Video Box A Disappointment – Netflix, Apple TV and Vudu do it better…

22 Dec 2008

When Blockbuster recently announced their new (non-streaming) set top broadband delivery box, we noted that it seemed like they weren’t trying very hard. The company has traditionally seemed somewhat terrified of cannibalizing profit from their brick and mortar stores, while even the Blockbuster CEO didn’t seem all that excited about the device’s impact. “You can drive to our local store and rent a Blu-ray disc in less time than it will take you to download a movie in high-def,” admitted the Blockbuster boss. Nice endorsement.

A fresh Gizmodo review of the box seems to confirm the assumption that this isn’t Blockbuster’s best effort, the gadget blog noting that it’s a “mediocre” product that has some serious problems — such as not being able to rewind, fast forward, or start over until the entire film downloads. Giz wasn’t particularly impressed by HD quality, either, though they suggest it might have partially been their connection:

As for HD, it’s a superb disappointment. The 40-minute IMAX movie Dolphins took about 20 minutes to cache (that may be my connection’s fault). But when it did play, the quality was not only very poor (upconverted DVD, I’d say) but the playback was often choppy, constantly jittering to a stop. Why did these slowdowns occur? The media was already on my system! Both Netflix and Vudu HD blow the Blockbuster unit away in HD quality and performance.

It short, the review concludes that Netflix, Apple TV and Vudu are all doing it better, though the service could potentially improve with updates.
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