Hacking Blockbuster

Blockbuster On Demand Live on Select Samsung TVs, Home Theater Systems & Blu-ray Players

Blockbuster today announced the availability of Blockbuster On Demand titles for rental and purchase on select Samsung TV's, home theater systems, and Blu-ray players.

"This is another real example that shows our commitment to giving consumers even more ways to access and enjoy a broad variety of high quality content through innovation, and really pushing the envelope with defining what connected TV experiences can deliver,” said Tim Baxter, President of Samsung Electronics America. “Whether it’s renting their favorite Blu-ray movie from Blockbuster or streaming their favorite content, our goal is to take the TV-watching experience to new levels and deliver maximum value.”

Supported Samsung models include the Series 650 and above LCD/Plasma HDTVs, Series 7000 and above LED HDTVs, Blu-ray players (BD-P1600, BD-P3600, & BD-P4600), and Blu-ray integrated home theater systems (HT-BD1250, HT-BD3252, BD7200, & HT-BD8200 -- firmware upgrade might be required). 

Blockbuster On Demand rentals are $2.99 - $3.99, and titles can be purchased for $7.99 - $19.99.

Blockbuster Announces Samsung TV, Home Theater & Blu-ray Partnership

Blockbuster and Samsung today announced a new partnership to bring Blockbuster OnDemand  to select Samsung TVs, home theater systems, and Blu-ray players (including some existing products). As part of the deal, Blockbuster will sell Samsung products in-store, a non-exclusive arrangement  as Blockbuster already has deals with Vizio and TiVo. 

"This agreement underscores the growing opportunities around digital delivery and the plan to make the BLOCKBUSTER brand as available on screens as it has always been on storefronts. The Blu-ray players we’ll feature represent the perfect bridge between physical stores and digital delivery by providing streaming digital access to the newest top movies and high definition Blu-ray product, which is available in all our stores and through BLOCKBUSTER by mail,” said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO.  “We look forward to working with Samsung to showcase select products in Blockbuster stores while making Blockbuster’s digital library available in homes across America." 

Blockbuster's OnDemand service  enables on-TV movie search and queue management, and uses Blockbuster's "adaptive streaming" technology for immediate playback. Kevin Lewis, Blockbuster's SVP of Digital Entertainment, told HackingBlockbuster that they are "heading in the direction" of enabling customers to manage all parts of the Blockbuster experience on the TV screen, including Blockbuster Online, OnDemand, in-store and even Blockbuster kiosk rentals. 

Blockbuster To Begin Testing Online Game Rentals; National Rollout By End of Year

Blockbuster will begin testing game rentals in Cleveland on June 30th, and plans to offer the feature nationwide by the end of the year. For an incremental fee, Total Access and By Mail subscribers will be able to rent games for the Wii, PS2, PS3, and the Xbox 360, one game at a time. The games will count toward the total number of discs in their plans, and customers can exchange the games in-store. 

Blockbuster Offers Weekly Summer Escape In-Store Subscription Pass

Blockbuster announced a new $10 per week "Summer Escape Pass" in-store subscription. The pass offers one week of movie and game rentals, one disc at a time. Customers can purchase a new pass every week, but the Summer Escape Pass is only available for a limited time.

"During the summer, people have more downtime to spend together with friends or family, and we want them to know that there's never been a better time to 'escape in' than with BLOCKBUSTER," said Jim Keyes, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer with Blockbuster Inc. "No matter what the economy is doing or what the weather is like, the Summer Escape Pass from BLOCKBUSTER gives customers an inexpensive way to have a great night out by staying in."

Blockbuster Launches Interactive Movie Location Map for Planning Vacation Roadtrips

Just in time for summer "staycations" and road trips, Blockbuster has launched an interactive map that shows where famous movies were filmed. 

You can tour the movie locations at www.blockbuster.com/roadtrip, and if you visit a site you can post the photos on the Blockbuster Movie Road Trip Flickr pool.

Blockbuster Fixes Shipping Glitch

The Blockbuster Blog reports that they have fixed the shipping glitch that caused slow turnarounds for some customers:

As it turns out, a recent update to our system created a shipping hiccup for some customers returning their movies to a store. It took a little longer for returned movies to clear Queues and, in turn, longer to receive the next movie from us.

While I don’t know the exact specifics, I do know it involves businessy words like “sigma” and a bunch of confusing acronyms. Anyway, I’m happy to report that after a lot of hard work by software engineers, distribution logisticians, and many other people who are much smarter than I, the issue has been fixed! We apologize for any longer-than-normal wait-times you may have experienced.

Blockbuster.com Scheduled Maintenance at Midnight Tonight

Blockbuster.com will be down starting at midnight tonight for scheduled maintenance. Blockbuster is migrating servers to another location, and the outage could last through the morning. 

A Blockbuster representative had the following to say about the project: "This data center migration is a key IT initiative designed to deliver back office benefits to our business such as cost savings and greater scalability for the future which could assist us in speeding the implementation of new programs and features that can benefit consumers."

Total Access customers were sent a free Blockbuster Favorites rental coupon, along with several special in-store offers for snacks.

Blockbuster: 10,000 Kiosks by End of 2010

Blockbuster DVD rental kiosk partner NCR announced the acquisition of TNR Holdings, the second largest DVD rental kiosk company (2,200 kiosks) behind Redbox (12,000). Eric Savitz from Barron's reports that Blockbuster intends to have more than 10,000 kiosks in place by the end of 2010. 

There are already more DVD rental kiosks than video stores, and Blockbuster will have more kiosks than stores (7,400) by the end of next year. No wonder Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is worried about DVD kiosks being installed at every supermarket and 7-11.

Blockbuster Warns About "Ability to Continue as a Going Concern."

Blockbuster, hit hard by competition and the economy, filed a widely reported "Managements' Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and results of Operations" section in the latest 10-K filing. I've reprinted the entire section below, but the entire 10-K filing should be read to put this into context:

Unless otherwise noted, the following discussion and analysis relates only to results from continuing operations. The following discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this document. We have the intent and ability to take actions necessary for the Company to continue as a going concern, as discussed herein, and accordingly our consolidated financial statements have been prepared assuming that we will continue as a going concern. Our revolving credit facility and Term A loan facility are each scheduled to expire in August 2009. Given the impending expiration of both our revolving credit facility and Term A loan facility, on April 2, 2009, we amended our revolving credit facility, Term A loan facility and Term B loan facility to include commitments from certain of our lenders and certain new lenders to (a) replace the existing revolving credit facility with a $250 million revolving credit facility with a maturity date of September 30, 2010 (the “amended credit facility”), and (b) amend certain financial covenants, other covenants and other terms in our existing revolving credit facility, Term A loan facility and Term B loan facility. The obligation of the lenders to fund the $250 million revolving credit facility and effectuate such amendments is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions set forth in the amendment. While we believe that all such conditions will be met and that we will be in a position to close on the amended credit facility on or about May 11, 2009, there can be no assurance regarding these matters. The risk that we may not successfully complete this refinancing and obtain the related amendment of certain financial covenants included therein, and/or the risk that we may not have adequate liquidity to fund our operations as a result of not meeting our projected financial results, even if the refinancing is completed within the time and upon the terms contemplated, raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Management’s plans concerning these matters are also discussed under “Liquidity and Capital Resources” below and in Note 1 to the consolidated financial statements. The consolidated financial statements do not include any adjustments that might result from the outcome of this uncertainty.

Thanks to Gowan, D Burg, and Chris for sending this in.

Blockbuster Blog Takes Swipe at Netflix for Blu-ray Price Increase

Update: It seems some of the Blockbuster franchises are charging extra for Blu-ray.

Could there be an online war brewing between Netflix & Blockbuster? Blockbuster took a swipe at Netflix's price increase with the second post on the official Blockbuster blog, Blockbuster Doesn't Charge Extra for Blu-ray rentals.

 We love Blu-ray movies. With sweet high-def graphics and awesome sound, it’s like treating your eyes and ears to a delicious six-course meal, followed by a massage, followed by a night out at the finest discotheque in town. That’s why we don’t charge more for online Blu-ray rentals.
You can put as many Blu-ray movies in your Queue as you want with no extra fee. And BLOCKBUSTER Total Access customers get to exchange online rentals for in-store Blu-ray rentals at no additional charge!

Even the Blockbuster Twitter account got in on the action with the following tweet:

Blockbuster was careful not to mention Netflix, but the post and tweet are an obvious jab at Netflix's price increase for Blu-ray customers.