Video Stores Are Doomed
That’s a wrap? Future of Hollywood Video cast in doubt
"PORTLAND, Ore. - Once one of the wealthiest companies in Oregon, Wilsonville-based Hollywood Video’s final scene may be written as many customers discovered Tuesday upon finding a dozen of its stores closed.
Paul Niedergang is one of those customers. He marveled that not long ago - in 2007 - Hollywood Video was at the center of a billion dollar bidding war between Blockbuster and Movie Gallery.“I’ve been thinking this model was doomed to failure,” he said.
Hollywood Video’s parent company, Movie Gallery Inc., filed for bankruptcy last week and said it will continue to operate while it is in bankruptcy. It said a court in Virginia approved the use of cash on hand for operations.
Hollywood Video isn’t the only video-rental chain in trouble, its chief competitor, Blockbuster is struggling too. Its stock closed at 38 cents a share Tuesday and it plans to close 20 percent of its stores by next year.
With Netflix mailing movies to homes, movies available on iPhones, and Internet-ready televisions providing almost endless entertainment options, the days of going to the corporate video store are becoming rarer. They key to survival may be finding a niche.
Take, for example, Movie Madness in Southeast Portland. It has found success as a movie museum, containing treasures like the actual costume Peter Boyle wore in Young Frankenstein and 50,000 titles of current and older, hard to find, material. A lot of it has yet to be converted to digital."
What an incredible twenty five years or so of home video.
I like to watch movies, so when VCRs started becoming common I absolutely had to have one. The only hard decision in the early 80s was whether to go with VHS or Beta. I wound up getting a Fisher VHS 2 head, top loading model and I splurged with an infra red wireless remote control, so much better than the control with a wire running all the way to the machine. It set me back $850.00.
I think the handwriting is on the wall for video rental stores. There's one still open in the town nearby but his stiffest competion sits on a drug store sidewalk, just across the street. It's one of those kiosks where you can rent a DVD for a buck. Granted, his store has a much bigger library to choose from but since business is way down he has to charge a lot per rental to make any money. We all know where that's headed - gee, should I get a new release for a dollar or rent Back to the Future for four something?
No, he and a lot of stores like his are history because there are too many other and more convenient ways to watch movies. I don't even rent disks anymore, I watch all my flicks online. For free. The only reason to use DVDs in the future will probably be for the new and improved 3D technology, but I can see that becoming very common on line soon enough. Just a couple of years ago video stores were everwhere. I'll bet by year's end there won't be any.
"PORTLAND, Ore. - Once one of the wealthiest companies in Oregon, Wilsonville-based Hollywood Video’s final scene may be written as many customers discovered Tuesday upon finding a dozen of its stores closed.
Paul Niedergang is one of those customers. He marveled that not long ago - in 2007 - Hollywood Video was at the center of a billion dollar bidding war between Blockbuster and Movie Gallery.“I’ve been thinking this model was doomed to failure,” he said.
Hollywood Video’s parent company, Movie Gallery Inc., filed for bankruptcy last week and said it will continue to operate while it is in bankruptcy. It said a court in Virginia approved the use of cash on hand for operations.
Hollywood Video isn’t the only video-rental chain in trouble, its chief competitor, Blockbuster is struggling too. Its stock closed at 38 cents a share Tuesday and it plans to close 20 percent of its stores by next year.
With Netflix mailing movies to homes, movies available on iPhones, and Internet-ready televisions providing almost endless entertainment options, the days of going to the corporate video store are becoming rarer. They key to survival may be finding a niche.
Take, for example, Movie Madness in Southeast Portland. It has found success as a movie museum, containing treasures like the actual costume Peter Boyle wore in Young Frankenstein and 50,000 titles of current and older, hard to find, material. A lot of it has yet to be converted to digital."
What an incredible twenty five years or so of home video.
I like to watch movies, so when VCRs started becoming common I absolutely had to have one. The only hard decision in the early 80s was whether to go with VHS or Beta. I wound up getting a Fisher VHS 2 head, top loading model and I splurged with an infra red wireless remote control, so much better than the control with a wire running all the way to the machine. It set me back $850.00.
I think the handwriting is on the wall for video rental stores. There's one still open in the town nearby but his stiffest competion sits on a drug store sidewalk, just across the street. It's one of those kiosks where you can rent a DVD for a buck. Granted, his store has a much bigger library to choose from but since business is way down he has to charge a lot per rental to make any money. We all know where that's headed - gee, should I get a new release for a dollar or rent Back to the Future for four something?
No, he and a lot of stores like his are history because there are too many other and more convenient ways to watch movies. I don't even rent disks anymore, I watch all my flicks online. For free. The only reason to use DVDs in the future will probably be for the new and improved 3D technology, but I can see that becoming very common on line soon enough. Just a couple of years ago video stores were everwhere. I'll bet by year's end there won't be any.
posted by nolocontendere at 10:29 PM
6 Comments:
Hi Nolo:
I've been unable to access WHATREALLYHAPPENED.com tonight and get this message:
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@whatreallyhappened.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."
Kind of funny that the two sites I visit frequently WRH and Smoke and Mirrors are not currently available. Les Visible of S & M seems to have gone on some hiatus.
gc
That 500 Internal Server Error is pretty common and can mean any number of things gc. I guess it's resolved because Michael is back up and running this AM.
I wonder where Les is?
Most likely putting the final touches on his book somewhere remote.
Book stores are doomed too. And so are stores that sell music or video recordings (DVD and Blueray).
Everything will be downloaded. Whether its via internet or cable or optical fiber or satellite. Blueray is such a waste. It will never duplicate the success of VHS or DVD.
If I really want to rent a video, I go to my local library where its cheaper and they have a bigger selection. I guess some people use Netflix, but that's doomed as well except for their download service. (Of course their download service is currently not worth it because they don't offer the latest movies.)
And I suppose that libraries are doomed as well. At least in their current brick versions. And progress is not slowing down - in fact it is accelerating. Blueray will be obsolete before you know it - replaced by Blueray-3D.
Is there really a need for so much progress. Just look at what it does to businesses. It causes huge instabilities in society.
Trains were progress. Automobiles were super-progress. Integrated circuit technology which enables all the electronic devices around us are hyper-progress.
The next generation of nano-technologies will take us over the edge. The amount of change in a single generation will be overwhelming. The rate of progress will be such that people will no longer be able to keep up.
And then of course there is the talk of the Singularity when the machines become smarter than people. At that point the human body itself will become obsolete - just like VHS. We will either transform into machines or acquire new bodies like in Avatar.
But progress is good - isn't it?
[Just using this comment to sign up for follow-up comments.]
Hi Nolo:
Thanks for the update on WRH. I guess I'm just spooked because I'm living in greater Vancouver and these Olympics are freaking me out....no snow, incessant rain and helicopters whirring overhead.
Re video stores, weren't they at the top of a recent list of things to disappear?
One of the reasons IMO is that movies in general have declined in public favour due to the ramping up of propaganda by the Ziofascist Hollywood movie industry.
There are very few movies I want to see nowadays.
gc
I'm with you about the movies these days gc. The Mrs and I are pretty picky about what we watch.
Libraries really are good about having a large inventory of films but damn the clumsy, peanut butter fingered patrons seem to ruin half of them.
I'm no luddite Frank, and you're right in your estimation of where this tech explosion is going, but I don't think it'll get there. With no good foundation even the best house crumbles and this is all too dangerously unsustainable to last much longer.
I'm betting the sun is going to fry the shit out of our electronic grid so bad that we'll be back in horse and buggy days.
Post a Comment
<< Home