You’ve got to hand it to Walmart: when they do something, they do it big. With the retail giant’s disc-to-digital service set to launch next week in 3,500 locations, Walmart has revealed that it will offer more than 4,000 titles from five major Hollywood studios for “conversion” to a digital file.
The program lets consumers convert a standard-res or HD movie for $2, or they can upgrade a standard-res title to HD for $5. Walmart will assist customers with opening free VUDU accounts, and converted movies will then be placed into users’ accounts, which can be accessed from many internet connected devices. Customers can also watch and purchase UltraViolet-enabled titles through Walmart’s VUDU service.
Louis Greth, director of movies and home entertainment for Walmart, said the following about the new service:
“Obviously for us it’s a great way to drive traffic in the store, but it’s also meant to unlock value in the content consumers already own . . . For us, this is a big first step. The feedback is that it’s been very simple, very easy, not very complicated .
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. . As we continue to negotiate with the studios, more titles will become available . . . In some cases there are digital rights issues.
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”
Greth also says that Walmart hopes to eventually offer as many titles as possible from all studios:
“We want everyone involved . . . Now we’re going after the other big players. We would love to have everybody involved with this.”
Do you plan to use this service to get accessible, digital files of your DVDs and Blu-rays, Insiders. If so, let us know how many movies you plan on “converting.”
[via Home Media Magazine]
Interesting,
Like most businesses in this recession, they are looking to increase profits, if not survive, and WalMart is perfect example. If you look back over their history, they are true opportunistic company. They know their sales and profits are dropping, and they also know cheap entertainment venues are recession proof and actually growing. Now that they have the RedBox movie rental traffic, why not capitalize on it, after all, consumers are creatures of habit, so WalMart created the habit by offering movie rentals, now they will capitalize on it to the next level. I wouldn’t be surprised they are setting the systems in place to replace RedBox entirely knowing how money hungry they are. lol
I’m really surprised they haven’t kicked redbox out of their stores yet and replaced them with their own rental kiosks. I think it’s just a matter of time though.
I imagine wal-mart realizes that this is not an easy business – see NCR’s experience. Also don’t forget the network affect of returning DVDs to different kiosks. A wal-mart only network would take away from the overall utility of the network.
With your line of thinking why wouldn’t wal-mart should start brewing beer to sell? Kick out bud and sell wal-mart beer for less. A winning strategy no?
Walmart already purchases disks to sell. NCR was purchasing disks to rent. Some studios were fighting with NCR to delay the purchases/rentals. Walmart sells a large percentage of the disks that are sold. I think the studios would have a harder time playing “hard ball” with them.
And walmart does sell their own line of many products. It’s the “great value” brand. They just don’t make the product. Just like they won’t be making the dvd’s.
Wal-mart buys private label products like it buys branded products. It does not endeavor to manufacture things that it sells. It stays focused on store operations and distribution to remain competitive. It outsources all sorts of non-core functions such DVD rental. They may decide to get into the business but why stop at redbox? Any service or box that’s in the front of the store in theory would make sense to pursue.
At this point it is clear that what redbox does is not easy. That’s why they own the market. The monthly royalty check redbox sends wal-mart is probably 95%+ pure margin.
Funny,
Of course they wouldn’t brew their own beer, but like they have done with thousands of other products, they simply put their own private Great Value label on it, and if you don’t think they wouldn’t put their label on the same beer brewed by Bud, then you are not aware of what WalMart strategy has been for decades. Saving people money while making more by dealing direct with manufacturers, or brewers if it was more profitable. A winning strategy, YES.
See above. I’m well familiar with wal-mart. I’m not saying it’s impossible for wal-mart to choose to insource this service but I believe they are smart enough to know how difficult this business really is. The decision to do this therefore would be a big and difficult one for wal-mart. The wal-mart I know would not be too interested in stopping the high margin redbox checks for a crack at doing slightly better financially while taking the big risk of angering a lot of wal-mart shoppers who are used to the kiosks functioning so well.
No thanks – I’ll continue to do my own conversion. I can place the files where I am sure they are accessible and not depend on external websites.
“Obviously for us it’s a great way to drive traffic in the store, but it’s also meant to unlock value in the content consumers already own .”
Translation: We’re losing money. We’d love to figure out a way to charge people every time they watch a movie. Divx failed, but we’ll try something different. For now, how about a monthly fee to watch the movies they already own and could otherwise watch for free. We’ll call it a “convenience” fee. After all, we wouldn’t want them to be able to put the movie they already purchased on a home server and watch it “conveniently” from anywhere in their home or stream it to their device.
No thanks Walmart.
p.s. wander how many movies that I rent will start showing up with this “cancellation stamp” that they will be marking the disks with…. hmmmmm. Many disks (netflix etc) have the disk marked with their name/code, but many other rentals do not.
Makes me wonder how many “dishonest” employees will allow their friends to bring in “cancelled” disks to load on multiple vudu accounts.
Whats stoping us to rent movies convert them and have different streaming devices with the same account and make a business out of it like with d directtv different houses same account
I’m pretty sure there will be a limit on the devices connected per account like Netflix.
As for Rental disks most of them have the Rental Only on them or some type of rental bar code on them.
Why would I take a dvd I own and have it converted for $2.00. If I already own it it, it does not make sense to pay for another copy of a movie you already own !!