Blockbuster and TiVo Strike A Deal
In order to stay competitive and relevant in this digital age, Blockbuster has partnered with TiVo with its OnDemand Service, allowing users to rent or buy movies via the DVR unit.
More details after the cut…
From Mercury News
TiVo customers will soon be able to download movies from Blockbuster as part of a deal the companies announced Tuesday night. Under the agreement, owners of TiVo’s latest DVRs will have access to thousands of movies through Blockbuster’s OnDemand service. TiVo will make the new feature available in the second half of this year.
Some of those movies will be available in high definition, said Joe Miller, TiVo’s senior vice president of consumer sales and affiliate marketing. But Miller did not know either the total number of videos that will be available or how many will be in the HD format. Consumers will be able to rent or buy movies from the service, according to the companies, but they did not disclose prices.
The move marks the latest effort to bring content from the Internet into consumers’ living rooms.
The Blockbuster deal is the third TiVo has announced in recent months. The company is already providing consumers access to movies and television shows distributed over the Internet from Netflix and Amazon.com. TiVo’s latest deal won’t affect the agreements with Netflix or Amazon, Miller said. “We want to provide the utmost in choice,” he said.
Blockbuster archrival Netflix has struck a series of deals with electronics manufacturers to allow Netflix subscribers to access its streaming video service from a range of devices. Among other devices, subscribers can now stream Netflix movies to their PC, the Roku digital video player or Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game console.
In contrast, Blockbuster’s online video service is currently available only via a set-top box from 2 Wire, which is sold in Blockbuster stores. TiVo DVRs would be just the second set of devices that would have access to the service.
As part of the agreement with TiVo, Blockbuster will sell TiVo DVRs in some of its stores. Miller did not know how many would carry the devices, but said they would typically be available in Blockbuster’s larger retail locations. To access movies from Blockbuster, TiVo users will have to own either a Series 2 or Series 3 DVR from TiVo. Later this year, TiVo will offer a software update for current DVR owners that will give them access to the OnDemand service.
