THE TV RENTAL STORE - Here they are, my reliable VHS tapes, and they said everyone was switching to DVDs. Ha. Shows what they know. On the other hand, the cartons containing the tapes look a little worn. Here is "Jane Eyre," from 1996, and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939. "Citizen Kane," 1941, remains in VHS. It appears any film issued since the talkies is, indeed, only on DVD. What's more, I read somewhere that 70 percent of all homes now have DVDs.
All of these initials get confusing, but VHS is a tape played on a VCR. DVD is a compact disk played on a different machine. This changeover to new technology presents a problem since all I have back home are the boiler-fired, steam-driven VCRs which only play the tapes. Alas, it seems that once again I have fallen behind the technological curve as my black-boxed VCRs have become the Betamaxes of technology, along with ice trays, Telex messages and 8-track audio tapes.
In addition to my VCRs, I have a small library of tapes from "GiGi" to "The Wizard of Oz" to "Ben-Hur." The latter is quite old; it's in the original Latin. Those tapes are doomed to obscurity, but are the new disks really any better or is this just another case of engineered obsolescence, like airline food? DVD players can be found for as little as $40, but they only play. They don't record. A machine which both plays and records runs quite a bit more. This is important to me because I record more than Richard Nixon.
So what's the inside skinny on the changeover? For answers, I called up Dallas-based Blockbuster. It operates 9,100 stores in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia, with 3,291 stores operating under the Blockbuster brand and other brand names. Of these stores, 734 are run through franchisees. Along with Movie Gallery, Blockbuster has more than half of all movie rental outlets. So let's ask.
Q: When will Blockbuster completely phase out VHS?
A: Blockbuster is not exiting the VHS rental business, but will continue to determine what's available based on customer preferences on an individual store basis. It is entirely possible that you will find little to no VHS products in one store and a higher concentration in one down the street.
Q. How many tapes and disks do you have in the average store?
A: Again, because each store has its own product mix, it is difficult to say an average on VHS vs. DVD. Certainly DVD now comprises the bulk of movie rentals at Blockbuster. For the six-months ending last June, DVD represented 84.1 percent of the company's rental revenue while VHS represented 5.6 percent. Games comprised the rest of the rental revenue at 10.3 percent.
Q. What are you going to do with the VHSs?
A: At a point when a VHS title is no longer featured in a local store, it will be sold off as a previously viewed product.
Q. Do the two types cost the same to rent?
A: Blockbuster sells a new retail DVD on average between $19.99 and $21.99. The company no longer sells new VHS retail movies. A single DVD rental is approximately $4.15 on average. VHS rentals can range between $4.15 for a new release rental and $1.99 to $2.99 for a Blockbuster Favorite.
Q: Do you have to re-wind a DVD?
A: No, DVD technology allows you to watch a movie without rewinding it. DVD also offers other benefits over VHS tapes, including a superior picture, easy access to specific scenes, and bonus features such as interviews with actors and deleted scenes.
Q: In the old days I think Blockbuster had both Betamax and VHS, what happened to all the old Betas?
A: Betamax tapes were phased out of Blockbuster stores long ago.
Q: Since DVDs are smaller, will stores have more selections?
A: A typical Blockbuster store will have, on average, up to 7,000 different titles, and this figure has been fairly consistent. Based on the demographics of Blockbuster members at individual stores, the company will carry the hottest new releases along with a selection of the more popular older titles. For customers who want access to additional titles that may not be offered through its stores, Blockbuster offers Blockbuster Online rental, which features more than 42,000 titles.
So there we have it from the experts. It looks as though I shall be forced to go DVD whether or not I want to. What we have here is a good-news, bad-news situation for Hollywood. First the good. The number of rented DVD's (and a shrinking number of VHS tapes) still dwarfs any other form of movie watching. One study shows that last year there were nearly 3.2 billion movie rentals. In the same period, DVD sales totaled about 1.1 billion, and there were almost 350 million purchases of movies through video on demand or pay per view. In comparison, box-office tickets sold were less than half of that number. By two-to-one, we would rather watch movies at home than at a theater.
But over the last few years the video-rental business has been hurting because stores such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart are selling, rather than renting, movies at discount prices. Blockbuster's stock has tanked.
My own tape library was inherited because it never made much sense to buy movies. Unlike books, many movies are hardly worth watching once, much less again and again. All right, the other night while flipping channels I came upon the original "Sabrina" with Humphrey Bogart, William Holden and Audrey Hepburn, and it was still a good flick, so I watched it again.
What do I do with my old tapes? Not long ago I literally couldn't give away an electric typewriter. Will my copy of "The King and I" join the closet full of hoola hoops, Y2K power surge protectors and low-carb diet books? Anybody want to buy an electric typewriter?
