I see them everywhere: red vending machines that shoot out movies and put a bullet in the head of Blockbuster stores. It’s a great way to distribute discs, but I had never tried it. We always used Netflix. But since Elijah was born, we’ve canceled our Netflix subscriptions (both the disc and the streaming) because we don’t have much time to watch movies anymore. My team at work is going to see the new Hunger Games movie when it comes out and I wanted to see the second movie.
My first thought was that I’d just stream it from somewhere. I checked CanIStream.It and was surprised to see that the cheapest option was around $12. Really? $12 to watch a movie in my own home? No thanks. That’s when I decided to give Red Box a try. They rent BluRays for only $1.50/day.
Their website makes it easy to search for a specific movie and find the closest machine that has it in stock. You can even pay for it online and reserve the disc. I did that, drove to Fred Meyer, walked up to machine B, swiped my card and out popped the disc. Brilliant!
If we go back to watching lots of movies, I think I prefer the Netflix model but this is great for those instances when you want a specific disc RIGHT NOW.
Red Box
My first thought was that I’d just stream it from somewhere. I checked CanIStream.It and was surprised to see that the cheapest option was around $12. Really? $12 to watch a movie in my own home? No thanks. That’s when I decided to give Red Box a try. They rent BluRays for only $1.50/day.
Their website makes it easy to search for a specific movie and find the closest machine that has it in stock. You can even pay for it online and reserve the disc. I did that, drove to Fred Meyer, walked up to machine B, swiped my card and out popped the disc. Brilliant!
If we go back to watching lots of movies, I think I prefer the Netflix model but this is great for those instances when you want a specific disc RIGHT NOW.