Blockbuster has officially entered the "battle of the boxes" with the launch of its new set-top box today.The box will serve movies to TVs over the Internet and is going against Netflix's set-top box solutions (Xbox, Roku, and Tivo). Blockbuster's MediaPoint box allows users to watch thousands of movies without the need of a monthly subscription.
To get the MediaPoint player, made by 2Wire, Blockbuster subscribers will have to pay a one-off $99 fee, which also includes 25 pre-paid movies. After that, users pay between $1.99 and $3.99 for each DVD rented, without a monthly subscription fee.
Netflix's box also costs $99, besides your chosen monthly subscription. But unlike Blockbuster's 2500 "of the best, biggest and most current movies available", Netflix offers its whole 10,000 DVD collection for rental through its box.
The major difference between the MediaPoint box and Netflix's is that Blockbuster does "progressive playback" in comparison to Netflix's streaming, meaning that the video quality is independent of you broadband's connection speed. By progressively downloading the movie on the box (up to five movies storage capacity), Blockbuster's solution can offer a much more consistent video quality. In comparison, Netflix's service which can reduce the movie's quality if your Internet connection slows down
