Blockbuster to Try Offering In-Store Downloads

May 30, 2008

At selected Blockbuster video stores, some customers will soon be able to download movies and TV programming to their portable devices. Blockbuster's partner in offering this service is NCR. Initially, customers must have a device made by Archos, but the service is supposed to be expanded to most or all of the popular portable devices. It currently takes about two minutes to download a feature film, but that may eventually be improved to around 30 seconds. Blockbuster is still in negotiation with the studios, and it's unclear what movies they will be able to offer. The level of demand for such a service is unknown, but if Blockbuster's pilot program proves successful, more and more of their stores will have kiosks where customers can download movies to laptops and other portable devices.