Explore DVD rental services.
Redbox is a company that rents DVDs for a dollar a night from thousands of automated kiosks located in supermarkets, convenience stores, drugstores, fast-food restaurants and discount department stores. The idea here is to provide DVD rentals for very little money at places renters would frequent in the course of their daily lives. Redbox is majority owned by Coinstar, the corporation that operates self-service machines where people can exchange coins for bills at tens of thousands of locations.
Amazon is America's largest online retailer. The company's primary business is selling a wide variety of goods — especially books, DVDs and music CDs — that are ordered on their Website and shipped by mail or package delivery services. But they also offer some products that they deliver digitally to customers who have a broadband Internet connection.
Apple is a company that makes consumer electronics, and its best-known products are Macintosh computers, iPods and iPhones. In addition, Apple operates an online business called the iTunes store and through it has become American's largest music retailer. Via download, the iTunes store sells not only music, but other digital media, including audiobooks, games, movies and television shows.
The core of Blockbuster's business is operating a chain of several thousand brick-and-mortar stores that rent DVDs, Blu-ray discs and video games. But the company also offers several options for renting movies and television programming which involve the Internet, and that will be the focus here.
Netflix provides a movie and television programming rental service at flat monthly fees. The company has no brick-and-mortar stores, and instead interfaces with its customers via the Internet and the United States Postal Service. A large number of titles are available on DVDs and Blu-ray discs that will be delivered to the subscriber by mail. In addition, a much smaller number of titles can be streamed to the subscriber over the Internet.
Last April Blockbuster proposed to buy Circuit City for at least $6 a share, but now the video rental chain has withdrawn its proposal, citing as the reason "market conditions." It's anybody's guess as to where the two companies will go from here.
Apple has begun renting movies via its online iTunes Store, which has built a large customer base selling music. Movies from all major studios are available. Find out more about their movie rentals.
Here's a rundown of some DVD rental services.
