Posted Thu Dec 10, 2009 at 07:00 AM PST by Mike Attebery
BigBox rents DVDs and Blu-ray discs by the hour, at seemingly unheard of prices.
It all comes down to you, really. BigBox kiosks have an hourly rental price structure, which rewards you for getting up off of the couch and returning your disc, and punishes you for falling asleep in front of the TV, again.
New release DVDs can be had for what seems like a ludicrous six cents an hour, while older discs can be rented for four. Blu-rays go for nine cents an hour, which is more, but still impressively inexpensive. If you’re not opposed to getting up and returning the film afterwards, you could rent Star Trek on Blu-ray, watch it in full, then take it back to the BigBox and pay a measly twenty-seven cents.
Calculating that cost out to a twenty-four hour period like that of RedBox reveals the trick. While older DVDs come out to a ninety-six cent rental fee, new releases will run $1.44, nearly half over again what RedBox charges. Blu-ray disc rentals come out to just above two dollars a day.
BigBox is still a small operation, existing only on college campuses in Wisconsin and Minneapolis, but if a $1 a night rental service gets Hollywood execs angry, then a six cent hourly rate is going to have them foaming at the mouth.
Source: Video Business
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