I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
What's the website equivalent of Dave? Surely it has to exist somewhere? Maybe it's not personalized for you but it's close enough for a lot of people? I've visited a TON of taste-making sites and some used to be OK at suggesting what to watch, but it's been tough to find good ones lately, and I'd pay good money for somebody to sort through all of the cruft for me. You've got your "decider" and other sites, but somet…
Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
181–190 of 264 posts
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#182I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
I feel like the difference isn't so much that you have AI recommendations or that of a human, but rather the entire environment is fundamentally different. With Netflix or whatever Streaming Service you have you have an immense catalogue coupled with ease of access to get ratings/critiques/etc. There is so many things to choose from and it's so easy to just say "no" to a suggestion, and likely that thing you said "no…
> With Netflix or whatever Streaming Service you have you have an immense catalogue…
I got curious, so let's look it up.
Googling, it looks like maybe Netflix has 17,000 titles total in in it's collection internationally in april 2022, but only a portion of those are available in a given market. One page from 2021 said the US catalog was ~5K titles, but I bet it's bigger in 2022 as the overall catalog has grown as much as 30% maybe. So I dunno, let's say somewhere between 5K and 8K titles available in USA market netflix?
How many titles did a typical Blockbuster carry? From 1988: "Blockbuster, for instance, operates superstores that stock roughly 10,000 tapes (about 6,500 different titles), compared to the 1,500 to 2,500 a typical independent offers." —https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/01/business/a-tight-squeeze-...
(Blockbuster didn't have much/any TV, while that's potentially a big part of Netflix though?)
So it's the same ballpark anyway. Netflix doesn't actually have a whole lot more titles than a Blockbuster did.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#183I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
I was very surprised when I walked by a video rental store the other night. Most of them are gone now, of course, but apparently a few of them still survive.
Blockbuster, though, no.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#184My fondest Blockbuster memories were around video games. The very best weekends were when my mom would take us there on Friday after school and let us each pick out a game. My sister and I would fight for turns with the TV all weekend.
Just getting to explore a new game for a little bit and then try something else next time was so much fun; you never knew what you were gonna get, just going off the box art. Even better was during the cartridge years, when you'd take a game home and it might already have a few different saves on it from other people, and you'd get to visit their characters and worlds, jump in at different points in the game, and try to imagine how it all fit together.
There was a gap of many years between Netflix killing Blockbuster, and game subscriptions becoming a thing where you could try them out casually again. Though of course even then, all the same physical nostalgia is missed; browsing the aisles, scrutinizing the boxes to try and figure out what it'll be like when you take it home, etc.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#185I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
today's AI is pretty good It's pretty good at suggesting exactly the same type of movies you've watched before, but not so good at those "but how about something completely different, but something that I'll still like" suggestions, that's where a real human movie buff can help.
Remember when Netflix had the context for the best recommendation algorithm? I don't think they ended up using anything from it.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#186I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
Now I'm thinking of the massive amount of content locked up in VHS tapes that future generations will probably never see due to copyright + lack of resources. I bet there's some absolute gems there.
Indeed, if it's only on VHS, it'll be degraded past watchability by the time of future generations. VHS doesn't last.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our rental store closed before Covid (the owner basically got tired of it and retired, it wasn't a big money-maker, so nobody took over). Our theater died just after Covid. I wonder if you could combine them into some kind of "movie mishmash" where you could see new movies in the theater, rent older classics, or even buy new releases. Being able to stop in, grab a movie and hot popcorn, and drive home seems it could…
Alamo Drafthouse offers a lot of this.
I love this place! Too bad the one near me also closed down during the lockdowns. It was a relatively new location too.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#188I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…
today's AI is pretty good It's pretty good at suggesting exactly the same type of movies you've watched before, but not so good at those "but how about something completely different, but something that I'll still like" suggestions, that's where a real human movie buff can help.
Some of you will remember the "Pepsi Challenge" [0] when Pepsi would make commercials about random people tasting unlabeled soft drinks. People usually chose Pepsi in taste tests because it was sweeter than Coke. What the commercials didn't show was that most people actually bought Coke because Pepsi is too sweet for many people when they drink a whole bottle.
Movie and music recommendation engines seem to work like this. Human tastes are much more complex and multi-dimensional than "This person prefers genre X" but AI systems don't even come close to grasping the subtlety.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like the difference isn't so much that you have AI recommendations or that of a human, but rather the entire environment is fundamentally different. With Netflix or whatever Streaming Service you have you have an immense catalogue coupled with ease of access to get ratings/critiques/etc. There is so many things to choose from and it's so easy to just say "no" to a suggestion, and likely that thing you said "no…
> With Netflix or whatever Streaming Service you have you have an immense catalogue… I got curious, so let's look it up. Googling, it looks like maybe Netflix has 17,000 titles total in in it's collection internationally in april 2022, but only a portion of those are available in a given market. One page from 2021 said the US catalog was ~5K titles, but I bet it's bigger in 2022 as the overall catalog has grown as mu…
It's just your usual nostalgia. I lived in the age before internet and it was shit.
Then Kazaa happened and I could finally download Naruto and Gundam.
Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With Netflix or whatever Streaming Service you have you have an immense catalogue… I got curious, so let's look it up. Googling, it looks like maybe Netflix has 17,000 titles total in in it's collection internationally in april 2022, but only a portion of those are available in a given market. One page from 2021 said the US catalog was ~5K titles, but I bet it's bigger in 2022 as the overall catalog has grown as mu…
It's just your usual nostalgia. I lived in the age before internet and it was shit. Then Kazaa happened and I could finally download Naruto and Gundam.
I'm 46, I rented plenty from Blockbuster.
I'm just reporting the number of titles they had and the number netflix does.
Definitely you can now get access to almost everything that exists from your own home, including things that were hard to find before, for sure. especially if you know how to and are willing to pirate. (You actually can't currently get Naruto or Gundam on netflix us streaming, can you?)