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Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

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Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#31

Post by vlunkr »

awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

It's interesting that when we revisit older movies, all the way up to the 90s, we're watching them at much much higher quality than we did originally. Special effects, costumes and sets are all much more believable when you're viewing them on a little grainy screen. I think some older movies are unfairly judged by how they look on hardware that couldn't have existed at the time.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#33

Post by bombcar »

_fat_santa wrote: post #28
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

The way I see it, there are really two Blockbusters. One is an evil corporate behemoth, the other is the neighborhood video store that lives on in our memories. These guys aren't keeping Blockbuster running so much as they are keeping the nostalgic memory of it going. TBH I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to buy the Blockbuster brand from Dish and restart the company. I feel like you could effectively run one much…

Double so since something like Redbox could have definitely used the brand.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#34

Post by bombcar »

bluedino wrote: post #19
artificial wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of smaller bookstores prior to the era of Borders and Barnes and Noble dominance. pours one out

How are they still in business, by the way? It seemed like they were just a Starbucks location with a ton of overhead, I thought we'd seen the last of them when pandemic shut everything down. I loved B&N by the way, more computer-related books than WaldenBooks, but not as many as Borders.

Because "Starbucks with overhead" is a surprisingly effective business model apparently; though if you go into one you'll notice that there are a lot more chotchkeys for sale near the front of the store (even LEGO lol).

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#35

Post by ars »

omar_alt wrote: post #16
legitster wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Blockbuster is what killed off the mom and pop stores Is there a source for this? Usually, both rise and fall together with consumer demand. When I grew up, Blockbuster was one of a dozen options in town. As an example, there are more independent coffee shops today than before Starbucks expanded.

I distinctively remember around 1994 two family run stores in the UK town I grew up in disappearing and the reason was the same, Blockbuster. I didn’t play games much but I recall them also renting out Japanese nintendo games and also sold the necessary cartridge converters to play Starfox.

> the reason was the same, Blockbuster.

The "name" of the reason might be Blockbuster, but the actual reason was that Blockbuster had a larger selection. Those mom and pop stores were really small, so if you wanted something else you had to go to Blockbuster anyway, so why bother dealing with more than one store even for the stuff they had? Just get everything at Blockbuster.

It's the same with retail stores - I don't go to the small stores, even if they might have what I want - why should I? I can go to the larger store and get everything and not have to think about it.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#36

Post by sokoloff »

awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

It all depends on how close you sit. If you’re 12+ feet away, you may not be able to resolve the difference between 1080p and 4K, but at 6-8 feet away, I bet you can.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#37

Post by bombcar »

legitster wrote: post #9
karaterobot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, ironic because Blockbuster is what killed off the mom and pop stores it now stands in for in our collective memory of the 90s. I actually liked our local Blockbuster, and have fond memories of it, but only because it was run by the same employees from the independent video store it drove out of business. I liked that one even better.

> Blockbuster is what killed off the mom and pop stores Is there a source for this? Usually, both rise and fall together with consumer demand. When I grew up, Blockbuster was one of a dozen options in town. As an example, there are more independent coffee shops today than before Starbucks expanded.

Starbucks grew the "expensive coffee" market, and so independents had a niche to slip into (expensive, but not Starbucks) - Blockbuster did nothing to grow the "rental movie" market, and a given market in an area is roughly limited to the number of houses in said market.

People drink less office/gas station coffee than they used to, and so can drink more Starbucks/independent coffee. The same didn't happen to the mom and pop video rental places (though the ones that survived blockbuster, usually by being in a market too small to support a Blockbuster, often outlived them (the one near me closed a few years ago finally)).

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#38

Post by papito »

If you want your mind blown - "Who really killed Blockbuster Video?"

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-really-killed-bloc...

It's amazing that Blockbuster had Netflix on the ropes, until one notorious activist investor showed up and basically gave Netflix the win.

One man is responsible for creating a completely different timeline when it comes to video streaming. Very similar to how we would be living in a different reality if GM's ahead-of-its-time EV1 was not mysteriously disappeared in the 90s.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#39

Post by jinto36 »

awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

One of the most noticeable things about playing laserdiscs on modern displays is the poor black levels and noise in shadows, and of course the difficulty in scaling interlaced material. Even with what should be a decent (but not nearly top of the line) FPGA-based deinterlacer/scaler I still feel like it should look better than it does, given how much better laserdisc resolution can be than VHS. But it's also analog video, and discs can degrade, as well as components in players going out-of-spec and increasing noise. I still like them, and there's something nice about large gatefold packaging, and these giant discs.

Also got a hi-fi beta player recently and even though Beta is only 10 more lines than VHS at 250 (compared to 420 for LD and SVHS) it really did not look that bad on an LCD. It's also possible that the unit I received and the tape I tried it with have less wear than the average VHS VCR.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#40

Post by causi »

_fat_santa wrote: post #28
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

The way I see it, there are really two Blockbusters. One is an evil corporate behemoth, the other is the neighborhood video store that lives on in our memories. These guys aren't keeping Blockbuster running so much as they are keeping the nostalgic memory of it going. TBH I'm a bit surprised no one has tried to buy the Blockbuster brand from Dish and restart the company. I feel like you could effectively run one much…

I don't purchase movies anymore but I could see myself going to a store to rent a 4K blu-ray to get the commentary tracks. Those are hard to come by online.
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