Blockbuster (Etilities Forum), the well-known movie rental company, announced on Tuesday that its customers will now be able to stream movies from the Blockbuster online library to their TV set.  The service will require a new device, the MediaPoint Digital Media Player, developped by new partner 2Wire.  The box will cost $99, which includes 25 free movie rentals.  Each additional rental will cost $1.99, for what is being called “DVD-quality” video.

Blockbuster, which has built a large consumer base during their 20+ years renting videos, has been struggling lately due to the fierce Internet-based competition in entertainment delivery services, especially that of Netflix (Etilities Forum).  Blockbuster’s move is clearly an attempt to catch up to the competition, but we cannot help but see the latest move as “too little too late.”

First, the fact that the player will deliver DVD-quality content is not a selling point, it’s a turn-off: iTunes (Etilities Forum) and Netflix both offer HD quality streaming content.  Second, they do not specify the size of their online library, only mentioning that includes “thousands of titles.”  Given the lack of specific numbers,  we can only assume that they are nowhere close to Netflix’s library of 12,000 online titles.  Lastly, their competitors have quite a head start.  The list of online entertainment providers is growing larger by the month, and a lot of them have been in the streaming business for some time: Netflix, iTunes, Blinkx (Etilities Forum), Hulu (Etilities Forum), Joost (Etilities Forum), Sling, YouTube…  Unless Blockbuster can come up with a true game-changer, all they will have going for them is their existing customer base, which has eroded significantly as consumers flocked to the early streaming services.

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