Who doesn't like the convenience offered by "Red Box" kiosks? No waiting in line (usually), no hassle of having to go across town to find a Movie Gallery / BlockBuster (as they are near everywhere) and best of all no freaking late fees. The only way they could get better is if the didn't rely on optical based media. We assume that is the line of reasoning
Flix on Stix is following as they plan to offer movie, TV show / game rental kiosks that don't rely on DVD/Blu-Rays rather you bring along an empty USB drive, plug it in, make your selection chose to buy or rent it and then wait for it to transfer to your
flash drive. While there is not details on TV episodes or game rental pricing; movie rental rates of $1 for 3 days, $2 for 6, $3 for 9 days and $4 for 12 days appear to be what will be offered.
As with any new idea, we can see some pretty big potential pitfalls to this idea. The biggest is while it is going to be
USB 3.0 enabled... not everyone has a
USB 3.0 flash drive laying around; and can you imagine trying to copy over a 10+GB Hi-Def movie to a USB 2.0 flash drive (let alone Blu-Ray quality 20-30GBs. )? That sounds like a recipe for a LONG wait time to us. Worst of all, we assume some form of DRM scheme is going to be enacted (as other wise who would BUY it when they could just "rent" it) so the biggest unknown is how are you going to play your rental and what devices are compatible with the files? While these are some of the negatives if Flix on Stix can sort them all out and offer an easy to use alternative... they might just have a fighting chance at taking a slice of the pie away from BlockBuster and Red Box kiosks. Check out video demo after the jump.
