Monday, March 30, 2009

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Movie Cube rental

I just had occasion to use the MovieCube rental machine at my local Kroger store. My son wanted to bring Wall-E to school for the Friday lunch since he's "president" this month and responsible for snacks and entertainment. I only had the Blu-Ray version of the movie and doubted the school had a player. So, I tried the $1.00 rental from the MovieCube.

I have to say, it was super easy. It had a touch screen to select the movie, added it to my cart, and clicked "check out" just like any online e-commerce website. After swiping my credit card I waited a few seconds while it connected and verified and viola! out came the DVD in a plastic "cassette". Returning the movie was just as easy.

It's a great idea. By definition the selection is much more limited than what I can either stream or have mailed to me by Netflix; it had all the recent popular titles. I've been worried that as grocery stores and small mom and pop rental business have shut down the only local choices would be the hated Blockbuster. This is a very cool, very easy alternative when I need a movie now and can't wait the day or so for a Netflix shipment.