Film
Videoself's Self-Serve Video Rentals Come to College
While shopping for tomatoes on College Street yesterday I noticed a video rental store called Videoself. Apparently this company has been around since 2003 (and has 75 locations), but the College Street outpost just opened two weeks ago.
So what is Videoself?
It's a video rental store almost completely run by machines. To use it, you need to buy a card (which can be done on-site from a human) which you can then use 24/7 to get videos from one of four machines. Prices can be pretty cheap as you have the option to rent the video for as little as six hours.
Currently, Videoself is running a promotion where they give you a $30 card for the price of $20.
Videoself, 672 College Street. 416-536-0167
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This is new? Us oldsters remember the "Amazing Video Machine" an automated kiosk system that was around in the late eighties, early nineties, the machine was about the size of two regular vending machines and contained a robot that would dispense VHS videotapes. Resounding flop.
I used to see these in Corner Stores back in the late 80s/early 90s - or atleast the same idea. Used to use it quite a bit actually.
However, perhaps with DVDs taking up less physical space than VHS - it'll be easier to keep a wider selection and a larger ammount of them.
All around, I think its a neat idea.
i,m running a internet cafe at bloor & dundas west
area. i do want put additional business item here. I think DVD kiosk is one of the best.So, i,d better hear your opinion as soon as possible .
thanks aug 02 2006
andy
Chester: "Resounding flop"? Hardly. The Amazing Video Machine was quite successful at the time (I used it myself regularly when I lived in Toronto). It didn't flop ... but it got obsolete pretty quickly. The AVM was started in 1992 by Diebold Inc. and Nelson Vending Technology Ltd., Toronto. The growth of DVD rentals in the mid 90s greatly reduced the demand for video tapes and obviously these machines were specifically designed to handle video cassettes. They couldn't be redesigned to handle DVDs and the company probably went bankrupt as a result.
In any case, a DVD rental machine probably wouldn't have worked, with the growth of broadband internet, DVRs, digital TV, etc. Probably wouldn't work now for the same reasons. Just not enough demand to justify the capital costs for the machines and servicing them.
As for competition from Digital TV and broadband internet...broadband internet and Digital TV and VOD is expensive and not really all that worth it. Many broadband service providers have a cap that limits your downloading or charges you more if you download more than there limit. Where I live, I can't get DSL so I have to go with cable and there's one company that offers it and they have a 20 gig cap and they charge about $8 per gig above that... It sucks.