 |  | By Bruce Stevens Staff Writer Friday, 22 August 2008 |
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Who offers the most Blu Ray movies to rent, asks Julia Kukiewicz. There is no point in buying Blu Rays when you can rent them, it turns out.
Weekly DVD Rental News Roundup (15 Aug 2008)
A look back at the week's UK broadband news with Anna König reveals that MovieConnect has gone under and Games Monster games rental may be about to follow suit.
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IT’S like a scene from Wacky Races as the leading DVD rental and games rental sites vie for pole position in the race to offer the most Blu Ray titles to rent.
Meanwhile Lovefilm is quietly going about extending its marketing tentacles to TV sponsorship and Blockbuster secures a couple more rental exclusives – albeit slightly lame-ass ones.
Blu Ray rental race hots up
SINCE our article on Blu Ray rentals was published a few weeks ago, the race to be the top provider of Blu Ray rentals has reached proportions of a classic episode of Wacky Races.
First Blockbuster DVD rental – shocked to see themselves lingering in third position – upped the ante and went on a shopping spree which sent them to second position, before pulling out the stops with another bulk acquisition of titles, squeezing Lovefilm into second place by just 5 titles.
Now, little-known, but highly rated online UK games rental site WhyBuyGames is looking to push their way to pole position too, with some interesting projections likely to cause a few squeaky seats over at their rivals' headquarters .
Aaron Barrett, Products and Services Director at WhyBuyGames, states that WhyBuyGames is ramping up their Blu Ray catalogue with a view to breaking the 500 mark in the next few weeks.
If this pans out as they claim, big name DVD rental sites like Outnow.co.uk (100 Blu Ray titles) and CinemaParadiso (400 Blu Ray titles) will indeed look a little foolish.
 Rent Blu Rays for free with WhyBuyGames' 14 day free trial
Lovefilm extends its advertising arm to TV show sponsoring
UK DVD rental leader Lovefilm, whose aggressive marketing arms have been tickling billboards, TV screens and urinal posters for a while now is extending its reach to TV show sponsorship for the first time.
Lovefilm is sponsoring the second series of Heroes on the Sci-Fi Channel, which premiered on the channel last Friday night.
The second episode, which will have 10 second Lovefilm openers and closers, as well as 5 second ‘bumpers’ between ad breaks, airs tonight.
Lovefilm has admitted it is keen to be associated with the Heroes TV series following the rental success of the first season.
"With rentals of the first series doing so well for us, we jumped at the chance to support the Sci-Fi Channel’s run of the follow up series” says Chris Bird who heads up marketing services at the UK DVD rental giant.
According to our in-house Sci-Fi Channel fans who watched last week’s opening episode, the Lovefilm spots feature a DVD flying down a street and into a letterbox, with the message: "Bringing all your movie heroes straight to your door".
The sponsorship will run for seven weeks.
Try Lovefilm DVD Rental free for 14 days!
Blockbuster exclusives keep on keeping on
UK DVD rental favourite, Blockbuster, continues to sneak ahead of its rival Lovefilm with a couple more rental exclusives this week.
In the past few weeks, Blockbuster has garnered the exclusive UK rental rights for some big name movies such as George Clooney’s Leatherheads, Jessica Alba’s thriller Awake and Street Kings with Forest Whitaker.
This week, Blockbuster has snuck into their exclusive club two further titles : Richard Gere’s The Flock and One Missed Call.
We’re not sure Lovefilm fans will be crying over missing out on renting those for the few weeks that Blockbuster holds the exclusivity deal, but the fact that Blockbuster is managing to secure any exclusives at all using their extraordinary influence in the industry is a very good reason to consider Blockbuster as a serious contender for best online DVD rental site.
Try Blockbuster DVD Rental free for 30 days!
And finally, if you enter just one competition this week…
AND finally, if you’re envious of all those who can show off their big screen tellies with a Blu Ray player, Blockbuster DVD Rental is falling short of offering the telly, but is giving away a Sony Blu Ray player along with a copy of Vantage Point on Blu Ray.
The Blu Ray version of the movie includes a bunch of interactive features such as a wicked sounding Picture-in-Picture GPS tracker that allows you to watch two vantage points of the movie simultaneously, which – if you know anything about the film – is an extraordinarily cool idea!
To win the Blu Ray player and the copy of Vantage Point, head over to the competitions page on the Blockbuster site.
You will need to be registered as an online member but you do not need to be an active user.
Anna König is at the Reading Festival this week. She will be back next week.
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