Netflix requires a monthly fee and you need to run out to rent (and return) the DVDs and Blu-rays you get from those ubiquitous Redbox kiosks. What's a movie-loving sloth to do? Enter Zediva. The new web-based video streaming service launched this week, allowing users to stream rentals at low prices -- although the operation might seem a little shifty at first glance.
Much like mom and pop video stores (remember those?), Zediva buys actual physical DVD movies, and rents them out to viewers via a web interface. There are no studios involved, no partnerships, and no other agreements. Rental fees are $1.99 each or you can purchase a package of 10 for $10. Once you rent a movie, you have 14 days to watch it.
Like your normal DVD player, the Zediva interface allows users to rewind, fast-forward and pause during playback. It also allows you to leave the movie and pick up where you left off at a later date. Just be advised: When you return, someone else could be watching your movie, which means you may have to wait.
In other words, Zediva sometimes runs out of stock. Similar to Redbox, if all of the copies of The Social Network are rented out, you may have to wait a while or watch something else. The number of copies varies, depending on the movie's expected popularity. In fact, when we went back around 9:30 p.m., only 30 of the 106 movies offered were available for rent. That's because Zediva doesn't encode its movies digitally so thousands upon thousands can watch at once. Instead, they use actual DVD players to deliver the goods in real time. Talk about an old-school business model! One is left with more questions than answers: How do they possibly think this will scale? Are DVD players cheaper by the dozen? And what about network bandwidth?
Part of Zediva's business model is to keep things legit. See, Zediva relies on something called First Sale Doctrine, a loophole that allows them to buy DVDs at Best Buy or even the local 7-11, and then rent them out to others. It works roughly the same way as a traditional video rental outlet used to, albeit using a different delivery mechanism. CTO Vivek Gupta says there is no actual DVD copying. "A physical DVD sits in a physical DVD player," he says. "You are actually watching the output of that DVD player."
It shows, too. When you first fire up a Zediva movie, you typically see the main menu for a Philips DVD player. However, this made us even more curious, so we decided to take advantage of Zediva's offer of two free movie rentals (good through March 31, with restrictions).
Zediva is a browser-based service, designed for use on a PC or Mac. If you have a home theater PC, you'll be set for a big-screen experience. Other options to get the service to a larger screen include Google TV and Netgear's Push2TV. For our testing, we used D-Link's Boxee Box, as well as the Boxee Browser app.
The Zediva site does require a user name, an email address, and a password. We logged into our account, and browsed through the 106 different movie titles that were available at press time. After choosing Toy Story 3, we were asked about a few preferences, such as if we wanted previews and whether or not we'd want to start from the beginning if we stopped the movie.
Ater the DVD menu, we sat through maybe 30 seconds of buffering, as well as a few blips of both previews and the disc menu (we opted to skip that stuff). Once the film started, we were extremely impressed with the image. This was indeed near DVD-quality. We did see a few jitters, but we blame this on our web connection. In other words, your mileage may vary. Still, it didn't stop us from enjoying Toy Story 3, all for free (via the promotion), on our 50-inch 1080p plasma.
How this type of business can compete in a sea of streaming media offerings remains to be seen. "It seems like it's very retro," says Gupta. "However, from a consumer point of view, it's actually a very compelling value proposition."
Is it the first of a new breed of "virtual" video rental stores or just an odd little blip in the history of content delivery? Time will tell.
For More Information:
