I worked in a video store for 25 yrs – what I learned as the industry died | Hacker News Reader

I worked in a video store for 25 yrs – what I learned as the industry died

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99 pointswalterbell76 comments

It seems like there would be some sort of hipster twist you could add to a video store to keep it going. Maybe the video store component becomes sort of a background prop, but it would be something that few other places could duplicate.

My most memorable moment in a video store was walking half through the swinging doors of a section which immediately electrified the senses of a 11 year old boy. Video boxes floor to ceiling covering 4 walls showing mostly naked people. I got a split second view before I got a tug on my collar followed by a reverse warp out of this fascinating world.

My town has two successful DVD rental places. Their "hipster twist" is basically: quality movies, and an owner that can find something for you. They aim at students and established inteligentia. At its core, the service they provide is discovery.

(the town also has a surprisingly thriving arthouse cinema scene, so it's certainly a welcoming environment.)

As for the wall of nekkid: "Confessions of a porn store clerk" (http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Of-Porn-Store-Clerk-ebook/...) is a fabulous read. It's available for free, too, but I found it worth the dime.

What might do this would be some sort of microtheatre: just as people go to the "third place" of coffee shops rather than entertain at home, start a social trend for collectively viewing films in the equivalent of someone else's very well-appointed lounge. Not necessarily on a fixed schedule either, but adhoc choice by those present.

Unfortunately the licensing fees required for this would be prohibitive. It's expensive enough having Sky Sports in a pub.

Maybe you could come in, show them your Netflix subscription and you'll get the movie you want on an USB flash drive you have to return. You can then repurpose all the display cases with, as you noted, interactive movie exhibits and information kiosks, etc. The reason to visit the video store, rather than just click on Netflix would be

1. It's a fun movie exhibit.

2. This movie doesn't count towards your data cap.

This exists in my neighborhood (Mission SF). Faye's Video & Espresso Bar... http://www.yelp.com/biz/fayes-video-and-espresso-bar-san-fra...

I find it interesting that the author never even mentions people that torrent movies.

He complains that Netflix and Hulu don't have such a large collection as some video stores, especially rare movies. But I have never not been able to find a very rare movie via a torrent.

And it is rather unusual that this large contributing factor to the downfall of his industry is never mentioned.

Funny you and I had the opposite thoughts about torrents. My thought was, "Ya know, the really good indie movie rental places are special; they have films I can't even find [seeded] between TehConnection and Karagarga". Maybe I should look at other trackers...

I'm pretty sure the movies you're looking for is on PassThePopcorn. They have 121,937 movies in their collection, and thousands of their members are the same kind of movie geek as the author of this article.

Does it still need invitations? I uhh, would be grateful for one, if ANYONE had it..

The pay per view rental model like iTunes often has a lot of harder to find movies.

A few times for me it's the last port of call when I can't find a title anywhere digitally, at at least then you're getting the best quality sound and picture!

As a non-American I'm really frustrated that what you don't get is translations. Disney movies for the kids have been translated into 100 or so languages, yet buying one on iTunes gets you English and -maybe- Spanish.

And then when you get to Europe, they suddenly have English-French languages on the same page.

It'd be really nice if when I bought a movie that they're selling the translated version for would be accessible everywhere.

Same problem on Amazon, Google play, iTunes, even Netflix.

Then you should definitely try bittorrent. Not only can you play those files (or transcode those files to play) on literally anything, but fans themselves do subs in roughly all the languages. If any of those services you mentioned above would allow user submitted subtitles, it would remove a large reason to torrent instead of buy.

Isn't the translated version only licensed for sale in the specific country of that language? So even if they wanted to they can't sell you a movie with all audio tracks?

Yeah, not if you are an Australian. At one stage you couldn't even get Star Trek TNG on iTunes.

There's a thriving industry in Australia of people designing services to bypass geoblocking measures. It's pathetic that I can't watch a movie just because of my nationality. Hell, one day I wanted to buy the Dragon Book on compilers, I put in a U.S. address and I got an email from Amazon telling me that I couldn't purchase the eBook because I'm not an American. They asked for a U.S. passport. And they never refunded me.

Consequently, Australians pirate more content than pretty much any nation on earth. Yet when we get the content, we pay up. Whenever I hear someone say that pirating content is a crime, I think - discriminating against me because I'm an Australian should also be a crime.

I don't think you guys can seriously compete with countries like Russia, India etc. where apart from all you mention there is financial side too (for many at least).

But I wholly agree that unless pirating will make things HARDER/content less appealing, it will be ripe. Currently it's the opposite, and I see no good reason to not just get a 1080p yify torrent with proper subtitles from scene 1-2 days after bluray release (sometimes even before). There is something about having my few TB external HDD full of my personal collection of movies and documents...

I still buy DVDs online for many movies I cannot find anywhere on the net using any method. It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately.

"It's the only reason I still have a DVD player, unfortunately."

Don't blu-ray players play DVDs?

Most, but it is not (AFAICS) a required portion of the spec - I'm pretty certain you'd need something similar to the multi-laser strategy that CD/DVD combination drives use.

The Blu-Ray Association says[1] that they expect it to be the case in practice, but that it's a market decision for each implementer, which sounds like it's not a requirement.

[1] - http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_backwards_compatible

I would pay someone like this for a quick chat on a Friday evening to help me choose a movie.

I'm old enough to remember going in to a video store and having a chat about what I should watch next.

The engaged staff quite often would send me on my way looking forward to watching the movie, and I wouldn't stop watching half way through either, I'd commit to it because it was a real recommendation by someone I talked to.

The part in the article where it was said we don't pick something to watch, we settle for something on the streaming services hits close to home for me.

Movie Recommendation as a Service (MRaas)? Or curation - if it isn't out there yet it will come.

Something with humans, since it would be easy to imagine algorithms getting stuck in a very narrow genre (like when you give a Pandora channel too many songs and it ends up with the same 20 tracks or covers thereof). Plus giving you that commitment to see the movie through.

Or just head to reddit[1] or equivalent communities.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieSuggestions

>>> Movie Recommendation as a Service (MRaas)? Or curation - if it isn't out there yet it will come.

I think it's not the same, if you are talking about an online service. It's all about the physical interactions, anticipation. Getting out of home, browsing the DVDs, bringing it back home, etc. It's the same with, e.g. books. Browsing the local bookstore compared to going through the lists in Amazon (I live in a country where it's a bit tricky to get English books and miss going to bookstores in England a lot, I can totally relate to people the author is talking about). Like the author said, it's half of the pleasure.

Humans are social animals. Not everything can be done online in an equally enjoyable manner.

I'm not sure we're social enough though.

Content industries have killed themselves by selling content as objects-you-own (or rent briefly.) Even Netflix etc work on this model. And torrents are just objects-you-steal.

If the content industries had done more to sell content as an element in a social network - share with friends/family, meet strangers, enjoy relationships of all kinds - they wouldn't be so threatened by P2P. The breakout franchises - Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars - all have this personal and social element. Direct-to-DVD crap movies totally lack it.

Ironically - or maybe not - P2P provides more of that social element. People make requests, comment on uploads, build reputations, and sometimes organise private sharing clubs.

I'm sure torrenting wouldn't have become as popular without that social sharing element.

That's an interesting point. But virtually social (I just made it up, not sure if it's correct but you get the idea), I believe, is very different form physically social.

I think in case of video stores, it's quite similar to coffee shops.

I have some good quality coffee beans, a decent machine, so I can totally make coffee that's good enough to compete with most of the coffee shops for a fraction of price and time that has to be spent. That's similar to Netflix. Quick, convenient, often good enough.

But still, I like to go to a coffee shop from time to time (which is similar to going to a video store). It takes much more time, it's not as convenient (can't just go straight from bed in my underwear), but there's something rewarding about the whole thing. Dressing up, getting out of home, all these things makes this as a sort of ritual.

It already exists and it works pretty well: http://criticker.com

The predicted scores usually fall within 2-3% of what I decide to give (in a blind test, that is, I decide before looking up the prediction).

Initially video stores have cut into the profits of movie theaters. However, it is interesting that currently theaters (while still struggling quite a bit) seem to be coping better than the video stores.

That's because the fundamental differentiation has already happened there: "going to the cinema" vs "watching at home" has been a choice for 30+ years now. Who had to die because of that, died already. Despite Hollywood's lamentation, it's unlikely that cinema numbers will ever get significantly worse than they are at the moment, unless someone (Oculus?) manages to somehow replicate the big-screen experience at home in full -- and even then, groups of teenagers will probably still choose to escape their parents' abode every now and then.

it's already a worse experience (noisy, annoying kids, ringing cell phones, too loud for some, not ideal placement of most seats etc.), but it's a social experience. 3D might be an exception, for now, and it's still a rather niche market.

same as people buying shots at bars vs drinking same alcohol at home for 20% of the price.

3D niche? I can't go to any movie anymore cause they are all fg 3D and I hate it. My head hurts horribly after onw of those.

"Who had to die because of that, died already."

- one of those casualties would be the p0rn theater. Back then you could go to a theater and watch chicks swallow John Holmes' member in all its widescreen glory.

Then when VHS came out, it was championed by the p0rn industry and away went most of those kinda cool, albeit seedy, p0rn theaters.

> kinda cool

... you've never been in one, have you? :)

I grew up in a neighbourhood that had one. It attracted unsavoury (but mostly harmless) characters, and was pretty squalid inside and out. There was nothing cool nor weird about it.

What is funny is that it survived VHS pretty unscathed: because of its secluded location, it remained popular amongst the clientele looking for, er, "social" experiences. Neighbours fought political wars of attrition for decades, limiting its advertising and so on, but it resisted fairly well (likely helping itself to massive tax evasion -- even policemen don't want to be seen near such premises). It closed only when the owner died.

I would pay for his service, not a lot, but I would pay. Every now and then I find a good movie (last one being "Swingers"), but it's completely random. I can't find a website with a constant flow of good recommendations. I get very frustrated every time I try to get something out of one of those "the 100 best movies of..." lists.

Interesting read. Reminds me of another article I read here about a store closing down whose link I can't find.

I dislike that my children will never experience the video store like I.

Streaming just isn't there. The quality isn't good enough and the cost is, in my opinion, too high.

I absolutely loved my local video store and owe a large part of my viewing tastes to it.

Had it not been for that store I wouldn't have the appreciation that I do for foreign films, trash cinema, exploitation films and direct-to-video.

I outgrew my local rental's small collection quickly and was an early adopter when it came to torrenting and streaming. I still miss the store - the process of discovering a movie was at least half the experience.

The best I can do to get close to it is browse the IMDB release list every 6 months and then get every movie that sparks my interest. Binge watching 40-50 movies is cool, but not the same.

Great article. Independent video stores were/are interesting places to visit, it's a shame they're struggling to survive.

I also feel the same about music shops and games arcades. The human element is a big part of what makes the experience compelling. I especially miss games arcades, they gave me some of my fondest childhood memories.

Where I live the video rental places gouged their customers with late fees. A minute after 48 hours you were stiffed with another 48 hours. I and my wife are very busy. Most of our subscription went on late fees. Just for that greed I'm not sorry they closed.

The irony is this very thing was the trigger that started Netflix. Their own practices that consumers hated helped create the very thing that killed them.

The free market at work. Lets see what else can come along and disrupt things, because it pays attention to what customers hate...

This is a positive way to think about things you hate.

Well the problem is the rental store can't let people hold on to the movies, so they need some sort of incentive system to stop people forgetting to bring it back. Online of course doesn't have that problem.

There was a really big video store across the road from me. They made most of their money via porn I heard. Normal movies were 1 buck per day. It was very busy up to a year ago.

Then it moved down the road, a bit far for me to walk when I felt like being on the couch. So I stopped going.

It's still very busy though.

It also has a good website where you can look stuff up online. It was also convienient to grab a bottle of wine/beer and popcorn etc at normal prices (not insane cinema style prices). They have stuff which the big online video distributors have and it is more convenient in many ways.

But then again, this is Berlin... and there are still plenty of vinyl stores and such like. In a lot of ways it's the city time forgot.

While vinyl records have made a resurgence from near extinction. It's unlikely the same will happen for the video stores as music seems more timeless and collectible than movies.

Moreover, I think you will be hard-pressed to find someone who will argue that VHS or DVD provided better quality than Netflix et al.

Obviously, Blu-Ray provides better quality than today's streaming services, but the format never really took off in a big way among the general population.

It's a bit of a shame, since with Blu-Ray, you at least own something. It'll still work when somebody pulls the plug on some service.

I have a feeling that the idea of owning things is going to become a crazy old-people's complaint. Perhaps younger generations will be happy with their remote-wipeable phone apps, viewed-then-gone movies, hired rides in someone else's car, etc. Maybe these things are becoming so numerous and cheap compared to our income and other costs (housing) that people won't care anymore.

I agree that it will probably become a old-people's complaint. The latter part (numerous and cheap) does assume a perfect market though. In reality, many of the resources may end up in the hands of a monopoly or oligopoly and then they change the rules or charges at any time.

There's no sense of ownership when I flick through and partially watch a dozen movies before settling on The Hunger Games on a boring Monday night.

Actually, if you have a DVD or Blu-Ray disk, you only own a piece of plastic. As for the movie encoded upon it, you have no ownership rights--only an extremely limited license to do a single thing with it (decrypt and read it for the purpose of immediate viewing) using one of a limited number of industry-approved reading devices. That doesn't really satisfy any reasonable definition of ownership.

I think h.265/HEVC may change that as devices come to support the codec... I've been really impressed at some of the sizes that can be acheived with the newer format.

There are tangible reasons why vinyl has never completely died off:

People romanticise over vinyl because it's tactile and the medium adds a warmth to the sound which is generally quite pleasing.

VHS and DVD isn't tactile and the lower video quality between that and HD isn't pleasing.

Vinyl's resurgence isn't exactly the same. Imagine a video store where you could rent the 35mm print and watch it at home. That's vinyl. It isn't the 'coolness' of record, it's the fidelity. I never want to watch a film on VHS again. That's the 128kb MP3 version of a movie.

It's not about fidelity - vinyl reproduction is measurably less accurate than CD, but the hip stores are selling vinyls, not CDs.

That was just such a great read, many thanks to the OP.

Nothing beats depth of experience and passion, to give you an insiders view.

Hulu and Netflix are all you need, entertainment-wise. Haven't watched traditional TV in ages and it has for sure had a positive psychological impact on me. Not related to the article (like I'd know, I commented first before reading), but I did want to take this opportunity to preach.

And for those outside the US, bittorrent is all you need.

Seriously, I really don't understand - Hollywood is losing a ton by not allowing Hulu and Netflix to screen internationally. They end up pirated anyway - why the US-only restriction? I'm in India and would gladly pay Netflix the $10 fee - but I can't.

Also, I've recently bought a USB Bluray drive, and I'm really surprised at how hard they made it to play a freaking Bluray movie on a PC. Even the proprietary and expensive software like PowerDVD is crap (does not play every movie). How can they make things this annoying knowing that there's a free alternative (BitTorrent) that always just works?

Can't stress on how true this point is. In Bangalore, India, just a few years back we had maybe 3-4 video rentals in the vicinity (2 - 3 km radius), but now there are none. Unlike the US there aren't any streaming options either. So where are all those users going?

How do you propose the studios which owns the movies satisfy all the laws in India? It may not be possible to get a censor board certificate for each of the movies in the collection of Netflix.

The cost of opening up them to vandalism (if they have offices in India) or lawsuits alleging "hurting the sentiments of the people" is too high.

One reason I use torrents (even though I am willing to pay for good content) is to defeat censorship.

I don't think they need to "operate" in India or anywhere else in the world. They just need to allow people to sign up for their service irrespective of where they're from and access content, just like, you know, how the rest of the internet works.

My guess is that they're being held back more by Hollywood's licensing conditions rather than individual countries' laws.

Unfortunately, distribution networks and related contracts are very complicated legally, not even going into local laws and other legalities. Netflix itself has a few good sized teams of developers dedicated just to creating tooling to help navigate the legal nightmares regarding distribution agreements and their streaming services.

I'm pretty sure the studios would much rather be able to have a very few global release channels than the network remnants they currently have.

Sorry, I don't get it. Are you saying that the studios are forced into this situation because of earlier contracts they've signed with cable networks? Aren't contracts signed separately for each new movie that they create?

There are distribution deals with studios for all distribution to a given location and/or media within different regions. There is some content that is negotiated individually, others en-mass. It is often per-movie, but this only makes things more complicated, not less.

No, Indians cannot sign up for any service irrespective of where it is hosted. If it is illegal, it can be blocked by the government (whether that is just or logical is a different issue, but I am not talking about that here).

Sure, the government can. But that doesn't mean Netflix tries to satisfy the laws of all 196 countries in the world. Netflix is a US company, and they only need to satisfy US laws.

And FYI, viewing of pornography is NOT illegal in India. I will not be breaking any Indian law by viewing a risque movie hosted in the US and streamed by Netflix.

Yeah you can. Various sites like Unotelly offer a way. Different devices in the house can see different content on various services. It's the gold standard. I'm paying for the service so copyright holders can hardly get too mad. If they weren't being dicks they could have the $5 a month I give Unotelly too.

Ok! Didn't know about this. One other VPN I tried (a year or so ago), was real slow and Netflix was unwatchable. They do have a free trial, so will give this a go.

Also try GetFlix.

It's not the exact same thing as the movie rights industry, but check out this series of posts about fiction book publishing: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/04/common-m... (particularly http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/03/cmap-4-t...)

As much as I dislike a number of practices in Hollywood, I don't think that the international distribution problem is a consequence of their contractual terms, but on how distribution rights are region-specific, so Hollywood may not be able to grant distribution rights in a market they already gave an exclusive distribution contract to someone else for.

I would love nothing more than for this to be a trivial problem to be solved by negotiating with one (albeit enormous) loose group of companies, but I don't think that's the problem here.

So you're saying that studios sign away all current and future distribution rights for all current and future movies that they create to an exclusive distributor for a particular region? It's not done on a per-movie basis? That is so crazy...

I believe it's on a per-movie basis, but is exclusive for that distribution region (not necessarily one country).

That just makes the problem of getting bulk licenses in multiple locations worse, though.

If you can't get it otherwise, you won't hear me complaining about how you get it. I say get it however you want.

If you're willing to steal movies via torrents, wouldn't you also be willing to get a VPN to watch Netflix?

I'm not a piracy advocate, but this doesn't offer any advantages over torrents. You still don't have a legitimate licence to view the content, so at that stage you might as well just torrent it.

I do not accept the legitimacy of arbitrary region restrictions. It is still the moral thing to do and much faster/easier than torrenting.

It does offer a moral 'advantage' in that you can tell yourself that even though what you are doing isn't technically legitimate, you're at least doing your bit to make sure the creators get paid.

> the creators get paid.

Netflix and the studios* get paid.

And (hopefully) the studios pay the creators. But realistically how is that different from me renting/buying a DVD or buying a ticket at the cinema?

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