Blockbuster just upped the ante in its competition against Netflix: The media entertainment provider Tuesday rolled out a digital media player that offers instant access through television sets to on-demand content of recently released movies. The service is essentially the evolution of Blockbuster’s Movielink.com site, which offers roughly 10,000 on-demand movies for download to personal computers. Some 2,000 of those titles can be downloaded to televisions via Blockbuster OnDemand. Two elements of Blockbuster’s recent offering are different from Netflix’s: the fees and the movies.

First, the 2Wire MediaPoint digital media player is available at no charge â€"but the customer must rent 25 Blockbuster OnDemand movies in advance, at a cost of $99 through the company’s online service. After the initial 25 rentals, movie rentals start at $1.99 each. The players will begin shipping in time for the holiday season. Movies stay on the player for 30 days; once a movie is started, it must be viewed within 24 hours. Rival Netflix has a free “Watch Instantlyâ€� feature, which streams movies to subscribers’ TVs or personal computers, but users must subscribe to its unlimited monthly service. Second, Blockbuster said the movies it is offering are more current that those of other subscription-based services. Many of the films will be available through the Blockb

I hate that they finally joined the video streaming thing , now I have to pick witch service to use

Its about time they jump on board. The video rental services are slowly dying. I see them closing their doors all the time.

The only drawback for me is having to watch the movie withing 24 hours once started. The way I am up and down that really could be a problem. This is something that I will have to check into.