There's still one video rental shop left in the UK!

[Retro]

Warning: this one has a high niche nerd factor.



I thought video rental stores had all died out with the rise of streaming technology, but no, there's still one left!

Check out 20th Century Flicks in Bristol.

Against the odds, 20th Century Flicks, a DVD and VHS rental store in Bristol, has reached a landmark – its 40th anniversary – and is marking the moment with a festival showing films from the year of its opening, 1982.

‘There’s still a demand’: Bristol video shop celebrates 40 years in business

20th Century Flicks has been renting out films since 1982 and is surviving the streaming era

www.theguardian.com

 

[Tiffany]

That's so awesome!! We used to have Block Buster Video in the 90's. Block Buster Video didn't keep up with technology changes and that was their undoing in the video rental market.

 

[Retro]

Yup, they could have been Netflix. This is what happens when management is short sighted.

 

[Tiffany]

True! The downfall of many businesses is not keeping up with current trends in their industry and failing to plan for the future. Technology is always changing and nothing is certain to last forever. You can look at recording technology alone; vinyl records, reel to reel, tape cassetes, 8 track, VCR. They were replaced and what they were replaced with will likely evolve again.

 

[Retro]

Oh indeed, media technology never stops evolving. We're still playing music and video from storage media. It just doesn't take the form of personally accessible CDs, records, tapes etc anymore. Instead, it's stored on SSDs or HDDs in data centres and streamed out to us, encrusted with DRM which I despise so much. The DRM and the tethered, lack of control over my own files is why I don't subscribe to any music services. Oh and the lossy compression is another one.

I accept these handcuffs for TV, since once I've seen a movie or other content, I don't want to watch it again. Since it's a one time thing, the DRM matters much less to me. Occasionally I'll watch a movies twice, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Tiffany]

Oh indeed, media technology never stops evolving. We're still playing music and video from storage media. It just doesn't take the form of personally accessible CDs, records, tapes etc anymore. Instead, it's stored on SSDs or HDDs in data centres and streamed out to us, encrusted with DRM which I despise so much. The DRM and the tethered, lack of control over my own files is why I don't subscribe to any music services. Oh and the lossy compression is another one.

I accept these handcuffs for TV, since once I've seen a movie or other content, I don't want to watch it again. Since it's a one time thing, the DRM matters much less to me. Occasionally I'll watch a movies twice, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

K, that was tech-speak! Some of it I get, now I have to go study up on what I didn't know about.