When DVD hit big, some studios desperately tried to hang on to the traditional rental window.

It led to an odd format called DIVX…

This article comes fromDen of Geek UK.

Just outside a big booze shop.

That, I explained to my 13-year old, was where I spent a good deal of my youth.

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Now?

The video rental store is dead.

And the idea of renting a film, and having to return it to the store by hand!

Yet for some time, the film industry was petrified about surrendering the comfort blanket of the rental window.

Quoted inBillboard, he said that home video still accounts for 48% of all movie profits.

Not everyone agreed: Tower Records (remember them?)

Some still tried, mind.

But then DVD changedeverything.

That format was DIVX.

The reason for its being?

Because the VHS market was a known, reliable money-spinner for studios.

DIVX, then, was the brainchild of an odd union of companies.

Yep, retail stores and lawyers came up with it.

DIVX was clearly being aimed at casual movie watchers, rather than film fans.

Yet film fans set alarm bells ringing.

Where the FACTS are told… and the decision is YOURS!

Enjoy those $4.49 movies!, it added.

The site would disappear after a year or so.

The Wayback Machine has kept a version of ithere.

DVD had won the battle.

With DVD victorious, so the rental window system ended in the US pretty much on the spot.

Stores still offered DVD rentals, but of discs you could buy at an affordable price.

The studios, as it turned out, were ultimately thrilled.

Furthermore, studios couldnt raid their back catalogues for releases fast enough.

But then there was a cultural difference.

These were very much the exceptions to the rule, though.

But the UK eventually caught on.

But this year, if it was on DVD, consumers bought it.

Choices had been one of the chains that had called for the continuation of rentals.

Its worth noting one further party interested in keeping the rental window open: cinemas.

That, in theory, its likely to see more people buying cinema tickets.

Thats how much things have changed.

But the catalyst there too has been a format change.

Im sad that my 13-year old will never know such places as they once were.