It almost seems natural for a video rental store that has been around since 1985 to look towards joining the digital revolution, and that is what they are now doing. Moving past their movie-to-mailbox, Blockbuster has joined forces with 2Wire to create the MediaPoint media player, a broadband video-on-demand streaming device. This is the realization of the speculated device we reported about a few months ago.
MediaPoint currently runs $99 and includes 25 rentals, which is a fairly good deal. There is no subscription needed to continue use, and rented videos will range from $1.99 to $3.99 each, and new releases will usually available within 30 days. This will bring you tons of movies over wireless and Ethernet connections, and take the HD to your TV over HDMI. The media player also sports two USB ports and a SD card slot, though no word yet on what formats will be usable via those connections, and as of release, they are disabled. This may help position Blockbuster to start taking a decent share of the on demand market if it also allows external content over it, especially at such a cheap price.