Video Rentals Increase

AUSTRALIA'S video rental market continues to expand despite extra competition from a growing digital technology, a major DVD rental retailer says.

This is encouraging and interesting. We were all thinking, as the article suggests, that everyone would be downloading films, but the rental companies are renting games as well. In many ways , hiring a DVD has been part of our culture since the hideous pneumatic video players which first introduced us to that form of entertainment. It became a special evening. Cinema going for a family can be very expensive and yet some films you just have to see in the cinema. It has also become a way of veging out for the evening and most people will watch a film rather than TV. Some people wouldn't be able to afford the download costs or have the connectivitiy to make it a simple job and then if the download failed it would just be too much bother. Watching DVDs and playing games are a big form of relaxation here so there would be no tolerance for it being difficult. Most people are used to popping to the rental shop on the way to or from somewhere. Most people have made friends with their local video shop and those shops have more than done enough to respond to our whims and fancies. That is good business practice but it has been how our video shop owners have been of their own accord. They like their films and games, they know about them and they like people as well. Some people use it as a good reason to get out for a walk and others have used the postal services for DVDs and that seems to work very well and is efficiently run. Until downloads are easier and more reliable, until everyone has the capacity to access games and films in this way, then we shall be renting and keep it as one of our nice ways of enjoying ourselves. We watch a lot of films!