Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple languages.
Blockbuster Video was an American video rental store chain. It was founded by David Cook in 1985 as a stand-alone mom-and-pop home video rental shop, but later grew into a national store chain featuring video game rentals, DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater. The company expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide and operated 9,094 stores.
A regional lockout is a class of digital rights management preventing the use of a certain product or service, such as multimedia or a hardware device, outside a certain region or territory. A regional lockout may be enforced through physical means, through technological means such as detecting the user's IP address or using an identifying code, or through unintentional means introduced by devices only supporting certain regional technologies.
Sky Network Television Limited, more commonly known as Sky, is a New Zealand broadcasting company that provides pay television services via satellite, media streaming services and broadband internet services. As of 31 December 2022, Sky had 1,023,378 residential television subscribers consisting of 517,003 satellite subscribers and 506,375 streaming subscribers. Additionally, Sky had 23,156 broadband customers. Despite the similarity of name, branding and services, such as Sky Go and MySky shared with its European equivalent, Sky, there is no connection between the companies.
Video Ezy was an Australian home video rental business that offered titles on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray, as well as console video games, for rent. At its peak in the mid-2000s, Video Ezy had over 500 company-owned and franchised video rental shops in the country, and owned 40% of the Australian video rental market after taking over Blockbuster's Australian operations. The company also expanded internationally into New Zealand and Asia.
The PAL region is a television publication territory that covers most of Europe and Africa, alongside parts of Asia, South America and Oceania. It is named PAL because of the PAL television standard traditionally used in some of those regions, as opposed to the NTSC standard traditionally used in Japan and most of North America.
Redbox Automated Retail LLC is an American video on-demand streaming and video rental company specializing in DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD rentals and purchases and formerly video games via automated retail kiosks and TVOD, AVOD and FAST services via its website, Android and iOS apps and many consumer electronic devices. Redbox kiosks feature the company's signature red color and are located at convenience stores, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, mass retailers, and pharmacies.
DVD-by-mail is a business model in which customers rent DVDs and similar discs containing films, television shows, video games and the like, ordering online for delivery to the customer by mail. Generally, all interaction between the renter and the rental company takes place through the company's website, using an e-commerce model. Typically, a customer chooses from a list of titles online and adds titles to a queue. As a customer's requested titles become available, the company sends them out. When the customer is finished with the disc, they mail it back to the company.
Zip.ca was an online DVD rental and movie rental kiosk company operating in Canada. It had a database of over 82,000 unique titles.
LoveFilm was a United Kingdom–based provider of DVD-by-mail and streaming video on demand in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Germany.
GameZnFlix was a DVD-by-mail subscription service offering flat rate rental of home videos and video games to customers in the United States. On September 6, 2007, the company did a 1:1000 reverse split of its stock and changed its ticker symbol from "GZFX" to "GMZN." The company's home page went dark in November 2008.
DVD Unlimited was a DVD-by-mail service based in Auckland, New Zealand. It was a wholly owned unit of SKY Network Television. It competed directly with Movieshack and Fatso.
EzyDVD is an Australian specialist home video retailer offering DVD, Blu-ray, and Ultra HD Blu-ray discs for purchase. At its peak in the mid-2000s the company had over 70 retail stores around Australia, but is now exclusively an online retailer.
Movieshack was an online DVD rental company in New Zealand. Based in Auckland, it was launched on 28 June 2004 and introduced commercial online DVD rentals to New Zealand. The company was founded by brothers James and Nick MacAvoy, who created the customised software systems and website.
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detailed launch and game information announced later that month at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
The seventh generation of home video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was followed by the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006, and Nintendo's Wii on November 19, 2006. Each new console introduced new technologies. The Xbox 360 offered games rendered natively at high-definition video (HD) resolutions, the PlayStation 3 offered HD movie playback via a built-in 3D Blu-ray Disc player, and the Wii focused on integrating controllers with movement sensors as well as joysticks. Some Wii controllers could be moved about to control in-game actions, which enabled players to simulate real-world actions through movement during gameplay. By this generation, video game consoles had become an important part of the global IT infrastructure; it is estimated that video game consoles represented 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power in 2007.
Quickflix was an Australian company that provided online DVD and Blu-ray Disc rental by mail as well as internet streaming of movies and television shows via online pay-per-view or subscription.
Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) was a digital media delivery service operated by Sony. SEN provided access to services, including PlayStation Network for games, Video Unlimited for film and television, Music Unlimited for music, and PlayMemories for photographs and videos. On 28 January 2015, the Sony Entertainment Network was superseded by the PlayStation Network.
MyRepublic Group Limited is a Singaporean communications service provider. Launched in 2011, MyRepublic operates in the Asia-Pacific region, with operations in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. MyRepublic also licenses its platform to operators in Brunei and Indonesia.
Video City was an Australian home video rental business that offered titles on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray, as well as console video games, for rent. At its peak, Video City operated 26 stores nationally; 21 in Tasmania, with a further five stores located across Victoria and Queensland.
