Sears And Kmart Bring Out Alphaline Movie Streaming Service [Alphaline Entertainment Offers Rental And Purchase Streaming Like Several Other Ventures]

Posted on TFTS by Steve Anderson on Tuesday, 28. December 2010 under: Computers & Computing, Internet Highlights, Net Resources

I have to admit, despite the fact that I love home theater news, this one snuck right up on me. I hadn’t even heard rumors to this effect, but the story that Sears and Kmart were apparently playing so close to the vest revolved around their new venture, Alphaline Entertainment, a movie streaming service that’s a whole lot like everybody else’s.

Alphaline Entertainment basically works on the RoxioNow platform from Sonic, which makes it a whole lot like Best Buy’s CinemaNow venture. Right now, it’s only available in the US (sorry everybody else–but from the sounds of things, you’ve got ventures of your own to work with, like Qriocity), and it appears to be priced similarly to Best Buy’s CinemaNow as well, with rentals going for $3.99 and purchases for $19.99, on new releases. Going out to Alphaline suggests that they’ve got just over 2000 titles to start with (not bad, but scarcely a competitor for Netflix–a quick check revealed 184 horror titles streaming on Alphaline to about 400 out on Netflix).

The Sonic / Sears coalition behind this is, reportedly, planning a multi-phase rollout which will bring this service to all your various mobile devices and even some not so mobile like Blu-ray players and the like.

Frankly, I’m thinking that unless they get something going, Alphaline Entertainment is going to ride the line right into the dustbin of history, because Netflix is way ahead of the curve on this one, and I really don’t think anyone’s so devoted to Sears that they’re going to throw over Netflix’s all you can stream menu for the a la carte pricing over at Alphaline.

Now, hopefully, we can get everyone sufficiently fast and limitless internet access that streaming video makes sense on a much wider scale. I remain convinced that the next format war will be fought over the internet as a streaming-only war, and hopefully, everyone will be able to get a stake in it.

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