New Online Video Renter Zediva Looks To Take On Netflix

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Sometimes you see things in the tech news sector that make you shake your head in sheer astonishment, and Zediva is one of them. They’re looking to horn in on Netflix’s turf, and they’ve got a pretty good case going for them. They’ve actually developed what amounts to a way to rent DVDs online, electronically, without sending you a physical DVD.

What Zediva does, you see, is rent you a DVD and a DVD player, with your computer–tablets and Google TV are also allowed in Zediva’s service–acting as the remote control for same. Zediva servers contain both DVDs and DVD drives, so when you rent a movie with Zediva, you get to see it on your computer or other controller, but that movie is then taken out of circulation until you “give it back” to Zediva, at which point you lose access to same, just like if you’d rented a video from an actual brick-and-mortar video store.

This means that Zediva’s not converting movies into files for streaming, the way Netflix does, giving you access to a movie at the same time as everyone else, but rather, operating like a regular video store, only electronically. This in turn allows Zediva to operate under the “first-sale doctrine” which allows video stores to buy a DVD then resell it or rent it out as they please.

Word is that watching a movie on Zediva is almost exactly like watching a DVD, complete with FBI warnings, that Zediva even tries to fast forward through. You’ll get access to a movie for fully two weeks once you rent it, and you’ll be able to pause and walk away as often as you like in that time frame. You can even activate closed captioning in a variety of languages.

Pricing is downright impressive, with $1.99 getting you one movie, and $10 getting you a full ten movies. They’ve only just come out of beta, so titles are a bit limited (there are only about 100-odd titles, and I got this number by physically counting the “all DVDs” section), though word is they’ll be dropping “millions” on getting their selection beefed up. And for those thinking they should save their “millions” until the lawyers get through, Zediva’s hopeful that the studios will see them as a valuable customer rather than an illegal streamer.