Redbox announced that it had rented its 2 billionth movies and video games on Monday. The The 2 billionth disc was Drive and was rented at a McDonald’s in Philomath, Ore. To thank America for making Redbox its destination for entertainment and to celebrate the 2 billion rentals, Redbox has decided to offer free movies to customers for one night – March 8, 2012. Consumers can join the celebration by visiting Redbox Facebook page to get and share the promotional code with family and friends.

“We’ve always known how much America loves easy, affordable entertainment, and today we can prove it 2 billion times over. Just 18 months ago, we rented our 1 billionth DVD and we couldn’t be more excited to celebrate this remarkable second rental milestone with our customers.” said Scott Di Valerio, CFO of Coinstart, Inc.

Please note that this is a one-time, one-night rental and the promotional code is only valid on March 8 and a credit card is needed in case you keep the title more than one night. The free titles include Footloose, Jack & Jill, Like Crazy, etc. and the latest Hugo and In Time.

Tips: You can also get free Redbox rentals with free Redbox codes. You can learn How to get and use Redbox free codes.

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Want to rent DVD movies in places other than Netflix? Here are the top four Netflix alternatives to rent DVD movies. Just check out the list and enjoy your DVD movies!

1. Redbox

Redbox offers DVD rentals for $1.2 per day. You can reserve the movie or game you want online, and then go to the Redbox kiosks to get the DVD disc. Redbox can be the best alternative to Netflix for renting DVD movies especially when you rent less than 8 movies a month from Netflix. Just remember that return Redbox DVD movies by 9 p.m. the next day. Otherwise, you will need to pay an extra dollar. Another good thing about Redbox is that there are many free Redbox codes to get DVD rentals without a penny! If you have get some DVD movies from Redbox, you can convert them to your iPhone, iPad, iPod, etc. by ripping them to MP4. Learn how to rip Redbox DVD > >

2. GreenCine

Greencine movies are also delivered and returned by mail the same as Netflix. This service is only available in the United States at present with a monthly price of $9.95 for one DVD out to $49.95 for eight DVDs out. What’s the different between Netflix and GreenCine’s DVD-by-mail service? Well, GreenCine focuses more on independent, international, documentary films and some rare hard-to-find titles rather than mainstream movies. So if you’re a fan of the genres it specializes in, GreenCine is a great Netflix alternative to get DVD rentals.

3. Public Library

Usually the public library provides lots of DVD movies for free as long as you have a library card. Though they don’t have the latest releases and the selection is much smaller compared with other DVD rental services, you can still find some discs you are longing for without any cost and keep them for up to one week. One problem is that the disc you get may be damaged and unplayable. Any way, it’s free. Why not have a try?

4. Blockbuster

Blockbuster also provides streaming and DVD rental services. You can get one, two, or three discs at a time for $11.99, $16.99 and $19.99 respectively with a monthly subscription. In addition, you can exchange a disc in store up to five times per month with each plan. For prices, Netflix is still much cheaper even after the price hike. But Blockbuster offers new DVD rentals earlier than Netflix (usually at most 28 days) and it offers a larger selection than Redbox. So if you want to watch a lot of DVDs, Blockbuster is a fine alternative to Netflix. (Note that Redbox is to buy Blockbuster. The deal will probably take place in the third quarter of this year. For more information, please go to Redbox to Buy Blockbuster.)

Well, that’s all about the top 4 alternatives to Netflix for renting DVD movies. Just enjoy your digital world and don’t forget to share it with more people!

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It’s a good news for those who like to rent DVD movies from Redbox: Redbox has renewed a deal with Universal Pictures to get its DVD films with the current 28-day waiting period instead of 56 days. And it’s reported this deal will last to August 2014.

Hollywood studios have different views of how long Redbox should wait for the DVDs after the discs are released for sale. Some worry that if the waiting-day is too short, consumers may turn to renting DVD movies instead of buying the discs, which will cut the profits of the studios.

Because of this, Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros announced in January that it would double the window of new releases on DVD: Redbox has to wait for 56 days after the new DVD discs are released for sale.

However, Redbox defies Warner Bro’s delayed DVD rental and turn to get DVDs from other sources, such as Comcast Corp.’s Universal, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, Sony Corp., The Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc.’s Paramount, etc. even though this may cost more money.

Galen Smith, senior vice president of Redbox, says that this agreement between Universal and Redbox represents a win for consumers and Redbox will always provides its consumers the newest DVDs in the shortest time with an affordable price. Although 28 days is still not “short”, compared with the 56-day delay, it’s much better, right?

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Want to play some video games but don’t want to spend any money? Now you’ve got a change to get a free one-day video game rental from Redbox!

Starting from Sunday, Feb. 26 and ending on Thursday, March 1, Redbox is offering a free one-day rental of video game like Twisted Metal, UFC Undisputed 3, The Darkness II, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Just Dance 3, etc. for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, etc.

To get the free video game rental, you need to book the game online in advance with a debit or credit card. If you return the game by the next day, there will be no charge. However, if the game isn’t returned after the first day, you’ll be charged for an additional $2 a day. As we know, usually a game lover usually will not play the game for just one day, so Redbox’s promotion actually makes a lot of sense and will definitely get more money from game lovers’ pockets.

Another aim of this promotion is to let consumers more clearly know that besides movie rentals, games are also a part of Redbox’s business.

The newly releases VLC 2.0 is awesome with some new features. However, if you try to rip DVD with Handbrake after installing VLC 2.0 on Mac, you may come across some problems in converting your DVD movies. Here is the way to fix the problem.

When you are using Handbrake and VLC 2.0 to rip a DVD, Handbrake may show you this error:

Why this occurs? Well, that’s because Handbrake can’t rip DVDs on its own; you need to install VLC to get the DVD decrypting libraries so as to read encrypted DVDs. However, VLC 2.0 changes its code libraries to decrypt DVDs and Handbrake cannot use VLC’s libdvdcss for DVD decryption. So it tells you that you don’t have the right version of VLC Media Player installed as the above picture shows.

Fortunately, there are some ways to fix this issue. One way is that you uninstall VLC 2.0 and download the older copy of VLC Media Player, which works well with Handbrake to rip encrypted DVD movies. Another suggested way, actually a much better one, is to download the missing code library from VLC.

At http://download.videolan.org/libdvdcss/last/macosx/, you can download the copy of the DVD decryption engine: the libdvdcss.2.dylib file. Generally, the installer will install it in /usr/lib/ on your Mac. Once that files is in the right place, Handbrake can see it and use it to rip protected DVDs.

You can double check to see whether the libdvdcss.2.dylib file is installed properly by opening Applications/Utilities/Terminal and paste file /usr/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib in line. If you see the following codes, then it is installed OK.

/usr/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures

/usr/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386

/usr/lib/libdvdcss.2.dylib (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library x86_64

Handbrake alternative to rip protected DVD

Yeah, Handbrake can convert protected DVD movies with the help of VLC Media Player. However, the output video formats are limited and you are not allowed to edit or preview your DVD video. To rip DVD to MP4, MOV, MKV, FLV, AVI, WMV, ASF, etc. with smart video editing features, you can turn to the best Handbrake alternative – Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate for Mac.

With it, you can rip both homemade and commercial protected DVD movies to all popular video/audio formats and convert among MP4, MOV, MKV, FLV, WMV, AVI, ASF, VOB, MTS, MPG, MP4, OGG, ACC, WMA, etc. Besides, it comes with a video editor that allows you to customize your movies by trimming, cropping, rotating, adding watermarks, etc. with real-time preview. Explore Aimersoft Video Converter Ultimate for Mac>>  

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Did you know that you can get free DVD rental codes to watch the latest movies for free from Redbox? The Redbox codes, essentially promotional coupons, let you get free DVD rentals from Redbox and encourage people to use their service.

1. Get free Redbox codes

The best place to find free Redbox codes is the website: Inside Redbox. Just register to be a membership and navigate “Redbox Codes” to browse the promotional codes. Detailed information of where the code is working and when it will expire will be offered. Generally speaking, the codes with a green dot beside them can work well while those with yellow dots can possibly work.

And here are some of the latest 2012 Redobox codes for free DVD rentals or discounted rentals.

2. Redeem free Redbox Codes

When you get the free Redbox code, go to the Redbox kiosk, click “Rent With A Promo Code” or “Add Promo Code” to enter the code and you will then know whether it works. Or enter the codes at the checkout. Just remember to return the movie by 9pm to avoid extra DVD rental charges.

Just have fun and enjoy your free DVD rental with family and friends!

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In the past, Netflix has made lots of decisions and announcements to let consumers know that Netflix is interested in streaming videos instead of DVDs by mail. Last year, Netflix separated its DVD rental service into Qwickster and decided to raise the price to $7.99 each for streaming and DVD options while previously consumers can get unlimited streaming and one DVD out at a time with only $9.99 per month. Because of the price hike and the Qwickster separation plan, Netflix lost about 800,000 members.

It’s obvious that cutting DVD-only plans doesn’t work for the company – that’s why Netflix is bringing it back. Recently, Netflix announced on its official blog that the company will allow customers to sign up for a DVD-only plan easily with $7.99/month. Subscribers will have access to about 100,000 titles on DVD and an extra $2/month for Blu-ray discs.

In fact, Netflix has never dropped the DVD-only subscription. In the last few months, consumers can still get DVD-only plans in a complicated way: Netflix only allowed new customers to sign up for its Watch Instantly service. However, when the account had been created, subscribers can choose to add DVD or drop streaming. So this new plan actually just simplifies the process for consumers to get DVD-only subscription.

Why Netflix reintroduces the DVD-only plan? Well, Netflix should care more about its consumers because that’s where its main profit comes from. Yeah, streaming service is definitely the future, but there are still so many people like DVDs because of the better picture quality or bad network conditions.

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