On The Call: Blockbuster CEO James Keyes

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In response to competition from DVD rental kiosk operator Redbox, video rental chain Blockbuster Inc. has been rolling out kiosks of its own.

The company expects to have 500 kiosks up and running by the end of this month, CEO James Keyes said in a conference call with analysts Thursday, and 2,500 by the end of 2009. Another 7,000 are planned to be operational by the end of next August.

During the call, Keyes said Dallas-based Blockbuster also is testing the download of digital films at some of its own locations, which means that customers can quickly load a movie or TV show onto a USB thumb drive rather than downloading it to a computer over their home Internet connection.

Eventually, the company would like to enable this function on its DVD rental kiosks, he said.

QUESTION: Are you planning to enable digital downloads of movies through the DVD rental kiosks?

RESPONSE: We can actually, with (kiosk maker NCR Corp.), deploy kiosks with the server capability to house those movies onsite and to be able to build in the download capability to load a thumb drive or SD card. ... The remaining obstacle is getting the studios to all agree on the consistent standards necessary for security and protection of their intellectual property. That process is under way.