The touch screen for DVD titles on a redbox automated rental kiosk allows customers to browse various selections.

Joseph A. Garcia / Star staff Lisa Gerlach checks out the selection of movies for rent at a redbox in a supermarket in Camarillo.

Joseph A. Garcia / Star staff Lisa Gerlach checks out the selection of movies for rent at a redbox in a supermarket in Camarillo.

It's cheaper than a standard service.

It's faster than having to park a car or fire up the computer.

It's as convenient as the candy rack at the checkout line.

It's a movie vending machine.

Automated DVD rental kiosks, such as Illinois-based redbox, are being installed at supermarkets and fast-food outlets, luring customers away from other video outlets with their $1 movie rentals.

The potential seems great judging from consumers' lounging habits.

In 2007, consumers spent $23.7 billion buying and renting DVDs and VHS cassettes, reported the Entertainment Merchant Association, a national trade group. That far exceeded the more than $9.6 billion spent at the box office last year, according to the Motion Picture Association of America.

The competition seems like another big blow for video store chains that already are licking their wounds from losing ground to online rental startups like Netflix. But it's unlikely that the vending machine kiosks will put video rental stores out of business.

Kiosks accounted for 2 percent of the home video market in 2007, double from 2006, according to EMA.

"They're still a small part of the market, but they're really starting to take off," said Sean Bersell, an EMA spokesman.

Video chain stores' market share shrank from 79 percent of in 2006 to 73 percent in 2007, while Netflix and other online subscription services comprised 25 percent, according to EMA.

Market analysts predict that by 2010, kiosks will account for 10 percent of the rental market, Bersell said.

Shoppers can now rent movies from redbox kiosks at 7,000 national locations. Provided that consumers return the rental the following day, they spend much less than the average rental price of $3.25 per movie, Bersell said.

The price satisfies people looking for the best bargain that doesn't involve a subscription.

But it's not such a good deal if renters forget to return a movie. Redbox charges $1 a day plus taxes for late returns. Charges stop accruing after 25 days because at that point, the customer must buy the movie.

Renting a movie at a redbox kiosk is simple. Customers make their selections on a touch screen, then swipe a credit or debit card. The company says the process takes less than a minute. Rentals must be returned to any redbox location by 9 p.m. the following day.

In Ventura County, there are four redbox locations — at two Albertsons in Oxnard, one at the Albertsons in Camarillo and one at Longs Drugs in Thousand Oaks. But consumers can expect to see them soon at Wal-Mart, according to the company.

"I think it's fantastic," said Lisa Gerlach, a Camarillo resident, who discovered redbox Wednesday at Albertsons. She compared the $1 charge to the more than $4 it cost her recently to rent "Sweeney Todd" at Blockbuster. She usually gets movies from the library or Blockbuster, but said she planned to use redbox in the future.

Not everyone's a fan.

Syl Hannon of Camarillo couldn't care if the cost of renting a movie was $5 or $1 — he's not interested. He hasn't been to the theater since 1972 and says he's never rented a movie. Everything he wants to see is on TV, he said.

That's an unusual outlook. Consumer awareness is growing as grocery stores replace their movie rental departments with kiosks, Bersell said.

Redbox makes things easier for customers because it's one less stop that people have to make on their way home, said Lilia Rodriguez, public affairs manager for Albertsons' Southern California division. It also increases foot traffic for the store if customers decide to pick up a few grocery items when they return their rentals.

Rodriguez found using redbox was easy and offered plenty of selections.

But there are drawbacks. While the average video store has about 8,000 titles and online businesses have tens of thousands, kiosks feature just a few hundred, Bersell said.

It means that the selection is typically limited to newer movies, and some titles might be out of stock at a kiosk. According to the company, each redbox kiosk holds more than 500 DVDS and up to 150 are new releases.

A privately held company, redbox does not release revenue information, said Gary Lancina, vice president of marketing. The company announced in January that it had exceeded 100 million rentals.

Redbox now is focusing on installing kiosks at McDonald's, Walgreens and Wal-Mart stores, Lancina said.

Bersell noted that kiosks give consumers more choices and have changed the industry.

"Video rentals have always been about convenience and value," he said. "It's all about meeting the needs of the consumers."

In the early days, that didn't always happen. In the 1980s, video stores had maybe 10 copies of the latest movie that would all be checked out by Friday night, he said. He remembers people hovering "around the return bin like vultures," waiting for movies.

On the Net:

http://www.redbox.com