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I was really impressed with the technology behind it. When I first started seeing the vending machines, I just assumed that Redbox had workers going to the machines each day to restock them and put all the returns in the right bins for the next renter. But apparently this is something that is automatically done by the machine and some kind of email is sent by the machine to Redbox corporate when a live person is required.

I'm going to try to find out how this works, such as how does the machine take a returned DVD and get it in the right bin to be ready for the next renter?

I guess the next step (to get around the limited selection) would be to burn DVDs on demand, fully utilizing the "long tail" to maximize revenue. So basically the machine will contain a number of blank DVDs with a massive pipeline to the Internet. A customer at home orders an obscure movie from say 1947, and the machine downloads the movie from the company's servers, burns the DVD and has it ready by the time the customer gets to the machine. Now that would be impressive!

Of course, we will eventually be streaming this content directly into our own homes someday, but I still think it is years away before many of us have the bandwidth for that. In the meantime, a window of opportunity exists for Redbox (or whoever else figures out how to do this) to pretty much take over the movie rental business.