Q. I was thinking of going up to Redbox and start renting 4K movies for my Dad so he can watch some movies while we’re still at home due to Covid. But which 4K movies do they have? And does every Redbox kiosk have 4K? We just got a new 4K for my father. — Candy, Miami.
Candy, congratulations on your purchase!
Redbox, the kiosk rental service, does offer 4K movies. The current lineup includes 1917 (pictured), The Gentlemen, Rambo: Last Blood, Knives Out, A Quiet Place, Midway, Terminator: Dark Fate, Gemini Man, Joker, Angel Has Fallen and Scary Stories.
The cost for a 4K rental is $2.50 a night, which is 75 cents more than a DVD nightly rental and 50 cents more than a regular high-def Blu-ray nightly rental. That’s a pretty good deal considering that the purchase cost of a 4K movie is sometimes double the DVD and/or Blu-ray edition.
But this is where the bad news begins, at least for most 4K owners.
Redbox only offers 4K rentals in 15 markets:
New York
Los Angeles
Seattle
Detroit
Austin
Miami
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Des Moines, Iowa
Kansas City, Missouri
Minneapolis
Portland, Oregon
Reno, Nevada
San Diego
San Francisco
Spokane, Washington
Candy, the good news for you is that Miami is on the list. And Redbox says nearly every kiosk in each of the above 15 markets includes 4K titles.
But the bad news is that Redbox has not expanded this list in 15 months. Certainly the Coronavirus shutdown hasn’t helped here, but it looks like the kiosk business isn’t anxious to expand its 4K audience.
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— Phillip Swann
@swanniontv
I hope that this person has a 4k player as well as a 4k screen. Very few people have upgraded their player and are watching HD on their 4k screen, although it might be somewhat improved by their TV.
I have all the equipment for 4K playback and have purchased one 4K movie because it was $9.99 and I had a $5 gift card so I got it. It looks great but so do upscaled Blu-Rays. I think the two biggest advantages to the 4K discs is that one, they have HDR which is a bigger feature than the 4 times greater resolution, the better contrast, color, and detail compared to regular Blu-Rays and two, (if I am correct) most, if not all, 4K discs have either a Dolby Atmos or DTS-X audio track. There are some regular Blu-Rays that have one or the other but I think most don’t. I sure hope Redbox brings 4K rentals to upstate NY soon because I don’t purchase many films anymore and I do want to enjoy the quality of 4K discs on a regular basis.