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For as long as I can remember, Blockbuster Video has been the nation-wide go-to spot to rent movies. Some of my earliest movie experiences as a child involved movies my family rented from Blockbuster. When the popularity of online music downloads began shuttering music stores, the world realized that Blockbuster's days were similarly numbered. Now it seems that number is quickly approaching zero as the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that an impending bankruptcy could be as close as a few weeks away for the video and game rental giant.

During yesterday's Q3 earnings call, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings revealed the company's plans to launch a streaming-only service which will allow users to watch movies via their PCs without having to sign up for the DVD-by-mail portion of the Netflix service. Unfortunately, this new streaming-only option won't be available to any Netflix subscribers in the U.S. Instead, it's a part of the company's new international efforts which will launch in the second half of 2010, starting off small in one market then expanding into other countries one-by-one.

There was an article over the weekend in the New York Times about new tactics Warner Brothers is planning to boost flagging DVD sales. Warner plans to release direct-to-DVD companion films alongside new releases in the future, in an attempt to build buzz for the later DVD release of the main feature. What they really should be doing, is to ditch the traditional DVD model altogether, and take a look at some of the things alt rocker Trent Reznor has done over the past few months.