Milk? Check. Eggs? Check. DVD? Check.More people are taking advantage of conveniently placed DVD rental kiosks located in Baton Rouge grocery stores.These vending machines offer the newest releases for only $1 per day. Students might be most familiar with the Redbox kiosks placed near the cash registers at local Wal-Marts and Albertsons.Using a touch screen, customers are able to browse through more than 80 titles. The transaction only takes a few minutes and requires a debit or credit card. No late fees apply because rentals are charged by the day. DVDs can be reserved online and picked up and returned from any location nationwide.Redbox employees stock the machines every Tuesday with the newest releases. These offer a cheap alternative to larger chains like Blockbuster, who charge more than $4 per DVD rental.There are more than 10 Redbox kiosks in Baton Rouge, including Neighborhood Wal-Mart Markets on Highland Road and Old Hammond Highway, Wal-Mart Supercenters on College Drive and Cortana Place and Albertsons on College Drive, Airline Highway, Government Street and Perkins Road.Redbox is the leading renter of DVDs through automated kiosks in the U.S. and has more than 8,000 locations worldwide, according to redbox.com. They were first introduced in 2002 but were not available in Baton Rouge until 2007. Other kiosk companies, including DVDPlay and DVDXPRESS, are not yet available in Baton Rouge.Teresa Stewart, Wal-Mart cashier, said the kiosks were available at the Neighborhood Wal-Mart on Highland Road when the store first opened in October.She said she rents DVDs about three times a month because of the convenience factor.”It’s fast,” she said. “You just scroll through the list and pick a movie. If I miss it in the theater, I can just get it here.”Chris Veters, construction management sophomore, said he used the kiosks at the Neighborhood Wal-Mart for the first time during the days following Hurricane Gustav.”Just the fact that it was here was convenient,” he said. “Obviously this is a lot cheaper too.”But Veters said he still prefers stores like Blockbuster because of the large DVD selection. Kiosks are limited to new releases and popular classics. Veters said he was unhappy that he couldn’t rent older releases like “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2” from the kiosks.
 
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Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]