Fine Tuning

GET'EM TO GO

Videotapes do not come in six-packs--not yet, anyway--but a New York City-based company called MovieMat is going to fix it so they can be vended right out of a machine. MovieMat is about to test-market a unit the size of a standard soft-drink dispenser that will hold as many as 20 taped feature films. The customer puts his charge card in the slot and watches previews of the available films. He makes a choice; the machine runs a credit check, relays rental information to a central computer and sends his rental tape down the chute, all in about two minutes. If the MovieMat seems designed to fulfill the cin-easte's nightmare--movies as the ultimate junk food--then RENTABETA, a Los Angeles company, may make the medium as handy as paperbacks. For as little as $2.95 a day, RENTABETA provides a playback unit that weighs 15 lbs. and comes in an indestructible plastic case. About 500 video stores in three Western states are currently renting the 3,000 available units. They also instruct customers about connecting the RENTABETAS to their home sets ("It's just two little wires. . .").

FLICKING OUT

First books became movies; then movies became books; now there are movies that have become video games. Parker Brothers is marketing a The Empire Strikes Back cartridge; a Raiders of the Lost Ark game will be out by December; and both Mattel and Bally are launching games inspired by Tron, a Disney Studios movie due out this summer. Bally is blitzing the arcades; Mattel is shipping more than 1 million Tron cartridges to dealers; and Disney Spokeswoman Hilary Clark says, "It's only the beginning." Indeed. Atari is developing a game called Krull, based on a movie that has not even been made yet.

ONE SET, ONE VOTE

Philip DeGuere is a television producer, a home-computer aficionado and a very brave man. Working with a Virginia-based computer data bank called the Source, DeGuere devised a way in which a Source subscriber can punch in a code and use his computer keyboard to sound off on the television program he is watching. Every man a critic! Bring back Lou Grant! "People want to talk back to their television sets," says the Source's Mike Rawl. DeGuere has already used his hookup for electronic feedback on Hill Street Blues and his own detective adventure, Simon & Simon, and got hundreds of responses. He is now working on further technical refinements. If the service catches on, it might, among other things, give the industry a much broader and more detailed sampling for ratings. Is anyone at Nielsen listening?

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