Remember Redbox? Those bright red DVD vending machines that dotted every strip mall and supermarket in America, offering cheap rentals when Netflix was still stuffing discs into paper envelopes? After streaming finally delivered the killing blow to physical rentals, Redbox threw in the towel in June 2024, leaving around 34,000 kiosks standing as silent monuments to yet another dead media format.
Last month, we reported that these machines were still out there, barely functional and clinging to life. Now, a company called The Junkluggers has been tasked with the massive undertaking of clearing these mechanical movie dispensers from the American retail landscape, and they’re doing it in a surprisingly thoughtful way. I chatted to them to find out how it’s going.
In a symbolic end to the DVD rental era, thousands of distinctive red kiosks are being methodically removed from storefronts across America. The Junkluggers, a specialized removal company, has been tasked with the final chapter of the Redbox story – dismantling and responsibly disposing of these once-ubiquitous machines that changed how we consumed movies.
When Redbox filed for bankruptcy in June this year, thousands of kiosks still stood sentinel outside grocery stores, malls, and big box store locations nationwide. Now, The Junkluggers is orchestrating what amounts to a massive logistics operation to clear these remnants of the physical media age. The company operates nationwide—and thus was able to offer a one-stop shop for disposing of these machines across the nation.
“We’ve successfully removed thousands of Redbox units nationwide, including servicing major retailers in all major metropolitan areas,” explains Justin Waltz, Brand President of The Junkluggers. The company has been working at remarkable speed, completing their first phase of removals from major retailers and various grocery chains in less than three weeks. “When Redbox shut down in October, there were about 34,000 kiosks still in operation,” says Waltz. “However, most of these have been defunct, removed, and broken down for parts nationwide.”
But what happens to these decommissioned movie dispensers? Rather than simply scrapping the machines, The Junkluggers has implemented a methodical process to maximize recycling and reuse. “Sustainable junk removal” is the ethos of the company, and that’s guided what happens to the Redbox hardware. “For the Redbox units being handled by The Junkluggers, we help to recycle the metal components and return them to the production supply chain,” explains Waltz. “There are multiple types of Redbox units out there and each must be handled differently… for each unit that comes into our possession, we carefully evaluate its components to identify what parts can be recycled or donated.”
Media enthusiasts will be most keen to know what’s happening to the discs inside these machines. Redbox vending machines are capable of holding up to 630 DVDs each. If we imagine the fleet is around half full, at an average of 300 discs per unit, that would have left over 10,000,000 DVDs to be disposed of. Some might think it a shame for all these to end up in landfill. Thankfully, that’s not the case, as the company has found creative ways to give the DVD libraries within these machines a second life.
“The majority of the DVDs we’ve collected from removals are being rehomed,” says Waltz. “We’ve donated DVDs to local artists, assisted living facilities, homeless shelters, veterans’ clinics, and other community organizations nationwide.” The goal is to see as many discs as possible go to new homes.
The Redbox removal project serves as a case study in responsible corporate dismantling. While the red kiosks may be disappearing from our streets, their components are being recycled into new products, and their content continues to serve communities that can benefit from them. It’s a fitting epilogue for a service that democratized movie rentals, ensuring that even in its sunset, Redbox continues to make entertainment accessible to those who seek it out.
Seasons Changing
As streaming services dominate our viewing habits, the disappearance of these kiosks marks more than just a business transition – it’s the end of an era in how we consumed entertainment. Physical media has long been on the decline as far as mainstream consumption goes. At the same time, we’ve see it bounce back time and again in the music space, first with vinyls, then cassettes, and now CDs. With Redbox collapsing in on itself, we’re either witnessing the true final days of the DVD, or the lull before it becomes retro and hip again. We’ll find out soon enough.
It’s one of those times where technology has made an existing business obsolete. Traditional video rentals went the way of the dodo because nobody wanted to drive to pick up a movie when they could just stream one at home. Redbox perhaps lasted longer than most if only for the fact that its overheads were so much lower by using vending machines instead of staffed retail locations. Even then, it wasn’t enough to survive. It seems that the Redbox rental concept is now definitively consigned to history.
And not a single picture of the inside of the machine, that’s what we wanted to see.
Indeed; One is wondering if the internals can be resurrected and repurposed for use as a self-serve library or something.
Modern day jukebox with same appeal.
Repaint them and have libraries use them for dispensing DVDs.
Genius
Or they could sell infused prerolls
great idea, we can put heroin and crack in too!
I was thinking about getting one (whole cabinet) and seeing if I could fit a BluRay drive and a Rapsberry Pi. See if I can make it a home media server…
Might be cheaper and easier to get a sony bluray carousel. These things are probably too big to repurchase at home. But it’s great seeing folks try and not just let these go to waste.
Of course it can be repurposed…that’s what we were starting to do when the parent company let us die. It’s just a carousel with slots the width of the cases.
My local library could use one !!!!
I know what it looks like. You dont? Lmao
pro tip — many many inside photos on the discord. Search for ‘has:images’
e.g. https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1292310423366012990/1307923178890334209/IMG_5126.jpg?ex=673eb4e1&is=673d6361&hm=5bca9b8ad92854607278954defffa57399654307b87bdcdd289eb57a3664aa14&=&format=webp&width=394&height=700
Okay hackaday wasn’t preventing links, just seemed to hang when posting a comment.
Here’s a photo link of the picker controller (below) but there are many many other photos and technical bits in the Redbox Tinkerers wiki…
https://redbox.wiki/en/hardware
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1292310423366012990/1307917833346482216/PXL_20241108_210849319.RAW-01.COVER.jpg?ex=673eafe7&is=673d5e67&hm=281d00abe0917680bc59018ce27054407b56db8a2926428680c14b1cd947810c&=&format=webp&width=931&height=701
Can’t access link because content no longer available.
There are many images on the Discord channel. Search for ‘has:images’
hackaday is preventing links but fill in the blanks… discord gg / dqY6s86x
Look on YouTube. There’s videos showing the inside. https://youtu.be/X7XRjBMUoh0?si=8i_dcK9pQOlD704y
I worked at Redbox. There were seven large round stacked platters with slots that the discs sat in vertically. They would spin, bringing the disc to an area near the front right of the kiosk. A device called a picker arm slid up and down on a metal bar. When the picker arm aligned with the correct platter, and the platter rotated to align the disc with the picker arm, small grabber arms reached out to grab the disc and pull it into a small chamber that rode along with the picker arm. The picker arm would then align with the vending slot and push it through. When a disc was removed from circulation, the picker arm would pull it out and one of two things would happen. For kiosks equipped with what was called a suitcase (which was a black container that housed a platter) the picker would slide the disc into an open slot on the suitcase. The field rep would then open the door on the bottom of the kiosk and pull out the suitcase and insert an empty one. On kiosks without a suitcase, the picker would simply drop it into the empty chamber at the bottom. The field rep then opened the door and removed the discs like a mailman would empty a mailbox. Since the platters were round and the kiosks were rectangular, you can imagine empty spaces in each corner. The picker arm occupied the space in the front, right of the kiosk. A computer was housed in the rear, right corner. It was similar to a desktop computer with its internals removed and stuffed into the small space. Imagine a tall, triangular computer case. The front, left area was empty and (I think) the left, rear area contained additional electronics.
I worked with the development team of a 8mm robotic tape library back in the late 1980s. Similar to what you described.
A subsequent version was marketed by Exabyte.
“Now, The Junkluggers is orchestrating what amounts to a massive logistics operation[…]”
So, did they take it upon themselves to pick up the machines, or were they officially contracted by Redbox, or maybe a bankruptcy trustee? Or are they just astute opportunists? Would anybody (besides my wife) stop me from picking up a couple I still see sitting around my town?
Someday, the few survivors are going to appear as functional novelties in “retro” home theaters.
You could have it dispense a disc, which you then scan to search for the movie on Netflix 😂
(See: https://hackaday.com/2024/11/19/the-barcode-beast-likes-your-cds/ )
Domatter from Tennessee filed an emergency injunction to secure the boxes and computer DATA. A previous article online claimed they are the ones doing clean up.
Already happening. A couple I’m friends with got a bunch of people together and loaded up a machine (with permission) and it now sits in their living room, dispensing their collection of DVDs and Blu-rays.
Who’d they get permission from? The store or Redbox (I heard they’re still answering emails) I can’t believe they’re that heavy!
Me too from gas station next to where I work me the local fd and police officers pushed it into my truck lol
And yet i live in a very small town and local doler gereral still has one and i asked em and they said they dont know wat is gona happen to it no red box any more . Hopfuly some one gets it or they do some thing with it .
if know where there’s a Redbox kiosk still sitting and want it, could always show up and claim to be Junkluggers and haul it away.
They work for Jeeter & will turn them into infused prerolls machines.
Good riddance!
DVD’s, wow that’s vintage. I’m surprised they were able to operate for such a long time.
There was a program I used to use as way to digitally acquire movies, for about 8-10 years. It stopped working in 2011 according to Wikipedia. I got rid of my DVD’s when I switched over. That means I haven’t used DVD’s since about 2001-2003. I had DSL in 1999.
I’m not saying this to brag. I’m saying that still serving DVD’s after that time means that you will end up with less and less customers. They could have seen this coming two decades ago. I haven’t had anything to play CD/DVD’s in, in at least 15 years. I’m not even that old.
For me it’s pretty much the opposite of that. I almost always prefer to have physical media, even if I usually just end up ripping it into my computer and watching/listening to it that way.
To each their own, right?
I think so. At moment, still, at least.
What I like about physical media is that they make us independent.
They can’t be taken away from us or altered. And we can watch them anonymously.
In near future, with the streaming platforms becoming more and more common, it could be that we’re being judged by our preference.
Imagine you’re non-mainstream and into Russian sci-fi movies or WW2 documentaries and suddenly you’ll be getting a message asking about your political mindset.
You could end up be invited to a boot camp for political correction or be observed. You webcam might he tapped, you smart TV’s built-in microphone will spy on you etc.
I know, this sounds far fetched and hillarious, but so did Idiocracy.
Twenty years ago this all did sound so far away.
Try torrenting?
You can get a VPN for about 5 bucks a month to hide your IP. Invest in a 1 or 2 TB hard drive (note – avoid Seagate) and download shows, movies, books, even games from 1337 or Piratebay. Just remember to turn the VPN on!
Sure, it might take a bit of planning but at least you’re not being spied on. And much cheaper than any subscription out there! :)
And if you skip the VPN, your ISP will send you a threatening letter because they’re owned by the same media company that owns the media you’re torrenting. Ask me how I know.
Yes, but most people don’t want to store all that stuff.
“DVD’s, wow that’s vintage. I’m surprised they were able to operate for such a long time.”
Problem is source material. Things like TV shows and 90s cartoons (no real cels) had been available in SD only.
Using BDs doesn’t improve quality, rather the contrary – up-scaling will make things even worse.
For material shot with traditional film BDs and UHD BDs are fine.
Some film material shot with 16mm or so won’t exceed 2K resolution, even.
“That means I haven’t used DVD’s since about 2001-2003. I had DSL in 1999.”
In the US that was normal, maybe. In my country, ISDN on average was the best available up until ~2000. Normal users had 56k modems, still.
DSL got very popular in 2004 or so. DVDs, too. Cable internet about in the mid-late 2000s.
Fibre glass is still not available in many regions here.
“I’m not even that old.”
So under 30? Because 30 and up is “old”.That old wisdom knows every student in school!
It’s a basic knowledge for ages! 30+ is teacher’s age! 😉
“Things like TV shows and 90s cartoons (no real cels) had been available in SD only.”
Wait, what? Where you are do they actually distribute on SD? Like, through legal, official channels? If so then that’s awesome! I’ve never seen that. I mean, sure.. people rip or download and can save the file to SD. But everyone around me just went straight from recording from Antenna or CATV to VHS in the 80s and early 90s to buying pre-written DVDs from the mid 90s till the 0s and from that right to renting via streaming service and never owning a permanent copy of anything.
I meant to say that the source material did merely exist as NTSC or PAL material.
In the 90s and early 2000s, many shows had been created in 480i or 576i resolution.
The TV shows and documentaries of this period had been recorded with ordinary video cameras rather than using film cameras.
Animation (cartoons) had been drawn using Photoshop on PC in NTSC or PAL resolutions, rather than using physical cels sheets and pens.
In the 2010s, HD and UHD cameras became more common during productions.
Animation (cartoons) had moved to 1080p and higher resolutions, too.
I worked at Redbox. They tried twice to establish a streaming service to compete with Netflix. The first was a joint effort with Verizon. It was a horrendous failure. The second effort eventually worked, but by that time it couldn’t compete. They saw the end coming for more than a decade and tried various things to develop alternate streams of revenue with the hope they could phase out the kiosks and establish a new business model. Nothing really worked. In the end, it was customers in remote areas without internet access that kept things running.
” various things to develop alternate streams of revenue”
Did they consider putting small packets of cocaine in empty DVD boxes?
B^)
Physical media may be on the decline but it’d be a cold day in heck before I give up DVD, BD, and 4K UHD. Some streaming sites don’t have all movies, such as Paramount+ not offering some Star Trek when they license it on different sites like Youtube. And some movies aren’t offered at all online.
Sometimes movies are available, then take away. Paid for it? Too bad, it’s not viewable until they decide to bring it back in the future. With physical media, they can’t take my disc away just because the viewing right or license changed.
And there’s the issue of 4K streaming vs 4K UHD player. There is noticeable difference in video quality with streaming as services doesn’t offer 25Mbit per user to watch the best 4k quality. 4k video are dumbed down to save on bandwidth over the internet but that causes noticeable dip in video quality.
The question is, does it matter?
Have a stack of DVDs or UHDs and some disc playing device that will inevitably become obsolete, incompatible, or break down within the next 10 years, and then what happens? People are throwing their DVD collections away simply because nothing has a DVD player in it anymore. Even the latest generation game consoles are now selling without optical drives and you have to pay extra to have it.
They could make it inoperable without an internet connection, only a physical token of your rights like they’ve done with video games.
I’ve got a 400 $ony CD “jukebox” (for free!), but I seldom use it because I haven’t figured out an easy way to enter all the title/artist/song info into it.
I could use a PS/2 keyboard, but that would take a long time.
I could just hang a sheet of paper by it with that info…
(it didn’t come with the remote)
doesnt seem too far off…
emulate or use a keyboard that supports macros. program the characters (and delays) you need to input… profit?
Hmmm! I was unaware of standalone keyboards that support macros!
I’m listening…
Are people throwing away old Playstation games because the old console broke down and newer generation won’t play it? Some people have worked to fix old system and keep it working for many more years, plenty of people with know-how and plenty of guides online.
I can still get BD and UHD players new today and those will play DVD just fine. And the disc players do occasionally turn up at Goodwill cheap (UBP-x800 for $9.99 and it worked). No law exists that requires me to choose only between game console or disc player. I can have digital only PS5, XBox One, Switch, and disc players all connected to my TV with a decent 5 port HDMI switch
|They could make it inoperable without an internet connection, only a physical token of your rights like they’ve done with video games.
Generally not retroactive, existing movie discs do not require internet connection to play. DIVX did but that one died a quick death 25 years ago.
I see three blu ray players from different brands with AV output on ShoppingSite(tm) for less than $100. I’m unfamiliar with blue ray as a technology, so I have no idea if licensing levera or similar could be pulled in the future, but I see no reason these options should stop existing. Maybe if tariffs gets wild and old manufacturing chains are no longer available, but anybody who cares would buy two different brands’ offerings and see which one lasted long enough.
I have a 25 year old DVD player that’s still going strong, and it’s hard imagining a world where they’re still selling VHS or DVD players but graft connectivity onto all of them. There are plenty of things to worry about with DRM, I don’t think blu ray and older physical media players is the field to do so in.
“Have a stack of DVDs or UHDs and some disc playing device that will inevitably become obsolete, incompatible, or break down within the next 10 years, and then what happens? People are throwing their DVD collections away simply because nothing has a DVD player in it anymore. Even the latest generation game consoles are now selling without optical drives and you have to pay extra to have it.”
‘Rubbish!’ would the British say here, I suppose.
Personally, I have a different experience here.
My BD player can play back my MPEG-1 Video CDs from 1994 just fine.
I mean, okay, the chapter selection doesn’t work because there’s no CD-i support. But the film plays just fine! 😃
“Even the latest generation game consoles are now selling without optical drives and you have to pay extra to have it.”
Yeah, and the optical drive sells like hot cakes! 🙂
Some people even wished it shipped as standard and would be willing to pay a higher price for it!
It’s not that much different to rip the video from a DVD to save just like you used to do with a CD so that you could have a copy on your mp3 player or suchlike. Maybe I should do that, sometime, even though I have not seen any reason to remove my disk drive slot just to free up a tiny bit of space in the computer.
In many legislations around the world it is perfectly fine to do a so called private copy. So keep the discs in the basement as a kind of license proof and have the movies on your NAS, problem solved. In the end no one will care if you made the backup yourself or if a friend helped you as long as you can wave the disc in their general direction.
And as we(?) rebuild after the Zombie Apocalypse, having those old movies will be cause celebré, or reason to get burned at the stake!
B^)
I wonder what the PC’s in all of these boxes specs are? XP maybe ?
Any info on that?
Most of the PCs inside were picked up at the beginning of the bankruptcy. My husband got a contract from 7-11 to dispose of the kiosks and has done 14 so far. There were only two with PCs inside. Both windows embedded systems. Unable to get past the error screen without the bios password. We have over 7000 DVDs sitting in a storage trailer because even at 50 cents a piece no one is buying.
You serious about 50¢? I’d be willing to take some off your hands. I’ve found that sometimes having hard copies is the only thing to keep tensions cool when the nets unavailable.
I wonder what the PC’s in all of these boxes specs are? XP maybe ?
Any info on that?
Dell Optiplex 390, that has the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Embedded installed.
Saw this article the other day, kinda appropriate for HaD – https://kotaku.com/redbox-machines-kiosks-free-movies-dvds-stealing-reddit-1851694915
I thought that HaD covered something like that before.
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/17/redbox-is-dead-but-the-machines-are-kind-of-hanging-on/
What are they going to do with the DVDs in them? I would love to have them for my collection
Being donated to old people home, homeless shelter, and other charity worthy places.
Hi Mike what Dvds are you looking for and ware are you located? I work with Schaefer Recycling and we have been hired to remove many of the red boxes from properties. we have lots of movies that came out of the red boxes. The last movie that was put into the red boxes was barbie. So if your serious about wanting some movies for your collection reach out. I’m sure we have some of what your looking for.
Are you selling them cheap?
Hiya, Mr. John! I’d def be interested in chatting about your stock!
I have already bought 3 boxes.
Read the article.
Wow this article is well written and approaches actual journalism complete with an interview by the author of someone involved in… the thing. Well done. Rather than reposting a summary of someone else’s thing. Not that there is anything wrong with that either of course.
Nobody expects journalism!
It’s kind of sad to see DVD goes away. Let’s say you stream a movie and decide to buy it. Does the file format survive several years in the future so that you can still play it? What about the DRM that goes with it? I’m aware that DVD / BlueRay has its own DRM, but even if you don’t crack the DRM, the media still playable providing that you have a functional player. That cannot be said for PC software. Old software might not work with new OS, new OS might not work with old hardware, etc. This problem exists even with open source software. Rebuild an open source software may require several days of getting all the dependencies together, and each of those dependencies also depending on the OS and the build environments, not to mention some of those dependencies might go away.
And if the streamed video is stored on an SSD, it would disappear without warning when the SSD fails!
I remember a different kind of Red Box.
This article desperately needs an editor to strip the many times it says exactly the same thing in multiple places.
Why should artists get free movies, I agree with all the rest or the groups however.
damaged, unplayable discs are being donated to artists to make art with rather than allowing them to wind up in a landfill somewhere.
and then that artwork will justifiably wind up in a landfill somewhere
Nah, it’ll be displayed somewhere it can rapidly break down into micro plastics and wash down the drain into the ocean as pompous rich people self congratulate about how much more green they are than the peasants. I think the landfill is a better idea.
Only after they have been used in microwave ovens for “science experiments”!
B^)
Great they are donating and recycling them.
The Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon should try to get their hands on one. Start building a monument to every service they’ve outlasted.
Someone ought to give archive.org staff a call. I bet they would be very interested in archiving one copy of each movie available, granted there wolud be some hiffen gems among masses of already archived popular movies.
It has a VHS vault already, I think. DVDs are too good in quality so that right holders might complain, I’m afraid.
VHS has about same library of films, but is considered obsolete, retro cool etc. It has a bigger chance to be “left alone”, maybe.
They probably could have made some extra money if the machines had some way to either rent or buy the DVD. Of if they can just handle one price fit all, have a month where the remaining DVD’s can ony be bought instead of rented. That way they could have made use of their own distribution network to get rid of those 10M DVD’s.
I never bought a DVD player myself. The Idea’s of non skippable menu’s and them accusing me of being a thief for every DVD I play was simply not acceptable. And even so, I’ve managed to outlive the format :)
“I never bought a DVD player myself. The Idea’s of non skippable menu’s and them accusing me of being a thief for every DVD I play was simply not acceptable. And even so, I’ve managed to outlive the format :)”
Video CD and CD-i didn’t have this issue.
They simply had a simple chapter selection with a static image.
Unfortunately, they didn’t catch on. At least not worldwide.
Here in Europe, we had a small VCD user base in early 90s, during the multimedia boom.
In Asia and other countries, with high humidity the Video CD and Super Video CD did catch on.
There was lots of piracy, too, though. With cheaply made CDs and covers.
A far fry from our early 90s VCDs that had booklets and jewel cases, I think.
In Europe/my country the Super Video CD was being used for home videos.
Users had CD-writers and AV grabbers and so they used SVCD format.
It allowed them to show videos on any average DVD player, Mac or Windows 98 PC.
A few years later (?) DivX and Xvid were a thing, too!
Is it just me, or is the shape strangely redolent of the Great British Red Phonebox?
I’m assuming you haven’t encountered a Red Box in IRL.
But the colo[u]r is close!
It was the rounded top which caught my eye.
Well, they’re large boxes… And red. But so are red refrigerators.
Was just curious, so I went to facebook marketplace set the radius wide and sure enough…. redboxes for sale $200-600. Not interested in buying one myself but thought id share the tip
Sign me up for removal if the machines, 30yr mover here in Fl. Could use a side contract!!
What about all the customers that bought streaming movies from redbox. I personally owned almost 200 movies. What a fail in streaming. I will not buy another streaming movie from any platform. You don’t own anything. Just the right to watch it on their channel.