14 DAY TRIAL // Just about everyone uses a flash drive for data storage these days, and for this reason, FlixOnStix's idea of employing said portable storage devices seems for movie renting seems to be a pretty sound one, albeit not without some minor flaws.
So, basically, the company offers users the possibility to rent or purchase content via a kiosk placed in a public location, transfer said content to a flash drive, then take it home and watch it on their computer or compatible player/set-top box.
The kiosks will support either the users' own flash drives, or, need be, they'll allow them to purchase one instantly, and it would seem that USB 3.0 flash drives are also supported.
While the basic idea for this content provision solution is a rather interesting one, it does have quite a few shortcomings, the most important being related to the size of the file (or files being transfered).
Sure, if you only want to rent or buy a short flick (such as an episode of your favorite TV show), things should go pretty smoothly, but if you're looking for something more serious, such as a full-length movie in Full HD resolution, or perhaps a PC game, things do become a tad more complicated, given the fact that the transfer rate (and consequently, the time one will have to spend waiting around the kiosk) is capped by the USB speeds.
Plus, we're pretty sure that the content, whether we're talking about movies, games, etc. is heavily DRM-ed, which might actually pose a problem for some systems.
Sadly, FlixOnStix has not provided any significant details pertaining to their specific pricing plans (no idea just how much a movie, a game or a TV show episode will cost), but no matter how affordable they might be, we're quite sure that the company will have a pretty difficult time popularizing this whole business concept.