What to rent or not to rent-that is the question for video store customers.
Choices are made based on title or star recognition, impulse, reference books, staff guidance and even closing time desperation. But technology currently in use in some stores is designed to make video rental decisions a more exact science.
Personal Best, developed by Evanston-based Entertainment Decisions, is a computer product information and selection system that makes title recommendations based on a customer’s “psychic fingerprint,” according to managing director Brad Burnside, who also owns the north suburban Video Adventure chain.
Users are asked to rate what Burnside calls “litmus” titles on a scale from Bad to Must See. From these responses, stored in a central computer, the program is able to make personalized title recommendations based on statistical patterns in the data.
Personal Best also offers instant access to information on genres, actors, directors, specific titles, plot synopsis, running time and rating, as well as an on-screen representation of the video box art.
The computer will not replace the human element in video stores, Burnside insisted, but there are advantages to using it beyond its vast memory and knowledge of the entire video inventory.
“Customers can find things out on their own without consulting a book or an employee, and sometimes they prefer to do that,” Burnside said. “It also has the benefit that customers can tell this machine things they may not be comfortable telling a salesperson. They can admit they don’t like Orson Welles films or are looking for something a little racy. The computer has no value judgments.”
Personal Best made its industry debut earlier this month at the Video Software Dealers Association Video Game and New Technology conference in Chicago. The system is on-line in Burnside’s three Video Adventure stores in Evanston and Highland Park, as well as Northwestern University Library and the Skokie Public Library.
– Home video has a big fan in Liv Ullmann. “I can’t think of a bigger pleasure apart from going to the movies with a Diet Coke and popcorn,” said the distinguished actress, who came to prominence in the films of Ingmar Bergman.
What does she like to watch? “I love the black and white movies,” she said. “Sometimes I have festivals for myself. That’s what saves me from homesickness. I’ll have a Bette Davis festival and a James Stewart festival. Then, I’ll get into one director and rent everything by him. It’s such a privilege. I can’t understand why anyone is sitting in front of computer games. It blows my mind.”
– Pink Floyd fans who want a real mind trip should check out “A Brief History of Time,” based on the best-seller by Stephen Hawking, who is featured on the new Floyd single, “Keep Talking.”
– The unedited and uncensored version of “Tales of the City,” the six-hour mini-series based on Armistead Maupin’s novel of 1970s San Francisco, is available from Polygram Video in three separate volumes for $19.98 each, or in a boxed set for $49.95.
– “The Borrowers,” the award-winning British mini-series based on Mary Norton’s beloved children’s books about an inches-high family, will be released on video May 18 by Turner Home Entertainment.
