Redbox Canada has decided to stop renting movies on February 13th, 2015 and will be turning their boxes off on March 5th, 2015.

“We were excited to bring our service here, but unfortunately, demand just didn’t meet our expectations. We will be focusing our attention on our U.S. business, where demand for physical media remains strong.”

Apparently most Canadian consumers have moved on to online movie renting from companies like iTunes, Cineplex or Cinemanow and I suspect more services like Amazon Instant Video will make their way into Canada shortly as streaming devices get cheaper.

Google’s Chromecast HDMI Streaming Media Player was recently promoted with $20 gift cards for Google Play and both Rogers/Shaw and Bell are now offering alternatives to Netflix to their subscribers with Showmi and CraveTV so the online movie rental market is heating up.

Unfortunately I liked picking up Blu-Rays at my local store at $2 a pop. And although discounts can be had on Tuesdays on Cineplex, I suspect I will be paying more for rentals again.

$4.99 appears to be the average price for standard definition rentals but i’m hoping more discounts will come our way, especially on the high definition rentals ; Those can be as expensive as $7.99 on some services.

I seriously doubt I will be renting high definition films at $7.99, especially older releases that I can view on my Hollywood Suite package on cable. And chances are I will simply wait to purchase individual blu-rays when they are discounted at Amazon.