McDonald's has put its $1-per-night kiosks, which hold about 500 disks, in hundreds of restaurants in a bid to lure consumers into a one-stop experience to eat first, then rent a movie to take home and watch.

By contrast, digital on-demand video kiosks could enable retailers to offer all 6,600 Warner Bros. movie titles because they would be downloaded immediately via a high-speed Internet connection at the kiosk. Retailers could use shelf space to stock only the most recent releases.

"It's been a big topic of discussion. The technology does exist currently to enable DVD on-demand through a kiosk," said Lawrence Dvorchik, general manager of KioskCom, a leading trade show on interactive self-service kiosks held in Las Vegas.