Blockbuster Video is an American multimedia brand and former video rental store chain. It was founded by David Cook in 1985 as a single home video rental shop, but later grew into a national store chain featuring video game rentals, DVD-by-mail, streaming, video on demand, and cinema theater. The logo was designed by Lee Dean at the Rominger Agency. The company expanded internationally throughout the 1990s. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster employed 84,300 people worldwide and operated 9,094 stores.

Home video is recorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. In a different usage, "home video" refers to amateur video recordings, also known as home movies. Another format LaserDisc is also a home video format released in 1978 which never caught on market due to high cost of the players and their inability to record TV programs unlike the VHS. The format gained interests from movie collectors.