How to exploit the potential of DVD divided delegates at this week's Las Vegas Video Software Dealers' Association after Blockbuster Video pushed for creating a rental window for the format.

Blockbuster, which recently begun trials of video-on-demand (VoD) movies, aims for the move to allow time for DVDs to be available exclusively to the rental market ahead of retail sales. The video giant said that studios are missing out on an average of $1.1m per film by not applying the VHS model to the new medium.

Blockbuster chief Nigel Travis said that a DVD window of six to 15 weeks would benefit studios and mass merchants - wholesalers who are currently suffering from the erosion of their market niche by a flood of used VHS and DVDs. One industry insider, who backs Blockbuster's stance, said that rental will halve within eight years if there is no rental window.

But the insider added that the slack could alternatively be taken up by other forms of delivery - such as VoD. Other players are less supportive. Amazon.com chief executive Jeff Bezos said that studios would miss out on a far larger sum if they moved to rental pricing, which sees rental stores charged premium rates for exclusive, early copies.

Noting that Amazon's VHS customers who convert to DVD spend an average of four times what they used to on packaged movies, Bezos said: "We have an opportunity to have DVD become a collector's market like music."

Other objections came from rural rental outlets who said they would not be able to make profits from high priced rental copies as DVD player penetration is not as high as in urban areas.

Warren Liberfarb, president of Warner Home Video and a DVD Pioneer, said that trying to impose a VHS rental model to DVD against the background of rapid changes in broadband internet represented "an act of self denial". He added that the move would be "ultimately self-destructive to package media distributors".

Blockbuster last week said that, together with its own broadband network partner Enron, it had begun delivering movies to consumers' TVs via the Blockbuster Entertainment On-Demand service in cities including Seattle. It added that a technical trial of the service had kicked off in New York City.

Although the group has yet to sign any wide-ranging film supply deals, Blockbuster's Blake Lugash noted that the company has content from outfits including Artisan, MGM, Trimark and Lion's Gate.