I have been looking into the cost effectiveness of renting DVDs from some of the online retailers (Netflix, Blockbuster, Walmart) and wondered if any of you had used these services? If so, how do you like it? What is the turn around like? Do you feel like you get your money's worth? Do they get new releases in about the same time as the brick and mortal retailers?
I was thinking about giving a 6 month "membership" to our daughter for Christmas.
What are your thoughts?
Sounds like a great idea for a Christmas present. We (well Beest really) have Netflix. Some new releases are really quick, some are not -seems to be pot luck. He'll be able to tell you more about it if he ever manages to throw me off here. 8)
If you time your queue right in Netflix and keep up with new releases, you can get them all the day after they are released in the stores.
I've used Netflix for about four years and it has been really great. I don't miss the bricks and mortar stores or their late charges.
Netflix just cut the price from $21.99 a month to $17.99 a month for the 3 DVDs at a time option - they had raised it from $19.99 but I guess some folks really complained - not me but I'll happily take the cut.
Walmart is abit pants, nothing new is ever available, you have to wait. Prolly try Netflix next.
Blockbuster now has a monthly subscription which I use. I'm just not enough of a planner to bother with NetFlix. When I'm in the mood for a movie I can just get up and go to Blockbuster to rent whatever they have, for as long as I want. It's $25 per month.
Netflix here. Speedy delivery, huge selection, especially foriegn, (Brit) films, 3 at a time, as many as I like for $17.99 a month
The only thing I disliked about renting from Netflix was how many scratched DVD's we received. About 8 out of 10 had problems and some were completely unplayable. It just got to be too annoying. The service was great though (got the DVD's fast and there was a really great seletction of movies to choose from). If we had managed to get DVD's without all the scratches we probably would have kept renting from them.
Fast turn around is a definite plus.. it is worrying that you received so many damaged CD's Colleen.. did they give you a credit of any sort to compensate for the unwatchable CD's?
Going to the local video store is such a chore, it's about 15 miles away.. and we just don't plan far enough in advance to pick them up on the way home from work.. or rather, there aren't enough hours in the day!
Colleen raises a good point.
I've had several scratched, a bunch that had parts which were pretty unplayable and a couple that were physically snapped.
I have the kit to repair the scratches so generally it's just annoying and it doesn't happen often enough to put me off entirely. Obviously if you get the new releases first, you're going to be ok but if it is an older and much rented disc, then you might start tearing your hair out and bitching like I do, about people not being worthy to own a DVD player etc. D
I have been a member of Netflix since it started in 2001. Wonderful service, never had any real problems. Twice in that time I have received dvd's that were unplayable, I just reported it on the website and the next film was dispatched from my list immediately. Once I reported that I had sent a dvd back 6 days hence and once again they sent the next dvd in the list immediately. Selection is excellent. All t.v. series are available so you can watch them without commercials. Had nostalgia so I ordered Only Fools and Horses and The Vicar Of Dibley.
I love it too. Seems to help a lot if you live in one of their hub cities as it's only a two day turnaround. I've never had a problem with quality. Quite often I get new DVDs that have never been viewed (I know cos I have to sit through the stupid adverts at the start).
My nearest hub city is Salem - about 25 miles away and the two day turn-around works really well. It used to be 3-4 days before that.
Also netflix is cool about customer relationships. One of our discs went missing, but as we had a good track record of sending back discs they just wrote it off.