DVDs By Mail?

scubacuda asks: "DVD mail rentals are hot right now. Netflix, perhaps the most popular one, costs only $19/month (with free shipping). Since then, a whole new batch of similar DVD rental services have cropped up. What do Slashdot readers look for? Which ones are most reliable, have the best selections, provide free shipping and makes the best movie suggestions?"

Comments

From a few months ago

[The Donald]

I used Netflix a few months ago, and I had no large complaints with the service: great selection, never out of stock. But I felt I could get a better value by going to a movie store and renting there.

I liked the idea of as many DVD's as you want for $20/month", but I never felt I could watch enough DVD's to get my $20 worth. If I didn't watch about 6 in a month (Blockuster chaged about $4 per DVD), then it would be cheeper to rent at a video store. Plus, there are all the times where didn't have the time/desire/money to watch a movie; but I still paid for the right to rent them from Netflix. For the most part, when I rent DVD's; I'm hanging out with friends, and decide I'm gonna watch a movie a few hours before I do. It's damn impossable to get a DVD by mail the same day.

Granted, the selection was great, but I couldn't justify the cost in my mind. Since I rent only 1~3 DVD's a month.

NetFlix

[Nate237]

My wife is a movie junkie, and so far she really likes NetFlix.

The really nice thing about them is that instead of standing around in a rental store trying to decide what to rent, you can sit at your PC and make your list. She already has a 22-item list, so she'll be busy watching movies for awhile.

Also, if you are bad about forgetting to return rentals on time, you won't get tagged for late fees. I turned in a movie to Blockbuster about 20 minutes late due to a snow storm, and they wouldn't wave the late fee. Ever since, I've rented from someone else if I had a choice.

NetFlix aparently have several shipping centers around the U.S. I initially signed up for their 10-day trial to see how long it would take for DVDs to get to us. Our DVD's come out of Houston, and take about 2 days.

Mixed Experiences

[x4a4544]

I've been waiting around for my job to start for the past six months, so I've gone on a dvd renting spree. I have tried NetFlix.com, NumberSlate.com, and DVDBarn.com.

I started out with NetFlix and have had good experiences with them. However, I started getting into anime and NetFlix only had partial sets of various anime series. So, I went to other services to look for the remaining disks, in this case it was just Gundam Wing, but later others came into the fray.

I tried DVD Barn. They purported to have loads of DVDs, but once you signed up for an account you saw that nearly all of them were unavailable, and after 1.5 months on my queue there was no progress.

Then I tried NumberSlate, like DVD Barn it seems that they have a lot of titles. The few that I was interested in were out but having only subscribed to them for 1 month I have seen a few of the unavailable titles get to my door.

To sum this up ... DVD Barn sucks, Netflix and NumberSlate are decent.

Satisfied Netflix customer...

[rehannan]

I've been using Netflix for about 6 months and been pretty satisfied. My average cost per movie is about $2.29 (under the $19.95/month plan). That's not too bad, considering I live in semi-rural Alaska (shipping each way is usually about 3 days).

I don't care for them splitting up two disk sets though. If a movie comes on two disks (such as The Godfather, Part II), you have to rent each one seperatly.

Re:Satisfied Netflix customer...

[rehannan]

They used to send 2 disc sets together, but I am guessing the shipping was expensive and most people don't care for the second disc. I know I dont.

Just to clarify, I was refering to instances when the actual movie was on two disks, not just the special features. If you want the see the end of Godfather II, you need the second disc. I'm not going to jump up and down complaining to Netflix though, since very few movies do this.

latency, spam, lifestyle, queues

[ghostlibrary]

I like Netflix-- under the '3 movies out' plan it means we always have 1 in transit, 1 for the kiddies, 1 for me and my spouse. And the fact that we never have to worry about late fees is great.

I just ran the numbers, we averaged just under $3.50 per DVD rented. Given that some we watched the day they arrived (then returned), others we didn't get to for a week, this is pretty great.

You can actually calculate your min cost, based on latency. Assuming a 5-day turnaround (i.e. from when you drop it in your box, to when they receive it and process it [typically within 24 hrs] and mail it back. We have around 2 day's travel each way), it's easy to figure out the min and most likely price.

Each 'slot' can cycle at most 30/turnaround_time, so for a 5-day turnaround that's 6 rentals a month. So the 2-DVD program at $15 is $1.25/CD (assuming you're rabid and watch each movie instantly!). 3-DVD at $21 is $1.66.

But that misses the point-- you're going for convenience and lifestyle. The main selling point isn't cost. It's a) no late fees, watch when you want and b) the Queue.

The Queue rules. You can list any movie you're interested in, and they just ship 'em in order. You can change the order at any time. Interested in Farscape episodes? Add 'em to your queue and you'll get them in order. Never got around to seeing "The Godfather"? Toss it in the queue. I'm up to 124 items in my queue, and anytime someone recommend a movie, I can add it (and prioritize it).

So I like Netflix. Alas, they do have aggressive email marketing-- not quite SPAM, but darn close. They partner with a lot of other sites so you sometimes get Netflix junk for unrelated reasons. This I hate, and it's the one thing that makes me feel guilty about using them. [If they started spoofing headers or such, I'd drop them in an instant. Right now, they're just being pushy.]

Re:Why rent?

[chewedtoothpick]

Actually they have options that are cheapier and more expencive. My roommate and I have their 8DVD plan for only $40 per month (39.95) and that works perfect. We always have our 8DVD's at once, and in the 2 years I have personally been using them, the only bad thing is when the postman broke one of the DVD's. Netfilx was very understanding about that too... I strongly reccommend Netflix, and would advise to avoid any others as the only others I have tried sucked.

Re:Perfect for pirates?

[bakes]

Video CD's use MPEG-1 compression, and most movies will usually fit on 2 cdroms. When shown on a TV, the quality is comparable to VHS, although there can be occasional (small) artifacts if there is sudden fast motion. Whilst the quality is obviously not as good as DVD, it is reasonably good.

I don't have experience with DiVX myself, but I expect that it should get better compression than MPEG-1. I don't find Per_Wigren's claims unreasonable.