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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?"
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.
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.
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.
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.]
A.