DVD Online Rental Review
So, for online DVD rentals, which one do you choose, Blockbuster or Netfilx? Well, lets take a good look at both services. Both Blockbuster and Netflix offer free shipping both ways. They mail you the movie or movies next up from your on line queue that you build on their website. The DVD comes in a reversible envelope, you just send it back in the package it came in, very simple. Both offer an easy to use website to find and request movies, TV shows, documentaries, video games and just about anything you can think of to watch. You can organize your queue of DVD’s in order of importance so can get the ones you want first.
Both Blockbuster and Netflix offer an ever expanding libraries of DVD’s for rent or sale. Without knowing the exact count, I’ll use the advertised numbers of 100,000 for Netflix and 90,000 for Blockbuster as of the summer of 2009. Those numbers will of coarse will increase every month. With the increase in online technology, both services now offer online downloading to your computer for rental or purchase and Netflix has even partnered with Microsoft and the XBOX360 to let you use their service on the popular video game system. And, continuing with similarities, both services have an almost identical pricing tier system, you can 1 DVD or 3 DVD’s at a time for different price plans.
Results so far: At this point both Blockbuster and Netfilx are pretty much identical. same prices, same services, same inventories. From here it would just depend on which color packaging you prefer, red or blue. I have used both services, and haven’t found much of a difference in either one. Not so fast…
There is one perk, that in my opinion, gives Blockbuster the edge over Netflix. In-store rentals. Once you receive your movies in the mail from Blockbuster and you are finished with them. You can return them by mail, (no charge) or you can take the DVD to your local Blockbuster store and return it there. If you chose to return it to the store, they will return the DVD for you and also let you rent 1 for 1 DVD’s for free. This means you can use your return DVD to rent movies in person in the store. It almost feels like double the movies. So if you want to see if a movie on your list is available now, just go to the store and get it free. For people who like movies, this is the deciding factor. It’s sometimes tough going through 90,000 titles to decide what-to-watch.
Verdict: With both services being identical, Blockbuster wins the comparison with their in-store options. It’s what made me decide to use Blockbuster instead of Netflix. I have gotten up off my lazy rear end many times and used the in-store option. It works great, and get, this if you rent from the store using your on line returns, there are no late charges or time limits on the store rentals either. Very cool. Check out their free trail offer today.