| vinylmusic |
| (new user) |
| Thu Sep 15 2005 06:22 PM |
Online DVD Rentals
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We need a good review of all DVD rental companies.
Most of them appear to have merged and I think there remain 3 major companies
Screenselect
LoveFilm
Blockbuster
and a few smaller ones
Although there may appear to be a few more most of them seem to be subsidaries of the main 3
I have trialed them all and conclude that
Blockbuster is the best. I always get emails when DVD's are about to be sent out AND when returns have been received. So far they have been quite good about sending out top titles but not alwas as fast as they could: I got an email one morning to say they had received 3 titles back and later that day only one replacement sent out. I wondered why not all 3?
Unlike the others they work on Saturdays and that makes a lot of difference when waiting for replacements.
Screenselect Is ok but can be a bit slow sending out replacement DVDs after receiving returns. Their email system is ok but not as good as blockbuster
A plus for Screenselect is that they have a freephone customer service whic the others dont
Love film is VERY BAD. Very slow and the worst for not sending out top titles.
They have a very poor service when responding to complaints with a "sorry, thats the way it is, take it or leave it" attitude which astonished me to say the least.
I dont have a good word to say for them at all and it suprises me that they manage to stay in business.
My biggest delemma with all of them is how many general, easily available titles should I add to my list as well as top titles
I discovered when adding such titles to the bottom of my list always meant I'd get them before any top titles. But if I allowed the list to become too small I would have to wait longer for replacements once DVD's were returned. There doesnt seem to be a winning formula for that problem.
I hope Webuser will think to do such a review based on customers experiences
| paul_lomax |
| () |
| Fri Sep 16 2005 12:41 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Personally I've never had a problem with Love Film, and I kind of like their 'add to queue' system. Good idea for a round-up though.
| chris49 |
| (regular) |
| Fri Sep 16 2005 10:42 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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what about
sainsburys dvd rentals
tescos dvd rental
amazon dvd rental
im thinking of joinign one of them to give my opinion for other people
| London |
| (new user) |
| Wed Sep 21 2005 12:54 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I've been with BlockBuster but was not impressed.They were very slow to send me dvds and they were always from the bottom of my list. I lost count of how many dvds got lost in the post (both ways).
I think Screen Select and Love Film were much better but not brilliant.
Sainsburys dvd rentals are powered by Love Film and Tescos dvd rental are powered by Screen Select buy they seem to be the cheapest at just £7.97 for 1 dvd at a time.
With Amazon dvd rental you can only have a few dvds a month
so it isn't really worth it.I've tried loads of the free trials from smaller companies and some may not have as many DVDs but they work hard to keep you happy.
I'm now with dvd to home and I'm going to stick with them for now.
There are more smaller rental companies you just have to look around. Try www.rentdvds.org.uk
What about online video game rental?
I use Game Tart to rent PS2 games, saves me having to buy games that I play for a week or two then never use again.
I've heard Love Film now do games to, any good anyone?
| Nanook |
| (regular) |
| Wed Sep 21 2005 06:25 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I was with Screen Select last year and Love Film this year (summer holidays when I can get most use from them) and I loved both. Screen Select has it pluses and Love Film has its. From where I am Love Film has been quicker and better at sending out top titles than SS.
Using LF at the moment and all going well
| Pathfinder59 |
| (regular) |
| Sat Sep 24 2005 12:24 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I would definately give Tesco's DVD Rental a miss. I am currently on a 3 disc package and have received two discs in 9 days. They fail to reply to emails so I have tried emailing Tesco's core business but they only reply saying "contact the rental section".
The y have increased the days until my billing and as soon as the time nears I for another payment I will be cancelling.
They will never get another penny out of me!!!!
| thebiggfella |
| (regular) |
| Sun Jan 29 2006 05:04 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I think ScreenSelect provide and excellent service. I've been with them for ages. They send the DVDs out pretty quickly and I can't remember the last time I received a DVD that wasn't a 'send me it as soon as possible' one. The email system could be better though. I sometimes get the DVD before I get the email but that's a minor quibble though.
| John_McKenna |
| (HijackThis Helper) |
| Sat Feb 11 2006 08:05 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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For those interested in DVD Rentals, have a look at this service comparison site:
http://www.dvdgenie.co.uk/
I found it very useful.
| parkerusm |
| (new user) |
| Thu Feb 23 2006 11:20 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Don't use Blockbuster!
I recently emailed to ask why I wasn't receiving top titles as a paying customer when I had done as a free trialist. I asked if this was a plan to make trialists think that Blockbuster offered a much better service than it actually did, and then once a customer had to pay the service deteriorated.
I received no answer to this question, just a bland standard response about 'working on availability' and a 'promise' that you search all available titles from the top of my list.
My father set up a free trial a week ago, he received all the new titles at the top of his list that I had been waiting for.
Basically these methods are devious, and exploitative of long-term paying customers. The customer service is appalling, and the response I received was an insult to my intelligence.
I have now canceled my subscription and will sign up for a rival service.
The free trial is a sham, an opportunity to dupe people.
| european |
| (new user) |
| Mon May 22 2006 07:31 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I joined SceenSelect nearly 2 months ago.
Several DVDs that they supplied were of very poor quality and wouldn’t play.
They were supposed to replace them but when it came to it I received the same non-playable DVDs.
I selected several new DVDs, (‘King Kong’ and Stargate Atlantis vol 2) over 6 weeks ago but still haven’t received them. My subscription is Ј5.99 per month for 2 DVDs monthly but I haven’t received a single DVD from ScreenSelect in the last month. When I complained and asked to refund the money, their representative Angus told me that their ‘allocation system’ works this way! They, probably haven’t got enough of recent releases…
Very bad service and poor (if any) value for money.
| evilmonkeyzz |
| (regular) |
| Mon May 22 2006 07:32 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I have never had any problems with LoveFilm, been using them for over a year now.
| John_McKenna |
| (HijackThis Helper) |
| Tue May 23 2006 01:03 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I signed up for LoveFilm a while back on a month's free trial getting 2 dvd's at a time. I was very happy with them during the trial period. Films arrived promptly despite only having an average of 10 on my hit list.
However, when the trial finished it was a different story. Despite adding a lot more films to my hit list (avg 18-22) the films stopped coming. First of all they started sending me only 1 when my deal was for 2 at a time (happened two weeks on the trot), they then failed to send me a single film in 3 weeks. By this time I was hopping mad so you can imagine my rage when after complaining they once again only sent me 1 film !!
I cancelled the subscription immediately.
| ted11 |
| (new user) |
| Tue May 23 2006 05:33 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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There are major changes coming to UK DVD rental with the merger of top two companies Screenselect and Lovefilm, as together they'll control well over half the online market. It will be interesting to see how this goes down, as the company is retaining the Lovefilm name but keeping the Screenselect CEO; Lovefilm has a worse customer service record and its Fair Use Policy throttling back rentals from high volume renters has riled many--so again, will be interesting to see how this new supercompany performs and with wehat T&Cs.
However, nearest rival Blockbuster has dramatically improved, as has relatively new entrant MyMovieStream, and Amazon, Moviemine, Cinema Paradiso are all good, among others, so there's still a fair amount of quality choice.
For a more comprehensive rundown of the UK rental sites (41 at last count), including a blog on the industry, see:
UK-DVD-Rental-Guide.com
| paul_lomax |
| () |
| Tue May 23 2006 09:13 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Plus of course Warner Brothers are to start offering movie downloads though Bit Torrent of all places...
| teddy |
| (new user) |
| Mon Feb 12 2007 10:12 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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I have been with Blockbuster for 2 Years and i thought i was getting a good deal. a few time DVD's were delayed in getting back to them and thus delaying me getting new ones back.I always blamed this on the post, but recently when they have started the multi DVD's in one envelope I have realised otherwise. My last despatch i received all 3 DVD's in one envelope and returned them all in one envelope. they only recieved 2 of them, which is impossible. Despite my complaints it took them a week to update their system and reallocate my next DVD. They have still accepted no resposibliltiy for this matter and still called it a lost in post.
I received no appology and am now cancelling my account and starting with LOVEFILM.
Yes LOVEFILM is more expensive but as I told BLOCKBUSTER, i guess you really do get what you pay for.
In the 2 Years i hardly got any top films from my list and as I have found from my investigations LOVEFILM have about 3 times as many titles as BLOCKBUSTER.
Don't trust BLOCKBUSTER as far as i can throw them. They do nothing but hide behind their auto response emails when they do something wrong.
TheFatControlleR
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| (Forum Admin) |
| Mon Feb 12 2007 10:29 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Have you seen the film Necromancer?
| greysts |
| (regular) |
| Wed Feb 14 2007 02:41 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Haven't seen that myself. Is it something to do with raising the dead?
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TheFatControlleR
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| (Forum Admin) |
| Wed Feb 14 2007 02:50 PM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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How did you guess!
It's a Thai film from 2005
| Madeline |
| (regular) |
| Thu Feb 15 2007 06:36 AM |
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Re: Online DVD Rentals
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Sounds lovely, just the sort of film I like! Since it's a Thai film, does it have an English language option or subtitles? Must look out for it in the "World Cinema" section of our local DVD rental shop.
Madeline.
