Online movie rental is growing in popularity, but it remains a temporary, flawed solution. While we wait for technology to catch up with the far-reaching promises that were made years ago (that’s right, I am referring to instant movies via the ubiquitous broadband promise), we’ll continue to see greater and greater demand for online movie rentals.

If you’re one of the many people who are contemplating signing up with one of these rental services, here are a few characteristics that you might want to keep in mind as you make your decision:

Shipping Facilities: so that your DVD’s arrive quickly, you will want to ensure that your movie service has a distribution center near you. This can make the difference between a 1 to 2 day turnaround, and a 3 to 4 day turnaround. This consistent turnaround time will become important to you as a user of the service so that you can plan your returns and rentals around typical viewing nights.

DVD Selection: the number of titles available is a large consideration. Many movie watchers are only interested in new releases, but you might also want to consider what the inventory of TV series, classics, and movies from the past two decades is like You might even join the ranks of those who turned off cable entirely once they began using a rental service. Having regular access to series hits from HBO, Showtime, and network television is very attractive.

DVD Availability: A wide selection of movies is only one consideration — having enough copies of each title is also important. The number of copies of each movie will never be disclosed, but for the most part, the more popular the service, the deeper their selection. In this area, Netflix is generally considered to outrank Blockbuster.

Plan Selection: each rental service should have a plan that meets your needs, but some offer more flexibility than others. Examine your movie viewing habits and be sure your chosen rental service has a plan that fits.

Usability: as you build your queue and look for movies to rent, you will begin to appreciate more and more how easy a web site is to use. Looking at things like the ability to search and browse, ease of navigation, response times and availability of the site, etc. will have a big impact on your satisfaction with a service. I personally find this one of the top three factors for online DVD rental selection.

Reputation: you’re probably aware that two services dominate online movie rentals (Netflix and Blockbuster). But what you might not know is that there are plenty of other niche providers like GreenCine for independent movies, DVD Empire, and other smaller providers. Unfortunately, many of these smaller services are smaller for a reason: they just don’t stack up to the two big guns. To avoid any painful experiences, you should probably stick to the known entities.

When you campare all of the characteristics, there are really on two practical choices for a rental service, and those are Netflix and Blockbuster. To look at how each of these rental houses stacks up with each other, and to see which one’s best for you, check out the Netflix and Blockbuster review referenced below. It stacks the services up side-by-side, and can help you make a better decision.

Similar Posts:

• Choosing the Right Online Movie Rental Service
• Netflix or Blockbuster: Which is Right For You?
• Comparing the Online DVD Rental Plans
• Comparing the Online Movie Rental Services
• FeedFlix: Shows You if Netflix is Worth the Money

Tags: Movies-TV

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 6:01 am and is filed under Movies-TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.