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Anecdotal Rental Research

posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 11:32pm on 14/03/2006
C. and I have very limited experience with renting DVDs (or, indeed, movies in general regardless of format). I've rented a few times before from local shops in Noho, MA, and in Toronto. Yesterday (or the day before?), we tried renting from Amazon.co.uk. The first DVD arrived today, and it quickly became apparently that it was scratched all over. We limped through Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

The rental market seems a likely place to accumulate damaged discs. Were we unlucky or does this happen often in the rental market?
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There are 15 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

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posted by [identity profile] pittenweem.livejournal.com at 11:37pm on 14/03/2006
I think you were probably just unlucky. I have been renting videos and DVDs from various places since before i Left home. Granted, I haven't tried Netflix or some other similar rental scheme, but my friends that use them have never complained. I imagine that if you reported the incident to Amazon that they would send you another one at no charge.
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posted by [identity profile] vschanoes.livejournal.com at 11:40pm on 14/03/2006
Yeah, I've been renting for years, and that's never happened to me. When I was over there, I used amazon.co.uk and never had any problem. I think you just got a lousy disc by accident--definitely report it to amazon and get them to send you another, or credit your account, or whatever.
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posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 10:43am on 15/03/2006
The first month of the service is free and this was our first disc, so at least we weren't paying for it in the first place. Also, although it was a struggle and we had to start several scenes over a few times, with the exception of a few seconds here and there, I think we did actually manage to see the whole movie.

We did, of course, check the "damaged disc" check-box before returning it.
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posted by [identity profile] cataptromancer.livejournal.com at 12:00am on 15/03/2006
I've rented dvds from netflix for a while now, and never gotten a bad one (and they only use flimsy paper envelopes...it boggles the mind). I guess they don't have a UK netflix?
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posted by [identity profile] mithent.livejournal.com at 01:23am on 15/03/2006
They were planning a UK launch, but it appears to have been delayed indefinitely now.
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posted by [identity profile] noncalorsedumor.livejournal.com at 01:53am on 15/03/2006
Ditto for me. I love Netflix--pity they don't have a UK one. :-/
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owlfish: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 10:44am on 15/03/2006
The big company over here, as far as I can determine, is lovefilm.com.

We went with Amazon because we could pay less money and have fewer dvds. (Which is to say, we didn't know if we would go through more than 3/month, so why pay more for renting more when we might not?)
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posted by [identity profile] wytetygryss.livejournal.com at 12:24am on 15/03/2006
We went through an entire month of renting DVDs for free at Blockbuster a few years back, because every one of them was scratched enough that it prevented us from watching the whole movie. It hasn't happened quite as much lately, but we also haven't been renting quite as many movies... so I don't know if we're just being luckier or what.
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posted by [identity profile] easterbunny.livejournal.com at 12:26am on 15/03/2006
We had several scratched DVDs from Blockbuster before cancelling our account.
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posted by [identity profile] a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com at 07:02am on 15/03/2006
I use Netflix and have only received two bad DVDs in about three years.
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owlfish: (Default)

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posted by [personal profile] owlfish at 10:45am on 15/03/2006
My grandmother swears by Netflix. Reliability will certainly be a part of that.
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posted by [identity profile] lazyknight.livejournal.com at 09:35am on 15/03/2006
I've had a few dodgy DVDs from the local rental shop, mainly noticeable due to the loooong time it takes the drive to read the DVD.
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posted by [identity profile] aquitaineq.livejournal.com at 03:13pm on 15/03/2006
I didn't have problems with Lovefilm really. with netflix you can just send it right back and they will send you a replacement.
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posted by [identity profile] redjanet.livejournal.com at 05:37pm on 15/03/2006
we rent from amazon.co.uk as well, though in the last few months we've been lazy about actually watching anything. we have had a few scratched ones in our time with them, which is annoying, but at least they do give you a free rental for every disc you have a problem with.
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posted by [identity profile] stonecircle.livejournal.com at 10:12pm on 15/03/2006
We've just watched an unscratched Sky Captain DVD from Tesco's rental service. They are a couple of quid more than amazon but do an unlimited number of discs per month but only one at a time. It works out at about 10 discs per month with turn around time. A's used this to watch the entire first series of 24. But we don't quite get out to the cinema as much these days.

R & A.
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