Anecdotal Rental Research

[owlfish]

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?

Comments

[pittenweem.livejournal.com]

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.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

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.

[owlfish]

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.

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

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?

[mithent.livejournal.com]

They were planning a UK launch, but it appears to have been delayed indefinitely now.

[noncalorsedumor.livejournal.com]

Ditto for me. I love Netflix--pity they don't have a UK one. :-/

[owlfish]

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?)

[wytetygryss.livejournal.com]

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.

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

We had several scratched DVDs from Blockbuster before cancelling our account.

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

I use Netflix and have only received two bad DVDs in about three years.

[owlfish]

My grandmother swears by Netflix. Reliability will certainly be a part of that.

[lazyknight.livejournal.com]

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.

[aquitaineq.livejournal.com]

I didn't have problems with Lovefilm really. with netflix you can just send it right back and they will send you a replacement.

[redjanet.livejournal.com]

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.

[stonecircle.livejournal.com]

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.