02-12-2006, 05:41 AM
In November, I decided to give Blockbuster's online DVD rental service a try. I have been a member of netflix in the past a couple of times, but just don't normally have the time to watch that many movies, so it's kind of sporadic.
I found a code for a free 30-day trial and signed up for the 3-at-a-time plan. Overall, delivery of movies is probably about a day slower than Netflix was for me. I think I was able to get about 3 movies a week, so in a month I could get between 10-12. And I normally ripped the DVDs to my drive for later viewing only (never burning or sharing) and put them back in the mail the next day. So I really was turning these around as fast as possible.
Like I mentioned before, delivery was generally slightly slower than netflix, but one upside to this is that they have estimated delivery dates associated with each rental. If the movie didn't arrive on the day that they had estimated, I could always report a "problem" and they would then send out the next disc. This way, I could get a few more movies out of them.
The 2 in-store rentals are a nice bonus, and do add $7-$10 value to the service.
I found their site less user-friendly than Netflix, and the recommendation feature was less than effective in my experience. Recommendations didn't change even when I rated a bunch of movies.
I had planned on just doing the month trial then cancelling, but I forgot to cancel in time, so I had to pay for the second month. When I went to cancel after the 3rd month, they offered me a month free, so I took it. I just cancelled a couple of days ago, so I'm now out of the system.
Bottom line--decent selection of movies on their site, but website isn't amazing, and shipping times weren't all that fast. It's nice to get 2 free in-store rentals, though. In the end, I think I still like Netflix better, but Blockbuster does have a pretty good thing going.
I found a code for a free 30-day trial and signed up for the 3-at-a-time plan. Overall, delivery of movies is probably about a day slower than Netflix was for me. I think I was able to get about 3 movies a week, so in a month I could get between 10-12. And I normally ripped the DVDs to my drive for later viewing only (never burning or sharing) and put them back in the mail the next day. So I really was turning these around as fast as possible.
Like I mentioned before, delivery was generally slightly slower than netflix, but one upside to this is that they have estimated delivery dates associated with each rental. If the movie didn't arrive on the day that they had estimated, I could always report a "problem" and they would then send out the next disc. This way, I could get a few more movies out of them.
The 2 in-store rentals are a nice bonus, and do add $7-$10 value to the service.
I found their site less user-friendly than Netflix, and the recommendation feature was less than effective in my experience. Recommendations didn't change even when I rated a bunch of movies.
I had planned on just doing the month trial then cancelling, but I forgot to cancel in time, so I had to pay for the second month. When I went to cancel after the 3rd month, they offered me a month free, so I took it. I just cancelled a couple of days ago, so I'm now out of the system.
Bottom line--decent selection of movies on their site, but website isn't amazing, and shipping times weren't all that fast. It's nice to get 2 free in-store rentals, though. In the end, I think I still like Netflix better, but Blockbuster does have a pretty good thing going.
