Seven Online

Online movie rental is gaining in popularity, but it’s still a short-term, imperfect solution. While we wait for technology to catch up with the far-reaching promises that we were told years ago (yes, I’m referring to broadband in every house and movies on demand), we’ll continue to see an even greater demand for online DVD rentals.

If you’re about to make a decision on your DVD rental house of choice (or even if you’re considering a move), be sure to look over the entirety of the service, including these important factors:

Fulfillment Centers: for added convenience, you will want to be sure that there is a fulfillment center near you. This can make the difference between a 1 to 2 day turnaround, and a 3 to 4 day turnaround. It might not sound like much, but being able to consistently gauge turnaround times is a great convenience (e.g. timing a new release to arrive on a Friday night).

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.

Ratings and Other Information: being able to view what others have said about a movie is important to help you narrow down your selection. Ideally, your service will be able to learn from your previous selections and soon be able to suggest movies to you with some degree of accuracy.

Usability: as you build your rental list and look for movies to rent, you’ll start 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 major impact on your satisfaction with a service. I personally find this one of the top three factors for online DVD rental.

Specialized Features: each service will have characteristics that make it unique from the other services. For example, Netflix has a very convenient movies on demand section. The selection of titles isn’t great, but is still better than a swift kick in the pants. Similarly, the ability to walk into a local store to return movies or rent new ones, as you get with the Blockbuster service, are also very important to some.

Considering all of the factors above, there really are only two logical 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 vs. Blockbuster comparison referenced below. It stacks the services up side-by-side, and can help make your decision much easier.