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Given that there's been a review of Amazon's DVD rental service, I though I'd create a thread documenting my thoughts and experiences of Blockbuster's rental service. I went for Blockbuster's service as I was pretty unimpressed with their main competitor, LoveFilm. 'Main competitor? But surely there are loads of other rental services out there?', you might be thinking. It may appear that way, but most of those are in fact run by or linked to LoveFilm's system and hence you receive the same level of service no matter which you are with.
So what of Blockbuster's service? Well, when I joined up, I went for the £12.99 a month plan, whereby you can have up to two DVDs at any one time. Oddly, that plan's no longer available - there's a £9.99 1 DVD plan and a £14.99 DVD plan. But the general idea remains the same - you fill your rental queue with titles you want to watch, in list of priority, and Blockbuster sends them out to you via post. Send a DVD back, and you receive the next DVD in your queue, and so on, as many times as you want. It's as easy as that.
However, while it's certainly a damn sight cheaper than paying £2.50 a rental at your local video store, Blockbuster's service does leave a lot to be desired. They do have a catalogue containing thousands of DVDs, but new releases - particularly the popular ones - seem to take an age to arrive. It took over a month to get Casino Royale, despite it being a the top of my queue. A film which was, by the way, in stock at the Blockbuster in town.
Also, should there be a problem with any discs, Blockbuster aren't in a hurry to fix things. I also pay £14.99 a month to GamesFrenzy - which I'll probably be reviewing later - to rent games. If I report a game as being faulty, GamesFrenzy send out another title the same day. Blockbuster, on the other hand, wait till the next working day to send out a replacement title, even if you report the disc as being faulty before ten o'clock.
My overall feeling about the service is that while the service is just about okay, if I could find service that actually did dispatch new releases within the space of about a week, I'd switch. But having read reviews of other services on the web, it appears most other rental services suffer from the same problem. I'll be sticking with Blockbuster for now, at least until something better comes along. But the service isn't blockbusting by any stretch of the imagination.
So what of Blockbuster's service? Well, when I joined up, I went for the £12.99 a month plan, whereby you can have up to two DVDs at any one time. Oddly, that plan's no longer available - there's a £9.99 1 DVD plan and a £14.99 DVD plan. But the general idea remains the same - you fill your rental queue with titles you want to watch, in list of priority, and Blockbuster sends them out to you via post. Send a DVD back, and you receive the next DVD in your queue, and so on, as many times as you want. It's as easy as that.
However, while it's certainly a damn sight cheaper than paying £2.50 a rental at your local video store, Blockbuster's service does leave a lot to be desired. They do have a catalogue containing thousands of DVDs, but new releases - particularly the popular ones - seem to take an age to arrive. It took over a month to get Casino Royale, despite it being a the top of my queue. A film which was, by the way, in stock at the Blockbuster in town.
Also, should there be a problem with any discs, Blockbuster aren't in a hurry to fix things. I also pay £14.99 a month to GamesFrenzy - which I'll probably be reviewing later - to rent games. If I report a game as being faulty, GamesFrenzy send out another title the same day. Blockbuster, on the other hand, wait till the next working day to send out a replacement title, even if you report the disc as being faulty before ten o'clock.
My overall feeling about the service is that while the service is just about okay, if I could find service that actually did dispatch new releases within the space of about a week, I'd switch. But having read reviews of other services on the web, it appears most other rental services suffer from the same problem. I'll be sticking with Blockbuster for now, at least until something better comes along. But the service isn't blockbusting by any stretch of the imagination.
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Given that there's been a review of Amazon's DVD rental service, I though I'd create a thread documenting my thoughts and experiences of Blockbuster's rental service. I went for Blockbuster's service as I was pretty unimpressed with their main competitor, LoveFilm. 'Main competitor? But surely there are loads of other rental services out there?', you might be thinking. It may appear that way, but most of those are in fact run by or linked to LoveFilm's system and hence you receive the same level of service no matter which you are with.
So what of Blockbuster's service? Well, when I joined up, I went for the £12.99 a month plan, whereby you can have up to two DVDs at any one time. Oddly, that plan's no longer available - there's a £9.99 1 DVD plan and a £14.99 DVD plan. But the general idea remains the same - you fill your rental queue with titles you want to watch, in list of priority, and Blockbuster sends them out to you via post. Send a DVD back, and you receive the next DVD in your queue, and so on, as many times as you want. It's as easy as that.
However, while it's certainly a damn sight cheaper than paying £2.50 a rental at your local video store, Blockbuster's service does leave a lot to be desired. They do have a catalogue containing thousands of DVDs, but new releases - particularly the popular ones - seem to take an age to arrive. It took over a month to get Casino Royale, despite it being a the top of my queue. A film which was, by the way, in stock at the Blockbuster in town.
Also, should there be a problem with any discs, Blockbuster aren't in a hurry to fix things. I also pay £14.99 a month to GamesFrenzy - which I'll probably be reviewing later - to rent games. If I report a game as being faulty, GamesFrenzy send out another title the same day. Blockbuster, on the other hand, wait till the next working day to send out a replacement title, even if you report the disc as being faulty before ten o'clock.
My overall feeling about the service is that while the service is just about okay, if I could find service that actually did dispatch new releases within the space of about a week, I'd switch. But having read reviews of other services on the web, it appears most other rental services suffer from the same problem. I'll be sticking with Blockbuster for now, at least until something better comes along. But the service isn't blockbusting by any stretch of the imagination.
So what of Blockbuster's service? Well, when I joined up, I went for the £12.99 a month plan, whereby you can have up to two DVDs at any one time. Oddly, that plan's no longer available - there's a £9.99 1 DVD plan and a £14.99 DVD plan. But the general idea remains the same - you fill your rental queue with titles you want to watch, in list of priority, and Blockbuster sends them out to you via post. Send a DVD back, and you receive the next DVD in your queue, and so on, as many times as you want. It's as easy as that.
However, while it's certainly a damn sight cheaper than paying £2.50 a rental at your local video store, Blockbuster's service does leave a lot to be desired. They do have a catalogue containing thousands of DVDs, but new releases - particularly the popular ones - seem to take an age to arrive. It took over a month to get Casino Royale, despite it being a the top of my queue. A film which was, by the way, in stock at the Blockbuster in town.
Also, should there be a problem with any discs, Blockbuster aren't in a hurry to fix things. I also pay £14.99 a month to GamesFrenzy - which I'll probably be reviewing later - to rent games. If I report a game as being faulty, GamesFrenzy send out another title the same day. Blockbuster, on the other hand, wait till the next working day to send out a replacement title, even if you report the disc as being faulty before ten o'clock.
My overall feeling about the service is that while the service is just about okay, if I could find service that actually did dispatch new releases within the space of about a week, I'd switch. But having read reviews of other services on the web, it appears most other rental services suffer from the same problem. I'll be sticking with Blockbuster for now, at least until something better comes along. But the service isn't blockbusting by any stretch of the imagination.