With the skyrocketing of movie ticket prices, many individuals are choosing to wait to see the newest hits until the come out on DVD. While DVD rentals are cheaper than seeing a movie in the theater, you have to take into consideration the drive to the store, the possibility that the movie you want might not even be there, the cost of the rental, the potential costs of late fees and the hassle of having to drop it back off. All in all, it makes a trip to the theater sound not that bad right?
Over the past few years, the drastic decrease in moviegoers and movie renters has caused companies like Blockbuster to change their renting style in order to better appeal to its customers. Blockbuster and Netflix are the two main companies that have developed a system in which users pay a monthly fee to rent movies. For one consistent price, you can have movies delivered straight to your home via mail. Once you watch them, you send them back and the next movie will arrive.
For a while Blockbuster and Netflix were the two main competitors but recently Apple has announced that they will offer movie rentals via iTunes. Will iTunes offer something that Blockbuster and Netflix will not? Here’s a look at these three companies, what they offer and which one benefits individuals the most.
Netflix
Netflix was actually the first company to offer movie home delivery. Their initial concept consisted of delivery of movies to your home in about 1 business day. The movies came complete with a self paid return envelope. When you set up your account online you create a list or Queue of movies and Netflix will send your movies out in the order you choose. Keep the movies for as long as you like, and when you return them, you’ll be mailed the next item on your list.
Once Blockbuster created competition, Netflix had to step up its game. Currently Netflix allows you to receive movies via mail, but they have just recently offered users to download movies instantly to your PC. So users can hop online and download any movie and watch it via their computer.
Netflix offers a selection of over 90,000 movies and 5 different rental packages for their DVD’s:
$23.99 a month for 4 DVD’s at a time with unlimited rentals and unlimited hours on your PC
$16.99 a month for 3 DVD’s at a time with unlimited rentals and unlimited hours on your PC
$13.99 a month for 2 DVD’s at a time with unlimited rentals and unlimited hours on your PC
$8.99 a month for 1 DVD at a time with unlimited rentals and unlimited hours on your PC
$4.99 a month for 1 DVD at a time with a limit of 2 rentals and 2 hours for rental on your PC
They advertise their $16.99 a month plan as their most popular plan. Users can have up to 3 movies in their home at one time and they can rent as many movies as they want each month.
The question I had about this service is: how do they control the number of downloads to your PC? Maybe I’m not as computer savvy as I thought, but once you have something downloaded to your computer, it stays there right? Can Netflix really control the downloading and erasing of movies from your hard drive? The answer is they can’t. With any of the first four packages mentioned above, you can download and watch as many movies and TV episodes a month as you want, and that’s in addition to your regular by mail rentals. That really sounds like a deal!
Blockbuster
Blockbuster followed in suit very quickly after the inception of Netflix, and until Netflix introduced their direct online downloads, Blockbuster was a much more popular option, why? Blockbuster offered all of the perks that the traditional Netflix offered: direct home delivery in about 1 business day, unlimited rentals depending on the package you chose, etc. The one thing that Blockbuster was able to offer that Netflix couldn’t was: instead of mailing back your DVD’s and waiting a few days to get the next one, you can take your DVD back to the store and take out a movie straight from the store for free!
Depending on the package you choose, Blockbuster allows you a certain amount of trade-ins at your local store. In addition, they send you one coupon a month for a free rental from the store as well. This is a great option because you can instantly get a new movie, but it does require you to bring the movie back to the store once you are done with it. In the mean time, the Blockbuster store you bring your movies to will send them back and you will then get mailed the next title on your queue. The one thing to remember here is that if you rent a movie on your queue from the store, be sure to remove it from your queue so that it doesn’t get sent to you.
Blockbuster offers over 75,000 titles and 3 different rental packages:
$19.99 a month for 3 DVD’s at a time and 5 in-store exchanges a month
($15.99 for 3 DVD’s at a time and no in-store exchanges)
$16.99 a month for 2 DVD’s at a time and 3 in-store exchanges a month
($13.99 for 3 DVD’s at a time and no in-store exchanges)
$11.99 a month for 1 DVD at a time and 2 in-store exchanges a month
($8.99 for 31 DVD at a time and no in-store exchanges)
When comparing Blockbuster to Netflix, if you have a PC that is able to download and store unlimited movies, Netflix is by far the better choice, but if you want the convenience of being able to exchange movies at your local store, then I’d suggest going with Blockbuster.
iTunes
The idea behind iTunes has always been that you can own your downloads instead of renting them. Users can visit the iTunes store to download their favorite songs which can then be transferred to an iPod or burnt onto a CD. With the inception of movies, iTunes has decided to rent out movies instead of allowing users to purchase them.
Now, when users visit the iTunes store, they can rent movies rather than buying them. Once you rent a movie, you can keep the downloaded rental for up to 30 days, however, once you begin watching it, you only have 24 hours to view it completely before it will no longer be available.
Since 2006 iTunes has offered users the option to buy movies through their store. Movies cost anywhere from about $9.99 to $14.99 to purchase. Now, the same movie costs only $3.99 for new releases and $2.99 for older titles to download-so it is very similar to paying for a regular movie rental from your local video store. HD titles are not yet available, but once this technology is offered, HD rentals will be $4.99.
As of now, the iTunes library is drastically smaller than Blockbuster and Netflix, with only 1,000 titles available. Users will need iTunes 7.6 and QuickTime 7.4 in order to download rentals. Movie downloads are about 2 gigs so depending on your bandwidth and internet speed, download times will vary.
The one downfall to this program is that as soon as you choose the option to download, the clock starts ticking. So don’t begin a download at 11:59pm because as soon as 12:00am hits, you’ll only have 29 days left to view the rental. This option is still in the beginning stages so it will be interesting to see how Apple plans on tweaking the program to make it run smoother.
Comparison:
All three of these companies offer the same general idea, but their options are all somewhat unique. The option that is right for you will really depend on the technology you currently own and those technologies specific capabilities. For those who simply want the ability to get movies in the mail or right from the store, then Blockbuster is your best bet. For those who have a PC that is capable of downloading and storing unlimited titles, Netflix is better for you. If you have an iPod and want to spend a lot of money for movies that you don’t get to keep for all that long, then iTunes is the option you are looking for.
Because iTunes option is so new right now, it is really hard to compare it to the other two companies. It seems for iTunes you need more programs and more technology (a PC and an iPod) and you are paying more for movies that you get to keep for less time, but I can only hope that if they want to compete with the current companies, they’ll change the way they rent movies soon enough. Each company has perks that certain individuals can benefit from so all I can say is to do your research and choose the company that best suits you!
Sources:
Netflix.com
Blockbuster.com
Peter Cohen. ‘First Look: iTunes Movie Rentals’, Macworld.com.
