An online dvd rental service: How to know if it is for you?

I decided to write this hub not to tell anyone where they should go to sign up for the best online DVD rental service, but instead to help people to decide what is a better fit for them: traditional brick and mortar DVD rental stores, or the DVD online rental alternative. If you decide to stick with traditional stores then you probably already know what is available in your area. If on the other hand you should decide that you want to try out an online renal service, then they will be easy enough to find. (in fact, you will probably see advertisements on this page offering you a free trial to such services if interested, and there is no harm in trying one of them out)

For years I was a member of a local neighborhood dvd rental store and found myself frequenting it for movies on a regular basis. I eventually realized that it was not the best fit for me because too often I found myself rushing to watch a movie before it was due back. More than once I found myself paying late fees for no other reason than I lacked the discipline to watch them in time. I know that there are stores offering no late fees now, but I am talking about before this was so commonplace. As well, the no late fees policy is not the only factor to consider here. There is also the question of how many movies do you like to rent and watch in any given month?

If you are someone who likes to watch a larger number of rental movies in a month then online rentals that offer unlimited dvd rental plans might be the better option for you. I am not aware of any stores that offer you a better rate per film if you prepay for your rentals in advance. I am also not aware of any stores that offer unlimited rentals from their locations for one fixed price each month, something that still seems to be the domain of the online rental businesses. So the savings that you could get by paying less each month for your rentals is somrthing to consider; if you find yourself paying $4 or $5 per rental, then you might be paying too much if you rent more than 5 to 8 movies each month since most online rental companies offer plans that give you a better price per rental.if you sign up for their smaller rental plans. Most online services seem to offer rates that work out to around $2 - $2.50 per film if you rent at least a couple per week. That is another important factor here; if you go through a lot of movies in a month then you would be more likely to get your money's worth from something like this. If however, you find yourself not watching movies very frequently and they end up hanging around, then a smaller plan would probably suit you. In either case, I find then savings worth the time spent signing up for such a service. Of course the free trial offer that they all seem to offer is a way to see for yourself if it is going to be right for you, but admittedly a two week free trial might not be enough time to effectively try out a service, so you might want to bite the bullet and pay for the first month as well to get a better idea.

I do believe that there are some people who would probably find themselves not benefitting from such a service; If you are someone that wants to see a movie right away once you decide that you want to see it, then you might not be receptive to the idea of having to wait afew days to recieve it in the mail, even if you pay more for a priority delivery option for a movie. If you are someone with kids that are impatient and who want to see a movie when they are thinking about it, then again you might not be suited to an online rental service. I am not really interested in using this hub to compare dvd rental services online here, but I will give a list of companies offering the service here of online dvd rental Canada wide. We do not to my knowledge have Netflix or Blockbuster available online here in Canada, however we do have a fair number of companies offering the service. Here is a list of some of the more established ones ( I myself have been with Zip.ca for a few years now and have been mostly satisfied with them so far):

Cinemail.ca
canflix.com
dvdlink.ca
rogersvideodirect.ca (powered by zip.ca)
starflix.com
zip.ca

I am pretty sure that they all offer at least a two week free trial at the time that I am writing this, so feel free to try more than one and see which delivers the most effectively to your particular region. for those not in Canada, you can easily find a list of such companies online and similarly try a few of then out for comparison. Again I remind you that a few of them might even be advertised here on this hub page.