Online alternatives to the neighborhood video store
By DAVE GUSSOW
Published June 9, 2003
Create a wanted list on the Web site, then Netflix mails the DVDs to you as they become available.
DVD rentals from Netflix arrive via mail with a prepaid return envelope.
It's the summer movie season, and the viewing should be easy. But it's not always so.
Go to the theater? That's at least $14 (with a significant other but no popcorn) and the chance of some boor talking and ruining it.
The video store? Good luck getting something new. Watch TV? Cable's video on demand seems stale, and the pay-movie channels look as if they're stuck with the same choices over and over.
What's a movie buff to do? Head to the Internet, order online and have the postal service deliver it to your mailbox. Or maybe try to download a movie from the Net to view on your computer or TV.
The neighborhood video store is increasingly under attack. Low-cost DVDs make buying more appealing than renting, and competition from companies such as MovieLink and Netflix is giving consumers more rental choices.
So we tried the video store alternatives. MovieLink, an online service where you can download movies for viewing on a PC or TV, may be a realistic choice one day. But it needs to fix the glitches, lower its prices and figure out a way to speed downloads.
Netflix, however, was a winner with its rentals through the mail. And its success is breeding competition. Already, retail giant Wal-Mart offers a rental service for $18.86 a month that is similar to Netflix's. And video giant Blockbuster is testing its version of a video-by-mail service.
The potential audience is big and getting bigger all the time. Already, about 39-million households have a DVD player, and some can be bought for less than $50. It makes DVD the fastest-growing consumer electronics category, and it's fueling interest in sales and rentals of movies.
Put simply, Netflix works. Register online, provide a credit card number, choose movies and start watching. Okay, you can't start watching the movies immediately, as you would if you went to the video store. The first time around you may have to wait a few days for the DVD of your choice to show up in your mailbox. After that, though, if you get a good rotation going, even new releases sometimes show up in your mailbox within a day of coming out.
Netflix has four monthly price plans, ranging from $14.95 to $39.95. We chose the $19.95 plan, which allows unlimited rentals but only three movies at one time.
In our initial foray, we browsed the Netflix Web site to choose from among the 14,500 titles offered, compared with about 12,000 for a typical Blockbuster video store. As we chose movies, the titles went into a virtual rental queue. There, we could put the movies in order of preference and create a waiting list.
Initially, it seemed as if we would have to wait for Far from Heaven because the site indicated no copies were available. But three days after signing up, that movie and three others showed up in our mailbox - including one we didn't order and didn't want.
The movies arrive in thin mailers and paper sleeves. Tear off the cover, and the return mailer is underneath. Netflix pays postage both ways. We watched Far from Heaven and City by the Sea, and sent them back, along with the unrequested Pitch Black.
But we held on to Moonlight Mile - for a month. It's not a great movie, but we wanted to savor the fact that Netflix has no late fees. (In fact, Netflix got its start in 1998 after founder Reed Hastings grumbled about paying a $40 late charge at a video store.)
Even keeping that movie as one of our alloted three-at-a-time, we managed to get and watch seven movies in a month. That averages about $3 each, compared with $3.99 (before tax) at Blockbuster. A friend says he has managed nine in a month, though he complained that I got Drumline before he did. He was still waiting weeks later.
One of Netflix's good features is e-mail notification when a movie is mailed and verification when a movie is returned. Netflix, which ships movies here from a Georgia address, usually estimates a movie will arrive in about three days.
Adaptation and Two Weeks Notice were delivered the day after their release dates. Some that we wanted, such as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, were delayed because we already had three movies out.
I turned to the Blockbuster Web site (www.blockbuster.com) to decide on my Netflix rentals. Blockbuster has a much better site for checking out upcoming releases. Netflix's list seemed sparse by comparison, though the titles I wanted could be found with a search.
In wandering around Netflix, I also found classics in a number of categories, such as documentaries I saw in my college days and old TV shows (the complete Prisoner series from the 1960s, for example). I'll have no problem keeping the rental queue filled.
It won't eliminate the video store completely. My son needed to watch Of Mice and Men for an English class and couldn't wait for the mail to get it to him on time.
However Netflix will limit our video store visits. On a Saturday evening spot-check, Antwone Fisher was nowhere to be found at the store, though we had received it the day before from Netflix. That video-store lottery has always been a frustration.
Technical glitches prevented a trial of movies delivered over the Internet by MovieLink, run by five Hollywood studios. I would get a blue screen that said the service was checking my settings, then just go blank. A check on my office PC showed my home system met the requirements. But that's only one of its current limitations.
Its prices range from $3.99 to $4.99 per movie, more than the others. After signing up, choosing a movie and providing a credit card, you download a movie to a Windows PC (it does not work with Macs).
According to the Dallas Morning News, a download over a fast DSL phone connection took 75 minutes for a 136-minute movie. An office T-1 high-speed connection downloaded a movie of comparable length in about 14 minutes.
Consumers can store the movies for 30 days or so, but once they start watching it, they have only 24 hours to view it. Even with new gadgets and home networks that can beam a movie from a PC to a TV, I sure don't want a glitch when I want to watch a movie.
This summer, another DVD gimmick will appear: the self-destructing disc. Disney is expected to test a disc that will stop working 48 hours after the package is opened.
One thing none of these new home DVD services can offer: a movie theater-size screen, the shared experience of a crowd laughing at comedy or shivering at horror, or an evening away from interruptions from kids and calls.
"I can't believe that filmmakers, the Spielbergs, Scorseses and Camerons who make all these big expansive types of films, appreciate that people are seeing them in a fraction of the size," Times film critic Steve Persall says.
- Information from Times wires was used in this report. Dave Gussow can be reached at gussow@sptimes.com or 727 445-4228.
