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Introduction |
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Synopsis of postal rental
The popularity of high street "video" stores is being challenged by the increasing popularity of Internet based DVD rental services. These new service providers are offering access to massive catalogues of titles for relatively small monthly subscriptions.
Comparison with traditional renting
The concept of renting DVDs via post is a little like an all you can eat buffet, paying a monthly subscription to watch all the titles of your choice. The instant benefits in comparison to traditional high street rentals is no late fees and access to massive catalogues including older titles. However, typical monthly subscriptions can vary between £10 and £20 but in terms of value for money far more DVDs can be rented for this amount of money compared to your high street store.
Expectations of service
The basic idea of such a service revolves around choosing a list of the films you'd like to watch, which you compile from those available in the service providers catalogue. These choices are normally prioritised according to the order you'd like to receive them but the actual order maybe somewhat different depending on the popularity of the titles chosen.
There are many different DVD rental packages offered by each service provider, most offer the chance to rent a certain number of titles at once. Obviously to make good use of subscribing to such a service you'll want to keep returning those titles you've watched in order to receive the next available title in your list.
Each title is sent in a normal envelop (which should have no problem fitting through a standard size letter box) with the DVD inside protect by a thin plastic case. In most cases this envelope should not be discarded as it serves a dual purpose of being the return envelop too (thanks to some clever trickery). Usually titles will be sent by 1st class post and back (DVD in the correct plastic case) using the 1st class prepaid envelope. This proves to be very convenient with minimal fuss or hassle.
Figure 1: Pictures of protective case for posting DVDs and Figure 2: Picture of return envelope for rental
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Service providers |
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Considerations
Whilst choosing a DVD rental service provider it's important to consider the following as important criteria:- The number of DVDs in their catalogue, the rough guide of more DVDs means less time waiting for popular titles.
- The titles in their catalogue, most provide a search engine facility (even to non-members) to browse their catalogue.
- Subscription cost versus the number of titles you can rent at any one time. There would obviously be little point in paying a high price to rental more DVDs than you could possibly have time to watch.
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