We've been debating whether we should try Netflix or Blockbuster's online DVD rental by mail service, and we've had a hard time coming to a decision. We know people who speak highly of Netflix, and other people who recommend Blockbuster online, so it was difficult to choose; therefore we decided to try both, at the same time.

We have just started a two week free trial of both services; in both cases we've chosen a $9.99/month with unlimited rentals but one disc at a time. Our entertainment budget is meager right now, but at ten bucks a month it would be approx equal to what we spend each month on local rentals and/or late fines on library dvds.

First impressions: Netflix sign up was quicker and less hassle. Blockbuster annoyed me with more "fine print" and questions they wanted answered; as well as some unimpressive HTML coding errors. It is clear that Blockbuster is the less mature, less polished of the two.

However, Blockbuster then led into some questions about movie likes/dislikes designed to help them suggest movies we might like to rent. So far their suggestions are pretty decent. Netflix instead suggested the most popular movies rented by its other members. Kind of hit or miss on those titles but what would you expect... people have very different tastes.

As far as searching for movies I want goes, Netflix wins hands down. When searching by title, the results list that Blockbuster provides isn't as easy or nice to browse. Netflix presents the results in a more appealing and easy to view format.

For category browsing, Netflix is fine, and Blockbuster is on crack. When I looked for French films in the Foreign section, Netflix showed me French fillms. Blockbuster showed me all kinds of crap; about 25% of which were French films. Same with Classics. Netflix showed me some good classic films. Blockbuster came back with "The Jerk" and "Clerks" near the top of the list of Classics. WTF? I scrolled down some more and found "Dumb and Dumber" and "Roger Rabbit" within the first page of Classic films-- I shit you not. So, Blockbuster online clearly needs some work.

I managed to dump 10 films in each queue at Blockbuster and Netflix. I tried to choose a variety of different films from each service; some popular comedy or action, some indie, some foreign, some classic, some animated. Interesting to note that Netflix shows all 10 films as "Available Now" where Blockbuster shows 3 of 10 as "Short Wait"; the rest being "Available Now". I should keep in mind though that I read about Netflix giving trial customers priority for disc availability in order to impress them while they evaluate the service. I have to wonder if the availability for these films would be different now if I was already a paying subscriber.

I'm just posting these initial impressions of the sign-up and interface for completeness, but the efficiency of the service (time to get the disc to me/ time to receive my return and send the next flick) will undoubted weigh more heavily on our final judgement of these services.

I'll post again at the half-way point (one week from now) to report on our impressions of each service. Two weeks from now I'll be posting to reveal which service we will keep and which we will dump, and to provide a summary of the advantages and weaknesses of each one.

This entry was posted by ra on Monday, 15 August 2005 at 22:47. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own blog.