check out Manila Television post to Manila News-Intelligencer have several options with regards to viewing movies at home. Two of the most popular are renting movies at the neighborhood video store and renting movies via an online service. A casual survey was recently conducted on a home electronics/entertainment site regarding the movie viewing habits of website visitors. The results pointed for some of the misconceptions that still exist about online rental of DVDs by consumers that have not yet tried the service.
Participants in the survey were asked a number of questions, including how often they watch movies in the home, whether they rent movies online, and if not, why. Nearly 28% of those responding indicated they rent movies online. Of the remainder, the most frequently cited reason behind not using an online movie rental service was concern which centered round the perception that online movie rental would be more expensive compared to the local video store. When looking at a couple of scenarios it becomes evident which method tends to be more affordable.
For individuals who indicated that they watch only 1 1 to 3 movies monthly the savings from renting online are small. Renting 2 movies monthly at the local video store would average around $7.40 whereas renting from Netflix for instance, if they find the plan that has a limit of 2 movies per month, would run $5.99. After getting a video at the neighborhood store the user would have overnight or perhaps one week to come back the movie but an online rental allows them to help keep the movie for an unlimited time period.
For all those individuals who responded they view 1-3 movies per week, the savings will be more significant. For example, renting 8 movies per month would run around $29.55 at the neighborhood store so when low as $14.99 online should they chose the “2 out at the same time” plan or $17.99 for the “3 out at a time” plan. As viewing increases so does the likelihood of experiencing greater savings.
For those who responded that they view 4 movies per week (averaged out to 16 monthly) the common cost at the local store will be $59.04 while online rental would be $23.99 allowing an individual “4 out at the same time”. Renting through a service like Netflix generally does not limit how many movies an individual views but rather, just how many movies they are able to have out at any moment. Therefore rentals are more or less unlimited with lots of the plans.
The second most regularly cited reason behind not utilizing online movie rental services was that the individual rented movies on the spur of as soon as and didn’t plan ahead. Certainly renting movies online and receiving them through the mail would not allow someone to decide at 6:00 p.m. that they want to start to see the Queen and receive it so that they can be viewing the movie by 8:00 p.m. However, the delay for receiving movies selected through the mail is 1 business day which may seem sufficient more often than not.
The future of DVD rental may be changing however as Netflix announced in early 2007 that customers would will have the option of watching movies instantly with a streaming service that is available these days for some movies. The service ought to be quicker than most download services as streaming allows viewing of the movie as it is streamed instead of waiting until download is complete. Although a full transition from the current mail delivery system to a download type of service will take time, it is clear that immediacy is only going to continue to improve. It would seem that other online movie rental services would follow suit in coming years in order to compete.
Consumers who’ve not been initiated into the online movie rental world also may be unaware of other benefits/features of such services.
* Greater selection- An average video store has 10,000 to 15,000 titles available whereas the Netflix online movie rental service has over 80,000. This might seem to eliminate the problem of consumers arriving at the store only to find that there is nothing there that they really want to see.
* There are no fees related to the delivery and return of DVD’s; and there is no planing a trip to and from the store as movies are delivered to their door or to their home via streaming.