My 3 Weeks with BBV Online vs. Netflix

I watch a movie most every night and then several on the weekend so I'm a
pretty big Netflix customer. I upgraded myself to the 5 out at a time plan a
few months back and was pondering going to the 8 out plan throught them.
However the 8 out plan I consider to be prohibitively expensive, which I was
whining about on the newsgroups not so long ago. I had a realization I could
join Blockbuster Online for their 3 out plan, effectively having 8 movies
out at a time, and it would be cheaper than Netflix' 8 out plan and get a
chance to try out BBV Online at the same time..

So it's been 3 weeks, which I think is a pretty fair amount of time.

I live in Commerce, MI which is about 40 miles as the crow flies from
Lansing, MI, which is my distribution center location for both Netflix and
Blockbuster Online. In spite of Blockbuster scanning movies at the Post
Office, generally the speed for both services in the same, and if a movie
does arrive quicker it will be the Netflix one, hands down. Now this may
have something to do with how I return movies, which is in my own mail box,
not dropping them off at the Post Office personally. I put two movies in my
box today, so they will be picked up this afternoon. The BBV will be scanned
tomorrow morning, but both will also be delivered to Lansing by tomorrow
evening and processed, so effectively both BBV and Netflix will be sending
me a new DVD on Friday.

The interface for BBV is truly maddening. I'm on a Western kick at the
moment, so I do a search for a director. You get a list of the directors
films, but that list in no way corresponds to films you can actually rent
from BBV. Instead, you have to click on the film, then it will show you the
status of that movie. In many cases, it's simply a listing, they don't have
a DVD of that film for rent at all. In other cases BBV Online (where I am a
member to rent) will have the film FOR SALE, but not available for rental.
Now that is a real kick in the teeth, if you ask me. This intermingling of
films for sale, DVD's that simply are not available and actual movies
available for rent is maddening. Plus if you wish to read a summary of the
film, you click on the film title, which gives you the first 200 characters
or so of the summary, then you have to click yet again on the within that
link to get to the actual summary. Very aggrevating.

The Queue management is a mess. You cannot reorder multiple movies at the
same time. If you select two movies at the bottom of your list and renumber
them 1, 2 it will only move the first one you selected. The second one will
still be at the bottom of your list. Ahhhh!

DVD availability is a very big weak spot for BBV. I didn't want any overlap
so I picked some pretty obscure movies from BBV (keeping my mainstream and
stuff I really wanted in my Netflix queue). I added 15 DVD's and of those
15, only 5 were available at the moment I signed up. Very disappointing. Out
of my Netflix queue of 70 or so films 5 at any one time have a wait of any
sort.

The one pretty huge bonus of BBV Online is the in store rental. Now I
haven't shown my face inside an actual BBV store in years, last time I
checked I owed them a third world countries GDP in back dues, but I decided
to swallow the bitter pill and try to open a new account at my local store;
which ended up going without a hitch. I'm a gamer, so my BBV Online
subscription for $14.99 allows me to rent 2 games from an actual BBV store.
I don't know if you've checked lately, but BBV gets $6.99 for a single game
rental (!) so the 2 game rentals is a "$14 value" if you want to look at it
that way.

So, for the time being I am going to keep my BBV account. The only thing
keeping me is the game rentals, so if they remove that feature I'll
definetly switch my Netflix account to the 8 out at a time. As for online
DVD rental services, Netflix is the winner hands down IMHO.

Matt
www.jackasscritics.com

Matt Fuerst

In article <cuvp5n$i3m$>,
says...
> So, for the time being I am going to keep my BBV account. The only thing
> keeping me is the game rentals, so if they remove that feature I'll
> definetly switch my Netflix account to the 8 out at a time. As for online
> DVD rental services, Netflix is the winner hands down IMHO.
>


I'm at the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Netflix has ****ed me off
to such an extent that I'm busying myself renting all the stuff that
blockbuster doesn't have so I can cancel them. Just wait until you start
getting the "shipping tomorrow" or "shipping next week" crap from
netflix. They intentionally slow down the number of movies you rent to
save on their postage bill. So basically they turned my 5 out plan into
a 3 out and kept the extra 14 bucks. No good. I do agree that
blockbuster's website is a pitiful mess, but I can live with that as
long as they don't limit my unlimited account.

Argh.

theyak

"Matt Fuerst" <> wrote in message
news:cuvp5n$i3m$...
<<... This intermingling of films for sale, DVD's that simply are not
available and actual movies available for rent is maddening.>>


The last time that I went to a Blockbuster store, they had just finished
intermingling the VHS and DVD rentals. I guess some customers don't care
what they rent: VHS, DVD, widescreen, narrowscreen -- "Who cares, just as
long as we get the movie."

At least at Netflix, you don't have to wade through a bunch of VHS tapes,
unavailable movies and for-sale DVDs while you're looking for DVD rentals.

One-Shot Scot

In article <>,
theyak <> wrote:

> ust wait until you start
> getting the "shipping tomorrow" or "shipping next week" crap from
> netflix. They intentionally slow down the number of movies you rent to
> save on their postage bill.

Still waiting...been 5 & 1/2 years now. I'm sure it'll be soon.

Reginald Dwight

In article <regdwight->,
says...
> In article <>,
> theyak <> wrote:
>
> > ust wait until you start
> > getting the "shipping tomorrow" or "shipping next week" crap from
> > netflix. They intentionally slow down the number of movies you rent to
> > save on their postage bill.
>
> Still waiting...been 5 & 1/2 years now. I'm sure it'll be soon.
>


You must be someone who doesn't use their account very much. Keeping the
discs for a week no big deal to you? That's a waste of money, my friend.

theyak

Matt Fuerst wrote:
> The interface for BBV is truly maddening. I'm on a Western kick at the
> moment, so I do a search for a director. You get a list of the directors
> films, but that list in no way corresponds to films you can actually rent
> from BBV. Instead, you have to click on the film, then it will show you the
> status of that movie. In many cases, it's simply a listing, they don't have
> a DVD of that film for rent at all. In other cases BBV Online (where I am a
> member to rent) will have the film FOR SALE, but not available for rental.
> Now that is a real kick in the teeth, if you ask me. This intermingling of
> films for sale, DVD's that simply are not available and actual movies
> available for rent is maddening. Plus if you wish to read a summary of the
> film, you click on the film title, which gives you the first 200 characters
> or so of the summary, then you have to click yet again on the within that
> link to get to the actual summary. Very aggrevating.

I don't understand this comment. When I search I only see movies that I
can add to my queue. What's an example search that will demonstrate what
you're seeing?


> The Queue management is a mess. You cannot reorder multiple movies at the
> same time. If you select two movies at the bottom of your list and renumber
> them 1, 2 it will only move the first one you selected. The second one will
> still be at the bottom of your list. Ahhhh!

I reorder bunches all the time. Maybe try a different browser. I
guarantee their queue allows reordering of multiple entries in one shot.



> DVD availability is a very big weak spot for BBV. I didn't want any overlap
> so I picked some pretty obscure movies from BBV (keeping my mainstream and
> stuff I really wanted in my Netflix queue). I added 15 DVD's and of those
> 15, only 5 were available at the moment I signed up. Very disappointing. Out
> of my Netflix queue of 70 or so films 5 at any one time have a wait of any
> sort.

Blockbuster does not have some of the movies I'm interested in. However,
my queue is at over 100 right now, so I'm not really hurting over it.
Sometimes I end up buying the odd movie that Blockbuster doesn't rent.


> The one pretty huge bonus of BBV Online is the in store rental. Now I
> haven't shown my face inside an actual BBV store in years, last time I
> checked I owed them a third world countries GDP in back dues, but I decided
> to swallow the bitter pill and try to open a new account at my local store;
> which ended up going without a hitch. I'm a gamer, so my BBV Online
> subscription for $14.99 allows me to rent 2 games from an actual BBV store.
> I don't know if you've checked lately, but BBV gets $6.99 for a single game
> rental (!) so the 2 game rentals is a "$14 value" if you want to look at it
> that way.

Yep.


--
Joe

Joe S

In article <>,
theyak <> wrote:

> In article <regdwight->,
> says...
> > In article <>,
> > theyak <> wrote:
> >
> > > ust wait until you start
> > > getting the "shipping tomorrow" or "shipping next week" crap from
> > > netflix. They intentionally slow down the number of movies you rent to
> > > save on their postage bill.
> >
> > Still waiting...been 5 & 1/2 years now. I'm sure it'll be soon.
> >
>
>
> You must be someone who doesn't use their account very much. Keeping the
> discs for a week no big deal to you? That's a waste of money, my friend.

Yeah, a guess an average of around 13 discs per month "isn't that much"
my friend.

Reginald Dwight

Been a member (again) since June. Since I've been on 5 at a time I've
averages 25 DVD's a month. I'm sure a lot of people do better than that but
I've certainly noticed no slowdown at all. I generally get a movie a day,
and return a movie a day. It works out pretty well.

I'm in the camp that thinks "you people" are tin foil hat wearing loons but
I realize no words are going to convince you otherwise. Likewise I think
Netflix has just written off a segment of people knowing full well once a
company like Netflix hits a certain level of mass acceptance, there are
going to people who reject them outright for that reason alone.

Matt
www.jackasscritics.com

Matt Fuerst

> Matt Fuerst wrote:
> > The interface for BBV is truly maddening. I'm on a Western kick at the
> > moment, so I do a search for a director. You get a list of the directors
> > films, but that list in no way corresponds to films you can actually
rent
> > from BBV. Instead, you have to click on the film, then it will show you
the
> > status of that movie. In many cases, it's simply a listing, they don't
have
> > a DVD of that film for rent at all. In other cases BBV Online (where I
am a
> > member to rent) will have the film FOR SALE, but not available for
rental.
> > Now that is a real kick in the teeth, if you ask me. This intermingling
of
> > films for sale, DVD's that simply are not available and actual movies
> > available for rent is maddening. Plus if you wish to read a summary of
the
> > film, you click on the film title, which gives you the first 200
characters
> > or so of the summary, then you have to click yet again on the within
that
> > link to get to the actual summary. Very aggrevating.
>
> I don't understand this comment. When I search I only see movies that I
> can add to my queue. What's an example search that will demonstrate what
> you're seeing?
>

Hey Joe, I've been on a western kick lately... I rented Run, Man, Run from
them. That's a pretty decent flick, so I decided to click on the director,
Sergio Sollima hotlink. WIth that you are presented with 13 Sollima movies.
From what I can tell, only 2 are actually available for rental on BBV
Online. Give it a shot. Very aggrevating!

> I reorder bunches all the time. Maybe try a different browser. I
> guarantee their queue allows reordering of multiple entries in one shot.

Just gave this one another shot and yep! It did work for me this time.
Yippie!

> > DVD availability is a very big weak spot for BBV. I didn't want any
overlap
> > so I picked some pretty obscure movies from BBV (keeping my mainstream
and
> > stuff I really wanted in my Netflix queue). I added 15 DVD's and of
those
> > 15, only 5 were available at the moment I signed up. Very disappointing.
Out
> > of my Netflix queue of 70 or so films 5 at any one time have a wait of
any
> > sort.
>
> Blockbuster does not have some of the movies I'm interested in. However,
> my queue is at over 100 right now, so I'm not really hurting over it.
> Sometimes I end up buying the odd movie that Blockbuster doesn't rent.

Well I found myself doing the similar stuff, but then I realized I was
paying good money every month to rent flicks. Especially for most flicks
where I am going to watch them once and then nevermore!

Like I said, I'm not going to drop BBV any time soon. I think it's far
inferior to Netflix in the ways important to me (speed, selection, website)
but it's not a bad value at $14.99 with the 2 free in store rentals..

Matt

Matt Fuerst

In article <cv2olf$73b$>,
says...
> Been a member (again) since June. Since I've been on 5 at a time I've
> averages 25 DVD's a month. I'm sure a lot of people do better than that but
> I've certainly noticed no slowdown at all. I generally get a movie a day,
> and return a movie a day. It works out pretty well.
>
> I'm in the camp that thinks "you people" are tin foil hat wearing loons but
> I realize no words are going to convince you otherwise. Likewise I think
> Netflix has just written off a segment of people knowing full well once a
> company like Netflix hits a certain level of mass acceptance, there are
> going to people who reject them outright for that reason alone.
>
> Matt
> www.jackasscritics.com
>
>
>


Wait, are you saying they only picked 500,000 or so to **** with
regarding shipping delays or that anyone who says anything negative
about your beloved netflix is just wrong?

Clarification?

theyak