The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I'm curious how many have started renting DVDs from Red Box and other DVD vending machines like them.

My wife decided to end our Block Buster movie pass account and Netflix, which I'm not real happy about. But she has a good pioint in that we rent like 4 or 5 movies a month and we're paying $60 a month to keep those accounts open and that it would be cheaper to just buy the movies.
She started renting from Red Box. No monthly fee and only $1 per movie. They have them all over around me including in our two main grocery stores.

My beef. I like to browse my movie selection and read the back of the movie, see pictures, see who's in it, etc.

Sure, I can go to Red Box online, read up on the new releases, pre order the movie online and my local Red Box holds it for me for 24 hours. I can also read about it on screen on the actual vending machine. But if there is someone waiting to return a movie, it would be rude to stand there browsing for 10 minutes.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I'm curious how many have started renting DVDs from Red Box and other DVD vending machines like them.

I can also read about it on screen on the actual vending machine. But if there is someone waiting to return a movie, it would be rude to stand there browsing for 10 minutes.

I'm not sure they have these on the East Coast yet but my friend in Arizona loves these things. HOWEVER, her biggest complaint is when someone is standing in front of the machine for 10 minutes for whatever reason!

I noticed that they just upgraded their on screen browsing. It now flips to a screen that asks if you need more time, yes or no, every 30 seconds. It's a polite way of making people hurry their slow reading asses up. Truth is, I've never had to wait more than a couple minutes for people. There usually isn't anyone there when I walk up.
I also like how I gave them my email with the CC I use, so they let me know what movie was rented and when it gets returned. I usued to not like such a close connection of that much personal info for one company to have, but I now have (about a year) a credit cards that I use just for online purchasing, etc, so I use it for the Red Box also. I never keep a balance of more than $100 on it at any one time. If I'm buying something for over $100, I just transfer funds.

We have 'em out here, but I've never used one.

jimtyrrell wrote:We have 'em out here, but I've never used one.

Ditto. I used Netflix especially with the range of stuff we rent. Currently we are watching the 1900's House. I'm not going to find that in a video vending machine.

That's true Niv. I too like to rent really obscure artsy movies from time to time. In those cases I'll still have to go to Blockbuster and pay the regular price. But as far as new releases, Red Box is cool. They email me every Tuesday with the new titles.

Billy's Little Trip wrote: I too like to rent really obscure artsy movies from time to time.

Don't be coy. You can say "hard-core porn" here.

We've been getting a one-month Hollywood Video pass every three or four months, that seems to be enough for us to keep up with stuff we want to watch, although we did have a pass for three months in a row over the summer and watched a lot of TV series - Deadwood, Weeds, the Wire, currently working through the Shield. Not familiar with redbox, but, yeah, I sorta like being able to browse through the store and not have to stand in line or feel guilty about holding up the line.

I also tend to like older movies (1950s-60s) and find myself checking the TCM schedule a lot. Just found the Umbrellas of Cherbourg available for free viewing at eztakes.com, an odd little musical movie...

Charles (KA)

I used RedBox once. It's nice only having to pay $1 a day, but the nearest location is inside a McDonald's a few miles from my house, so I can't be bothered to go just to rent a movie.

Plus they've been spamming my mailbox ever since.