Chunking Things

Thursday, April 15, 2010

DVDs and the Online Delivery System

A few years ago, my DH and I bit the bullet and signed up for an online movie rental program.  There's really only two, so keeping it secret seems pointless.  We signed up with Blockbuster and we've been pretty happy until recently.

The first issue we had was really simple.  My husband put a concert DVD into our queue.  You know how most concert DVDs are two disk sets?  One disk has the actual concert and the other disk has the extras.  When we received our movie, it didn't contain both disks... just the second one.  So, the extras without the actual concert.  Apparently there's a "very long wait" on the concert.  Who knew it was even separated?

The second issue arose when I tried to rent a movie that was a 'made for TV' drama.  There have been a couple of movies by that same name produced.  I have received three, count 'em, THREE different movies from Blockbuster and all of them have the right description and stars named on the sleeve, but when the DVD is inserted, it's the wrong movie.  Very frustrating.

Their customer support has been reasonable, but what can they say?  Sorry we sent you the wrong movie, we'll send out the right movie, right away.  Then, I get the second and third incorrectly labeled movies.  I'm so over that film!

It raises some questions:  1) Would the selection at the local store include the films we have in our queue?  We never saw a lot of these movies at the local store when that was the way we got our cinema fixes.  2) If we got a mislabeled film from the store, would they be able to correct it quickly or more appropriately?

My son has recommended ditching Blockbuster and using the "On Demand" movies available on cable TV, but once again, these are pretty limited to current releases.  Some of these older films would not be available that way.

So, what is the best way to rent movies these days?  I'm wondering if I was 'streaming' the film from an online site and got the wrong film, if they'd be able to correct quickly??  Seems like there'd be less labeling issues.  I'm not sure.

I just know that I am no longer amused at the difficulties involved in getting to see my movie.

--Sandee Wagner

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