jfoobar

Fair enough Matt, thanks.

wakkkyone

Start a consistent anime collection and i'll be happy with the newer titles that are coming out.

I tend to rent and buy later to finish a collection, but netflix is lagging on anime titles.

Smeg

I just signed up for Rentmydvd.Com after cancelling Netflix (a queue of 40 long waits just became ridiculous).

I noticed however that 2 disc sets are rented separately.
I would hope a company as responsive as yours would stop this practice. After all what would happen if disc 1 were
not available and disc 2 were mailed out to me. That would be one disc out of circulation until disc 1 arrived.

Keep 2 disc DVD sets together.

Cheers,

Smeg

RMDInc

Hey everybody. Slow forum week- we must be doing everything right or everything wrong; let me know. And FYI we've got another contest up and running. "Mother's Day Mahem" has got great prizes and new (to me at least) trivia.

Smeg,
The 2-disc set dillemma is discussed in this forum on the first page, 28th post down from the top. It pretty much still applies. With the exception of the new "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Cleopatra" sets that were released recently most titles only have bonus materials on the 2nd disc. The amount of titles that can't fit on one DVD are minimal and while I can appreciate the idea behind your message about getting disc 2 first, it's a rarity. But we are still thinking about it...

J_Morrison

What the status on your Chicago shipping hub? Your website says its coming 2nd quarter 2001 which we're in now. This is the only thing holding me back from signing up to your program. As soon as your get this baby open I'm in.

jriems

I would also like to echo the push for additional anime titles. I'm not necessarily asking for hard-to-find, obscure titles, I'm talking about stuff like Serial Experiments Lain, Cowboy Bebop and Neon Genesis Evangelion. These are all VERY recent multi-disc series that are currently available at most online and B&M stores. Why then does RentMyDVD.com only have selected discs from each series available? Cowboy Bebop, a 6-disc series, only shows disc 6 as available in the "Animations" section of the site. When I do a search for Bebop, all 6 discs show up in the list, but 1-5 are listed as "NOT AVAILABLE." Um, why not?

I guess I just don't get why you'd only have one disc available out of a 6-disc series when all 6 are currently available at Amazon for $25 each. Any insight?

jriems
P.S. I am very satisfied with my RentMyDVD exeperience since I joined in mid-February! Keep up the good work.

P.P.S. I would also like to know the status of additional shipping hubs -- namely the Atlanta hub scheduled for the current quarter.

[Edited by jriems on 04-16-01 at 07:53 PM]

LBPound

Hey, RentmyDVD.com person.
I think it would be a good idea to offer a free trial month to people would like to try out the Hooked on DVD "no Due Dates - No Late Fees" program. I know I'd be willing to try it out and see if it's more convenient than Netflix's Unlimited Rental program, but it's not worth however many dollars to try and just hate it. Any possibility of offering a Free Trial month to new Hooked on DVD Customers? Also, it's good to see you answering everyone's posts. Hadn't heard of RentMyDVD.com until now but I will check out the site more in depth and would definitely try out the service if you offer a trial. If not, then we'll see.

RMDInc

Hey Everybody.

I trust that all is well with everyone. First, it looks like the shipping branches are on a few minds, so, to that end: Originally our addiional locations were to begin opening last month; but we've had to push them all back a bit for various and assorted reasons. Hopefully we will be getting a new schedule put together regarding the branches, but for now everything is about one quarter behind its original forecast. Any information about the branch openings will be posted on the site.
____________________________________________________________
jriems (and other anime fans)-

Our purchasing department is putting together a list of anime titles; keep your eyes open for a better selection in the near future. (early summer probably)
____________________________________________________________

LBPound23-

I can appreciate your stance and I can respect the fact that free trials have their place in any market; however, free introductory months of Membership are not something that we are willing to offer.
____________________________________________________________

'Til next time

-Matt

MPSAN

What ever happened to the 6 out...and its price?

RMDInc

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RMDInc
[B]
____________________________________________________________

JustinS-

Shouldn't be much longer for the additional Plans' introduction. No one here wants to commit to a concrete date so I'll give the [vague] one to two months [/vague] answer. I'm just not positive and I apologize. When I hear more info I'll definitely post it.

____________________________________________________________

HepDude

Hi!

Given the current difficulties that all rental sites have in obtaining DVDs
(presumably due to insufficient production capacity), the "monthly fee
membership" idea is less viable than it would be in a more ideal situation, when
a site could stock anything that they had the money to purchase. So, adding
other genres where the DVDs are available might make the membership rental idea
more viable.

So, I thought I would follow up on the Hindi DVD distributor idea. I did the
following:

- Went (most arbitrarily) to http://www.mohabbatein.com .

- Looked at the site map and found the Business Offices page

- Emailed the US office, asking about DVD Rental Distributors

- Their reply was that there are no "Rental Distributors" just purchase
distributors. I asked if that meant that rental stores just purchase from the
same distributors as retail stores and they said yes.

- So, I asked for their distributor in the San Francisco area, and they gave me
the information (which I have emailed to you). I assume that their distributor
can also get the more popular titles of a variety of other labels.

What is interesting to me is that their are no rental distributors in the Hindi
DVD genre. I'd be curious as to what now are the differences between rental
distributors and purchase distributors for mainstream US DVDs? Or is this just
a historical holdover from the days where most pre-recorded videotapes were sold
to rental stores with a list price of $90?

Aguirre

Will RentmyDVD be offering Playboy titles in the future? I just watch them for the uh...cinematography.

RMDInc

Hep Dude-

Thanks for the information, I will pass it on to purchasing so that they can get the ball rolling. Right now I know they are working (as far as esoteric title selections are concerned) on building the anime selections; but they may be persuaded to get the handful of titles discussed way back when in this forum. I'm also sorry that it took so long for me to get back to you- for whatever reason (and not the one you mentioned in your e-mail) I was having real trouble loading DVD Talk for the past few days.
____________________________________________________________

Aguirre-

Sorry. No Playboy, No X-Rated features, No adult titles, and no plans to carry them in the future; it's just our policy.
____________________________________________________________

Talk to everyone soon.

-Matt

TomMiller

I have been a Netflix subscriber for 18 months, and am still quite happy with them, largely because of their very extensive collection of older and foreign films. I am more than willing to put up with sloppy release schedules, slow turn around times, and constantly changing business models if it means that I am actually able to rent Les Vampires, Jean de Florette, and all of the Buster Keaton films that have been released on DVD. But because of problems that do exist with Netflix, particularly with new release films and disk turnaround times, I supplement from other rental companies. I'll be giving rentmydvd a try sometime soon, but I thought I would give some preliminary comments.

1) I agree that splitting disks like Lawrence of Arabia is foolishness, unless you can guarantee that both disks will ship at the same time. Films like this aren't TV shows or serials, which were created to be watched in separate installments.

2) You are carrying a few films from companies that have use notoriously poor quality public domain prints, like Madacy's print of Metropolis. I would recommend avoiding the customer service hassle by not stocking these films. I note that you have a warning on Metropolis' disk page, saying that older films can look bad on DVD, but that just leads me to believe that you don't know certain distributers have a reputation for using horrible prints on the cheap. Good Times video is another one. On the plus side, you at least list the distributer so knowledgable customers can do the research to determine which disks to avoid.

3) Keep expanding your collection. I for one really don't want to subscribe to two rental services, and if you can provide the depth of Netflix's catalog while providing better customer support, a lot more people will switch. DVD in general caters to a different market segment than VHS. DVD viewers include more hardcore movie buffs with more eclectic tastes. Your selection already seems to be better than that of cafedvd and dvdovernight, two other rental companies I have used.

4) Site pages seem very slow to load.

Tom

Stephen Tu

Another Netflix defector here -- hope you guys handle growth better than they did.

Anyway, I have some web site design feedback:

• If you do a search for a title that has not been released yet, it is displayed as "Coming". I would like to be able to click on the "Coming" and add to the wish list without having to go into the movie details page.
• On the wish list, instead of "coming soon" I would like to see the tentative release date of the title.
• I'd like to see an expanded "Future Weeks" section, with a way to display all upcoming DVDs in compact list form like when you browse by genre and select from the alphabetical index. This would have buttons to add to wish list without going into the details. I'd like this sorted by release date, although it would be nice to also have an option to sort alphabetically.
• There appears to be a minor cosmetic bug ... whenever I do a search, I get "Your search under Title found the following possible matches for ???", but it always prints the first title I ever searched for, even though I am searching for something else.

Also, while you are adding additional levels of membership, I would prefer a 19.95/month 3-at-a-time option matching Netflix. For me that would be perfect as 2 is too few and 4 is too much.

HepDude

First, a comment to TomMiller, who writes: I strongly disagree with this.

I would agree if we were talking about buying.

Renting is often for the purpose of just seeing the film. For example Metropolis is not available as a VHS rental in the small town I live in. If I merely wanted to find out what this film is all about, I would want to rent it, regardless of quality. Many other great films (eg Zulu) are currently only available on mediocre DVDs. I want the option of renting them.

Ironically, Tom also writes: If you check the discussions on forums about the DVD of Jean de Florette, you will see that it is generally recommended that people not buy that DVD, due to the poor quality of the transfer. So, by your own recommendations, online stores would not stock Jean de Florette and you would not be able to rent it!

[Edited by HepDude on 04-30-01 at 11:25 AM]

HepDude

My main feedback is in regards to pricing of "a la carte" regular rentals for non-members.

As mentioned above by Tom, your selection is still not quite comprehensive enough for me to be assured that I can consistently rent from you.

So, for the first month, I rented some DVDs at the promotional $3.50+$0.00+$2.25shipping+$0.25tax pricing which came to $3 per rental. A good price, but the same as CafeDVD was regularly last year.

Now that the promotion is over, I would be paying another $3.50 per order, a total of $9.50, ie $4.75 per rental. This is the most expensive DVD rental I know of.

An equivalent order is $9 at dvdovernight, and in addition, dvdovernight gives you the 8th rental free, which means essentially that the long term cost is $8.25 for 2 DVDs, if you do the math. And cafedvd is $7.95 , and if you pay a virtual "book" of 10 rentals at cafedvd, the cost is $7 per 2 DVDs.

So, rentmydvd is between $1.25 and $2.25 more per order of 2 DVDs.

The result? People are naturally going to check the other stores first, and only rent titles from you that are not found on the other sites.

mdev

At that price it's almost more cost-effective to become a member. I average a little over $1 per rental as I can usually fit in about 12 rentals in a month for $14 + tax. Seems like a good deal to me.

HepDude

I'd love to do that (I don't care much for due dates - I'm always either finished in a couple of days or else in a couple of weeks!).

But, rentmydvd doesn't stock 12 items on my want-to-view list - let alone every month. (And Netflix "lists" them, but they are never available.)

Granted, there are a couple of new releases every month I want to rent, but it's still marginal at the moment - hence my desire for a "one out" plan.

sherm42

Is John Carpetner's The Thing going to be available for rent soon?

HepDude

Sherm42 - you'll get a faster response on specific item questions by emailing their customer service email address.

TomMiller

Hepdude writes:

"Renting is often for the purpose of just seeing the film. For example Metropolis is not available as a VHS rental in the small town I live in. If I merely wanted to find out what this film is all about, I would want to rent it, regardless of quality. Many other great films (eg Zulu) are
currently only available on mediocre DVDs. I want the option of renting them."

Personally, I wouldn't bother. The transfer for Metropolis on the Madacy DVD is Godawful. I think anyone curious about Metropolis who rents this DVD will think everyone singing its praises is on crack. But, this is your choice. If enough people really want to rent shitty DVDs, I have no objection to them being stocked, but considering the money that is being paid, they should be labeled as such. RMD's listing for Metropolis does mention the poor quality of the DVD, but blames it on the age of the film, not on the fact that it is a shitty public domain print put out by a cut-rate distributer for $5 (I mistakenly bought the disk thinking I was getting a deal).

"If you check the discussions on forums about the DVD of Jean de Florette, you will see that it is generally recommended that people not buy that DVD, due to the poor quality of the transfer. So, by your own recommendations, online stores would not stock Jean de Florette and you would not be able to rent it!"

Night and day, man. I thought the transfer for Jean de Florette was fine, and I have no problem recommending it to anyone who wants to see it. I am not some purist who is howling over a few pixelated images. The Metropolis print is cropped haphazardly, contains lots of missing frames, has scratches all over it, and is washed out beyond belief. See both DVDs,as I have done, before you compare them.

TomMiller

On the bright side, I went to Netflix planning on renting the two Jaques Tati films that are coming out this week, and Netflix evidently isn't stocking them. But I do see that Rent My DVD has them in stock, so Rent My DVD is going to get some of my business.

TomMiller

I also wish you guys would accept Discover.

TomMiller

Before I sign up, does anyone know of any promotion codes or coupons?