Digital rentals aren't cheap. They range anywhere from $5 to $8 for a new release movie. Sometimes you can get specials that will drop the price to $2-3, but chances are the movies are already old.

Once you pay for the rental, you have 30 days to view it and as soon as you it play, you have 48 hours to finish.

Just curious how many of you actually pay for digital rentals for new movies? And how often do you do so? Or do you wait for specials?

This is strictly a question about digital rentals from places like Vudu, FandangoNow, Prime video, Red Box on demand or ITunes. I don't care about Red Box DVDs, Netflix DVD rentals or you local library for DVDs/BDs.

Just a few examples: The Grinch, Widows, The Girl in the Spiders Web are all currently $6 rentals on the noted video sites. If you want to see them, are you willing to pay those prices for a digital rental? And how many do you rent per week/per month?

I never rent. I would probably rent more often if they were in the $2-$3 range. But when the rental is priced at $6, I figure I might as well buy it. Especially with digital codes available. You can usually buy a code for $6.

I'd also rent more often if they gave you the option to put the rental fee towards buying the movie afterwards.

Of course, I have a huge collection of movies. Most I've only watched once. And some I never get around to watching at all. So if I just rented when I'm ready to start watching, instead of buying everything in advance, I'd probably save a ton of money.

I will say, if I rent I'm more liable to actually watch it, and right away, as opposed to when I buy, or check out from the library, and let it sit around forever before getting to it.

I hardly ever rent unless it's one of those films that they do day and date in theaters. It's been a while, though.

I’ve never made a digital rental purchase.

Never. The only exception might be if I have some VUDU credit about to expire and can't find anything to buy.

I never rent unless I get a code for free rental. Like TheBigDave said, I would rather just pay to "own" it.

Not surprised by all the comments. I had a feeling that the majority feels they don't get value for paying for digital rentals.

I pay for a digital rental every now and then. But mostly if it's something I wanted to see and Red Box doesn't carry it as a DVD or BD. The last digital rental I paid for was Mike and Dave need Wedding dates. It aired on HBO and I missed it and Amazon had it for $2. I wouldn't have wanted to pay $5-6 to own it from buying someone's cheap code just for the sake of owning. It was strictly a 1-time only watch.

I only pay $6 bucks if it is day and date in theatres. I earn Fandango $5 rewards really easily now so I use those a lot and it brings it down to $.99. Most of the time I use delayed shipping to get Amazon credit and use those too.

Only rentals I do are 99 cent Amazon specials.

On the other hand, as a family of 4, some weekends when we are lazy and we want to watch something at home, a rental is the easiest way. If I was single, I would be like the rest of you. Actually, when I want to watch a movie, just by myself, I usually go to the discount sites and try to buy the movie under $6 or something like that.

But yeah, as a family man, we usually just browse new released in iTunes and if something looks interesting we pay the $6 or so to watch it instantly.

I've only paid the full $6 a handful of times. The price is outrageous ... but a little less so if I factor in how much gasoline I'd have to use to pick up and then return a physical movie I rented at the local Redbox (assuming I can't combine those trips in with some other errand).

Usually I'll hold out and try to find the digital code online.

We have a big family. It's too difficult to get everyone to watch the movie together. I'd rather buy it and let everyone watch it on their own time.

Personally, I can't stand watching a movie with them. Within 30 seconds, the questions start.

"Who's this guy?"
"Haven't we seen him in some other movie?"
"Where did he get that gun?"
"What's he gonna do with the gun?"
"He's not going to shoot her, is he?"
"Why did he kill her?"
"What's he gonna do with the body?"
"He's not going to leave the body there, is he?"
"Can you pause it? I have to go to the bathroom."
"Anybody want something from the kitchen?"
"Did you take out the trash?"

Never rent...ever.

May as well spend a couple extra bucks and buy it. Renting something in no way adds to the "collection".

I only own about 300 digital movies. Never do I look for ones I sort of want to watch just because it's "cheaper" to own it hunting for message board bargains.

Probably 85% or so of the ones I own came free with the physical disc. The rest were movies I actually saw 1st and didn't mind spending $8, 9 or $10 and not feeling the need to have a disc.

Renting digital movies is not cheap when there are no specials, but I treat myself every now and then.

Never paid for a digital rental. Yet.

I buy almost everything, but generally wait for it to get in the $5-10 range. This makes renting pretty stupid, for me.

But I guess you could argue that all of our subscriptions (cable, Netflix, etc) are technically renting. So if I’m already renting access to hundreds of thousands of titles a month, why spend even an extra $1 for one more title?

That said, I occasionally take advantage of Redbox b1g1f deals for new releases that aren’t streaming and don’t look like things I need to own.

Pretty often. I have no desire to own a copy of every single movie I want to see one time. Even if I could buy for only a couple of dollars more, why bother with having to store a disc forever?

Plus I'm old enough to remember driving to Blockbuster and staring a wall of empty boxes in the new release section. It's incredibly convenient to have every new release available day & date with the disc in an instant.