Redbox DVD rental

Anyone try one of these things out? Seem to be in McDonald's and I've seen one in a Wal-Mart ... $1 for a DVD rental, get it until 9 p.m. the next day. Browsed quickly through part of the list and it had new movies in there. But are they watchable? Wondering how scratched up these things are gonna be.

Experiences with them? Because seems like well worth it rather than paying $3 or more per movie at the traditional store.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redbox

 

That's where my mom used to get movies each weekend until she started renting from Movie Gallery again.

It was pretty good the times she used it, though.

 

The movie's are fine (in terms of there being no skips or flaws on the disc), but the selection is pretty much strictly new releases.

 

I like Redbox on the whole, but the downside is that you only end up renting one movie at a time. With the old five-days releases at Blockbuster/my hometown video store that went belly-up when Blockbuster moved in, I used to rent movies in groups of 3-4. It's not a smart financial move to do that with Redbox, however.

 

This is not true, at least where I use the Redbox. You can get more than 1 at a time, but here's the biggest problem with it: If you rent something and then forget to bring it back, it ends up being a dollar plus tax every day, so if you did like I did and keep out a movie for a week after watching it, it turns into an 8-dollar rental.
I want to try Netflix... is that a better service?

 

I think you meant to quote More Hideous. You can get more than one at a time at Redbox, at least all the ones I've seen.

Netflix is fine as long as you keep watching the movies and sending them back. If you let them sit around being unseen, you're screwing yourself.

 

That's why I canceled last month. Even with the $9.99 one-at-a-time unlimited plan, it seems like I'm much more prone to watch a movie on DVR than DVD. Can't explain it, but I didn't watch the Netflix movies near as much as I did the "Bourne" movies or even something like "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" on DVR.

 

The frustration aspect of Netflix comes to full flower when:

(1) Example: You mail a movie back on Monday. They receive it Tuesday MORNING, but they don't get your next selection in the mail stream until Tuesday EVENING, so you lose an entire transit day.

My understanding is that they give timing preference to newer customers. Wouldn't doubt it, for an instant.

(2) A movie's on top of your list. They tell you it'll be on its way -- but THEN
(when it's too late for you to change your mind) they tell you that it's not available out of your local distribution center, but they'll send it out to you THE NEXT DAY from (say, using one recent example) goddamn San Jose -- and you're on the East Coast. This happens all too often with relatively-esoteric material.

The urge to kill.

I still use them -- but.

 

It has to be said, the selection aspect is probably the best reason to use Netflix. No matter how obscure, if it's out on DVD they have it.