Online DVD rentals

I've been using Amazon for two and a bit months now, and I have to say that they're realy very good. The deals may be a little restrictive, (all of them are limited), but the quality of service is always guaranteed.

Oh, and they're damn fast!

Just recently, I was working my way through a series, then they forgot to send the penultimate DVD. In depair, I emailed them, within an hour I had an extra free DVD rental credit. That's customer service!
 
Was I halucinating, or did I see a news report about ADV and Amazon UK getting together for some exclusive rental deal recently? I can't seem to find this now. :?:
 
I’ve used the two week LoveFilm trial and I must say the service has a vast selection of DVD’s (including anime) plus the delivery is fast and easy. My only concern is that I want the game/film package which is rather pricey but if you’re just after DVD’s then the prices are quite good.
 
I've tried almost all of these companies and while it's good in theory it's terrible for me. I just don't watch enough of them to make the monthly fee worth having, not because I'm stuck for time but because I'm too forgetful and it becomes yet another worrying deadline in the back of my mind.

Also before I tried any online rental I went through a phase of regularly going to Blockbuster and getting out discs on their "3 slightly older films for £5" deal. I still prefer it because I'm not tied to anything and the online companies can't replace the treasure hunting aspect of picking up the boxes and selecting the films yourself.

I'd prefer to buy now over renting as I like to own something after spending some money. Also a lot of rented discs I've had have skipped to buggery, at least bought stuff is new.
 
Hi, just thought I'd add my 2p...

I've been signed up for Lovefilm (originally Screenselect, before they merged) for a couple of months now, and it's pretty much restarted my interest in Anime. There are a few restrictions on the service which mean you have to be a bit canny with how you operate yout list, but it can be done.

I use my subscription for both Anime titles and the usual hollywood mainstream movies (plus some independent stuff that I wouldn't get to see otherwise, but that's a minority). As an indication, at the moment I have 23 items on my list of which about half are hollywood, half are anime titles.

It's already been mentioned in this thread that Lovefilm do offer a box-set-in-order service, and you can also order individual discs from within one box set (GitS-SAC being the prime example of this, and one that I've taken advantage of), but I don't know if they've fixed the whole Series-Volumes-in-order problem that has been discussed before.

I get around the problem by working in breadth, not depth... :) - of the 10 or so Anime items I currently have listed, no two are from the same series - I only ever add the next volume in a series once the previous volume has been sent to me. So, rather than "stack up" a full series at once and risk having them sent out-of-order, once I have received and watched Vol 1, I'll add Vol 2, and not add Vol 3 until they've sent Vol 2, etc.

It does mean that you need to be happy with having numerous series on the go at once - something which might not to be everyone's tastes. As an indication, I'm currently part-way (in most cases, have only watched Vol 1 of each) into Full Metal Alchemist, Planetes, Blue Gender, Excel Saga and Hack//Sign (plus Starship Troopers Chronicles, if that's not heresy on these boards.. :) ), plus I have vol 1 of each of Gunslinger Girl and Neon Genesis Evangelion on order.

If you can live with the big gaps betewen succesive volumes - a necessary evil of the system, I'm afraid (although you can goose the system a little by playing with the priorities - I got most of the Full Metal Alchemist series sequentially by ensuring that they were the only high-priority titles in the list), then a service like Lovefilm (or any that operate under similar principles - plus I think lovefilm operate a number of services for other companies, e.g. Blockbuster) is useful for trying out a wide range of Anime series without the expense of buying a couple of volumes and not liking them.


QS
 
For anyone not signed up to the Tesco DVD rental service use the code TD47G6W, this will give you a 2 month DVD rental instead of the standard 2 weeks.

Just done it myself so got til the first week in June to rent as much anime as i can for free :)
 
8427 said:
edit: forgot to mention, screenselect also let you specify what discs you want to take out, and they have reviews too.. this is good because (apparently) Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex have two discs the same (apart from audio options)
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That is true for the individual DVD box purchases, I got the box set for the first series, after getting the first two dvds :roll: but with the second I was faster off the mark and got them all as cheap as I could from HMV. The second disks have good surround sound audio but seem to have problems using standard tv output sometimes.

Sigil said:
Would anyone recommend online rentals other store rentals? And would you say its better to rent or just buy a series because in my opinion its better to just buy. I prefer to just buy because series can pick up and then it adds to your mighty anime collection.
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I think it's better to buy once you know you'll like a series. But through promo disks, like the MVM one I got with the first ep of Ergo Proxy :thumb:, samurai champloo :lol: and Beserk :? or dvd rentals you can try out a series to see if it's any good.

I'm gonna see if that link still works and have a gander at Screen select.
I know Amazon is excellent for series continuity, my sister uses them for series like SG1 and Atlantis, but the limited rentals might be a problem for me.
 
Link no longer works for Screen Select, just a load of ripoff ringtone sites.

I've signed up to Lovefilm on a combo deal so I can try a few Xbox360 games at the same time. I've put Kino's journey vol1 on high priotity, been meaning to check it out since I first saw the trailer.
 
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