I’ve had friends who used Blockbuster for their rental needs and I’ve also had friends who swear by Netflix. In an effort to find out which is truly superior I’ve taken it upon myself to try both. In the interest of sharing my findings I thought I would share my experience with you, the reader. I also wanted to run down some of the pros and cons of each plan. This in a side-by-side comparison of Blockbuster Total Access^TM and Netflix^TM plans, both utilizing the three rentals per month plan. Cost will not be a factor in this article as the difference in only a dollar.

I’d like to preface this article with bring up one pro and con. While I was trying to find links for the Netflix Free Trial and the Blockbuster Free Trial pages, I had to really dig and finally had to do a Google search to find the Blockbuster free trial page while the Netflix free trial page was linked directly from the home page. To me, that’s one point against Blockbuster.

Now, I’ve used Blockbuster for a couple of years. It’s been okay, and my movies would usually show up somewhat promptly. Movies in my queue for each service, as luck would have it, came up on the same day this time. I have yet to recieve my movies from Blockbuster, but the movies from Netflix already got here. Projected arrival date from Blockbuster was Thursday the 22^nd, Thanksgiving Day in the US. Those of you who live in the US know that federal mail does not run on federal holidays, so I’m guessing between Friday and Monday is when they’ll really show up. Netflix managed to get me the movies I requested today, the 21^st. One day isn’t a big deal, I know, but it’s enough to be annoying and with the holidays looming on the horizon it’ll actually be anywhere between two to five days.

Next point, I just bought an HD DVD player. This is not a plug for either format, it was cheap ($130) and I needed to replace my old player, simple as that. Blockbuster only carries Blu-Ray formatted disks whereas Netflix carries both Blu-Ray and HD DVD, this will make it less scary for those who are worried about who will win the “format war” in the end. No matter who wins you’ll still be able to rent videos.

There is one point where Blockbuster beats Netflix so far, and this isn’t available through Blockbuster’s by-mail-only service, that’s in-store returns and exchanges. You can’t do that with Netflix. However, all that glitters isn’t gold. Blockbuster limits you to five exchanges a month and some stores have very quietly brought back the late fee for in-store exchanges that aren’t returned on time. My local store is one of these that is included in that statement.

While Blockbuster does give you a free one coupon per month for a monthly movie or game rental (which used to be two or three, I can’t quite recall), I’ve had clerks at local stores refuse to accept these coupons. Exchanging movies for games in the store will also carry a “reduced” fee that I, being a Blockbuster customer, wasn’t informed about until I got into the store. The fee was roughly what it would be for a regular game rental, so I can’t see where the price reduction would be.

To make up for a lack of in-store exchanges or games, Netflix gives you 17 hours of movie downloads a month. These downloads are ready to watch within a few minutes. So, it doesn’t seem to be a bad compromise I suppose. Like rentals via mail from Blockbusters, Netflix doesn’t charge late fees.

The last point I want to bring up is, after I cancelled my Blockbuster account the great folks at Blockbuster sent me yet another three movies. Having read their account FAQ, I can only assume this is in order to squeeze yet another month’s charges out of me. You see, Blockbuster charges you in advance for the next month. So, with it being the end of November, I’m waiting to see if they charge me for December or not. Supposedly they won’t charge you if you return the videos within 30 days of cancelling your account, but we shall see.

So, to tally up the scores pros being worth one point and cons subtracting a point, let’s see how each service squares up.

Blockbuster Total Access ^TM : -4
Netflix ^TM : 2

So there you have it, seems that Netflix may be the winner for the time being. Looks like the polls and projections were right and Netflix may be slowly replacing Blockbuster as your video one source.

If you liked that, try...

1. Netflix Goes Exclusively Blu-ray
2. Peerflix “Closing Down”
3. Wowio…just wow!
4. Sam & Max Due Back October 17th
5. Apple Launches ‘iTunes Plus’

1 Comment »

1. 
   Shawn M.
   November 24, 2007 at 1:39 am

   Netflix sounds pretty cool, especially for getting older titles, but I’ve been using Redbox quite a bit lately. I don’t know if they’re nationwide yet, but they’re basically kiosks that are set up at McDonalds and other locations (my closest one is a a Winn Dixie) where you can rent DVD’s. Each kiosk carries about 60 or so titles, and a lot of new releases and some straight-to-DVD flicks. The coolest thing, though, is that rental fees are just $1 a night. It’s a pretty cool option for those of us who aren’t avid movie watchers but don’t want to pay Blockbuster’s high prices.

   [Reply]

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