Info and forum posts by 'Roger Coghill'

RE: Movietrak - dvd rental by post - experiences of abismal service

I don`t think the fixed rate DVD rental services perform badly when it comes to new releases, honestly. I`m not just saying that because we are ViewDVD (and hence declare my interest) but Inmovies and us are between us making sure that all major new releases are covered, and in depth. For example I scour Amazon, Tesco and other top DVD rental charts to see what`s hot, and buy accordingly. I am also beginning to put up a larger pre release list to make sure we buy enough copies when the release date arrives.

Right now In Movies and ourselves are in a race to be the first to claim 3000 titles, and this will happen in the next two months, so our services are improving all the time in terms of choice and speed of request satisfaction. I guess we may be leaving Movie trak and possibly DVD Options behind, but the latter must shortly have reached the 2000 mark and may speed up.

I own up to presently having the worst looking DVD rental website, but watch that space!

RE: Movietrak - dvd rental by post - experiences of abismal service

Have you thought of using a fixed rate service (c.£10 per month flat fee) like ViewDVD, In Movies, or DVDontap?

These services have a larger choice and seem to be growing faster than the single rental disk hire firms, and recently both In Movies and ourselves (ViewDVD) have introduced a new single-DVD-at-a-time tarif enabling members to pay a fixed £7-50 and rent as many DVDs as they like in the month, (but only one at a time).

I hope this won`t be construed as advertising, but is a genuine informational contribution.

Best to all, Roger Coghill

RE: ViewDVD rental.

To answer your questions, ViewDVD have since improved the entry page of our site, but welcome further comments. As a matter of information the postage on £15 per month subscribers is paid both ways by us. We send out new DVDs the same day the returns arrive. Please excuse this reply, which is not meant to be an ad., but for information only.

RE: dvd rental via post -any recommendations?

Yes, Movietrak must be a good on-line rental option for occasional viewers, but the flat monthly rate rental people (of which I am one, so declare my interest) are really in competition with the likes of Sky, and aim to supply the higher volume viewer fed up with an arguably poor selection of movies from satellite transmissions, as well as a lower than DVD quality. The flat raters also come into their own when the local video library has folded, as many are right now, or is geographically distant, e.g. in outlying areas. The thing about all these rental firms is you can browse though their lists to compare their strengths and weaknesses before making a choice. At ViewDVD we have titles which In Movies and Movietrak don`t have, and vice versa. So it`s important to check whether the genre of most interest to you is well supported when deciding which flat rate rental firm to subscribe to.

This item was edited on Monday, 7th January 2002, 01:18

Fargo

I am trying to obtain a copy of Fargo (R2), which I gather has been deleted. Any one want to part with their copy? For an agreed amount of silver, of course.

RE: dvd rental via post -any recommendations?

Regarding this issue of just how crappy the Royal Mail service is, I understand that 89 percent of all UK first class letter mail arrives the next day, which doesn`t seem to me to be all that bad, though there is obvious room for improvement.

I am a little puzzled why the previous post decided to cancel the In-Movies subscription on the grounds of not having time to watch more than 2 films a week, because that suggests a throughput of around 8 per month, and although I`m no rocket scientist this seems to work out at less than £2 per rental, well below most other offers. In our family there is more than one viewer (and more than one DVD player, now they cost less than £100) so we don`t have that problem, in fact our little boy watches his Disneys time and time again, so we keep them for weeks, at no extra rental cost.

I saw a PR sheet from Netflix (in the US) that their average monthly rental rate was 5.6 times a month for $20, suggesting an average much less than 2 a week for their 300,000 subscribers, by the way.

RE: Warning about ViewDVD

As Managing Director of ViewDVD I would like to reply to Squidgy. Yes, we do have a larger list than In Movies, but were only cheaper because In Movies increased their subscription rates recently, whereas we have no plans to do so.
Squidgy quite rightly raises the issue of self hosting, and we are watching this carefully, by daily monitoring of download and access times. So far, no problems. We plan to proceed to a managed, dedicated server, (probably with Plusnet or NT Webhost, our existing ISPs, with whom we have so far had an excellent relationship) and ultimately to our own server, and have already allocated space for this in our premises. Meanwhile we are still integrating our secure server Thawte and our Cardnet merchant activity. I guess our policy is "slowly and carefully".
We didn`t put contact data before the service went live, but anyone can talk to me anytime on regor[at]ku.oc.dvdweiv , or 01495 763389 by phone.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 2nd January 2002, 12:06

RE: dvd rental via post -any recommendations?

The first reply seemed to me somewhat incomplete, so at the risk of being accused of advertising I would add the following as information of general interest to readers of this thread.

For region One discs Netflix is the undoubted DVD rental leader, but I suspect you must live in the US to use their service, despite it`s being advertised in the UK via mp3.com.
There is also Movietrak, who supply on a per disc basis, and seem to offer a good service. Then there is In-Movies offering unlimited DVDs for fixed monthly payments. ViewDVD is similar to In-Movies, and I will say no more by way of comparison, in view of my obvious interest in that company. Blockbusters tell me they plan a rental service of some kind in this new year. Overall the computer literati have quite a choice.

RE: www.in-movies.com

I will declare my interest as the MD of ViewDVD, a rival firm. Nevertheless, I am also a member of In-Movies, and have nothing but praise for this competitor. I don`t experience any post delays except what might be expected around Xmas time. As an early joiner I am still getting three discs for my subscription. I hope that between us we shall maintain a high standard of service, and provide a far easier way of viewing (or pre-viewing prior to actual purchase) DVDs than local libraries - and probably at far lower cost.