Rental troubles (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Copeland]

Well, I went out to rent a DVD last night at our local Hastings. I saw The Mothman Prophecies and decided to rent that since I had not seen the movie. Well, the DVD is double sided and when I got home I noticed that they had stuck their little barcode sticker on the side of the DVD that had widescreen version
WTF? Are they blind! Can't they see that the DVD has two sides? They already have a little sticker with their name that goes on the center portion of the DVD, isn't that enough!? Dammit, I spent a good 15 minutes carefully peeling that sticker off and cleaning off the goo because I refused to watch the P&S version. It really pissed me off because I had picked up dinner while I was out and was hoping to sit down and eat my dinner while the movie started. Instead, my dinner got cold while I peeled that freaking sticker off.
Oh well, I just had to share that since it really made me angry
Aaron

 

[StephenA]

Most of my rental trouble revolve around the discs being heavily scratched and dirty. It's like people don't know how to handle a DVD. How can they handle the shiny area of the disc and not expect it to get smudgy and pick up dirt from their hands, or handle it roughly and not expect it to scratch? This is the huge reason why I like to buy instead of rent, cuz it's not worth renting dirty and scratched discs that usually skip, and can dirty up my machine.

 

[Aaron Copeland]

I know what you mean, Stephen. I usually try to get the new releases the first week they are out since they are still in pristine condition. This was the first time I had run into this problem.

Aaron

 

[StephenA]

It's strange that they'd put that sticker thing on one of the information sides, especially the widescreen side. I don't think my local video store does it, though I can't specifically remember renting a double sided disc from my local rental store. That definitely sounds like something Blockbuster would do, so they can have more of a say in the pan and scan/widescreen debate.

 

[Ken Garrison]

Yeah. Tell the rental store to put the sticker on the Pan and Scan side.

 

[John Stone]

Renting is SO last century.

 

[BooneG]

This happens to me alot. I usually take the sticker off the widescreen side and put it on the fullscreen side. I know that this pisses people off but now they are forced to watch the widescreen side.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Hehehe...thats actually kinda funny that they put the sticker on any of the surfaces that have data on it. I'd return it to them and give them a good yelling at. I don't care if its widescreen side or full screen side, they shouldn't be doing that.

 

[Darren_Fu]

Here is one that all of you will like.
About a year ago, I went to my local Blockbuster to rent Goodfellas on DVD. Now everyone who owns or has rented this movie knows that, since it is so freakin long....the first half of the movie is on the one side and last half on the other. Well apparently, Blockbuster just put this copy out on the shelf for rent because it looked brand new. The main problem is...some moron put thier sticker in the middle of the disc that was solid blue with yellow letters. Well this covered up the name and which side was which....so they figured well I guess we should WRITE with a sharpee right on the disc, what it is. So as you all know, I rented a movie that I could only see the last half of. What morons...dang teenagers!!!
DF

 

[MikeEckman]

I thought that if you put a sticker on a DVD, the small difference in weight would cause the disc to vibrate while spinning in the DVD player, which could then possibly cause damage to your player? Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Scott Kimball]

It's unlikely that an out-of-balance disc could damage your player. It may make the disk unplayable, however.

-Scott

 

[TimG]

The only place we have in town to rent discs at is a Movie Gallery. They place the large stickers on every disc they have. Always so you can't view the widescreen side, not to mention they started only carrying the pan-n-scan version of movies that have a dual release. Needless to say I haven't rented anything for awhile there. They got sick of me bitching at them anyway probably.

Tim

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Why are people here so Opposed to renting? I have over 400 disks and I've started renting more and more. I find that I have alot of disks of movies that are good movies, but that I doubt I'll ever watch again. I was up to 500 disks when this realization hit me and Ipaired down to 400 or so. Now I try to rent the movies I have'nt seen and don't seem like likely candidates to watch again. Such films like Kate and Leopold, Monster's Ball , these were pretty decent films but not ones i'm likely to view again. If I rent them and decide it'll stand up to repeated viewings I'll usually pick it up, I did that recently with the movie "Made"

Hey $16.99 is still alot more than $4.15 to rent.

 

[Scott Kimball]

I don't rent because the nearest rental place that has DVD is about 8 miles from my house.

I can never find what I want if I try to rent on a friday, and if I rent earlier in the week it means a special trip to return it later on.

I do get PPV in letterbox on Dish Network, on occasion. That's the closest I come to renting.

-Scott

 

[Eric T]

I am now boycotting Blockbuster. I rented The Last Castle on DVD one time, and forgot to return it until 5 days after it was due. I went back there and they said I owed $32. I told them they were crazy. They looked again, and said, "oh yeah, it was a 5-day rental, so actually you only owe $20." I told them I could buy it for less than that. Not that I would, it was a lousy movie.
I walked through it with the girl at the register:
"A 5-day rental costs $3.79 right?"
"Right."
"OK, so to rent it for 5 days costs $3.79, but to have it for 10 days costs an extra $20? I could have returned it and rented it again immediately, had it for the same amount of time, and saved $16."
"Uhhh..."
So now, if I don't want to wait for a title from Netflix to arrive, I go to Hollywood Video. There, if a movie is late, they just charge you for another rental period. At least that's fair.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I think BB has yet to see their problems. My son rented A.I. a few weeks back, and when I opened the case up, disk 1 wasn't even there!
He took it back and the second try wouldn't even get to the title, as it froze up. I did my best to clean it up - but it looked like a chicken had walked on it. Fortunately, the 3rd try was sort of ok. It froze up near the end, so I had to skip to the next chapter and then rewind it.
However, what if you picked up a P&S copy of a movie by mistake? You could rent the WS version and swap them out. It could take months before anyone even noticed.
When BB made their switch to DVD's, I don't think that they forsaw that while DVD's may last a lifetime, that will only hold true if they are cared for, and with the 'other' customers that go there, their replacement rate will probably make up for any royalties that they are not now paying for the DVD's over the VHS tapes.
Glenn

 

[Jeff]

Video Store late charges are a fact of life. This is where they make most of their money. They always work on a perday fee and it doesn't matter how many days you originally had it.

I work at a large video chain and I get movies for free. But if I rent a 7 day movie and bring it back late, I still have to pay a fine for each day.

Also, when it comes to new releases, chains like Blockbuster do revenue sharing. For each night a new release is out, Blockbuster has to pay a percentage of that title. This is why they have a perday fee and why it's important for them to collect it.


Jeff

 

[David Susilo]

to quote my daughter, "Daddy, what is 'renting'?"

 

[BooneG]

Blockbuster does a 5-day thing, just like Hollywood video. If you rent a 5-day movie and return it 3 days late they only charge you the rental price. This means if you keep it past the due date you have 5 days past the due date to return it for the same rental fee. They don't do a perday late charge. They were sued over something like this a few years ago. They have changed their policy. At least thats how it is where I live.

 

[Jack Briggs]

DVDs were intended as a sell-through, to-purchase medium. In the beginning, there had been talk of producing DVDs as cartridge-loading playback units--with the rental market in mind. Well, that went nowhere.

Face it, neither the mass-market public nor the rental outlets know how to treat and handle optical discs. If you can afford it, buy the things. There's always eBay.

Aaron: You did complain to the management, didn't you? Tell them about this thread, which is in a high-visibility little corner of the Internet universe. Mention how many people might look at it.