Canadian on-line DVD rentals

[falberni]

I'd appreciate your comments on which on-line DVD rental service is better in Canada. So far I've come across two such services. They're "Movies For Me" and "vhq online". Are there any more? Which one has better service and better selection?

[BJ_M]

http://www.zip.ca/index.aspx

zip.ca is the largest


never used any of them myself though

[BJ_M]

VHQonline.ca <-- 12-14,000 selections but in stock

RelayRentals.ca <-- small selection 7-8000 but on stock

Moviesforme.ca <-- big selection 20,000 unique titles - but most NOT in stock

zip.ca 18,000 unique titles (but adding new ones faster than anyone else) but many are not in stock it seems


the full list

[falberni]

I'm inclined to give VHQ a try. They have a 3 DVD at a time program for $19.95 per month. Their distribution center in Toronto is only about two hours from me. Thanks a lot for the list.

[falberni]

bump

Any comments which service is better or faster?

[YKdvd]

I started trying companies out in January, and eventually created some web pages with various bits of info on the Canadian DVD by mail companies at www.dvdinfo.ca. I'm currently a happy ZIP customer (for the selection). There are some estimates of inventory size, among other things.

Someone else also runs a useful message forum on the subject at www.onlinedvdrentalguide.ca.

I don't know if VHQ is actually distributing some titles from their Toronto operation, or if it is only a mail drop for returns and an injection point into Canada Post for shipments from the main Vancouver operation. ZIP, for instance, express ships batches of orders overnight to various regional centers (Edmonton, Vancouver, Halifax), and injects them into Canada Post from their, saving slower CP crosscountry journeys. The return envelopes go to a PO box in that city and the process in reversed. VHQ may still be doing this sort of thing with Toronto. Anything more would require staff and facilities to open and process the envelopes, store and redistribute the discs, etc. Even if they are doing this to some extent (perhaps to cycle new releases faster) I doubt they have duplicated their inventory, so some shipments would still come from Vancouver.

I was with MoviesForMe briefly this spring. At that time they had roughly 3500 titles. Over the summer they loaded the 20,000 they now advertise into their database, but they don't actually own all of these. Presumably they order things as needed if they don't own a copy. I was told that their physical inventory went up to around 7000 at this time. ZIP on the other hand, actually has around 19,000 titles, and there are a couple of thousand others at "Ready To Order" status which would get ordered whenever someone actually requests it.

ZIP's mailing labels have what appears to be a sequential shipping number on them, and going by this I'm guessing they are now sending out 5000+ discs a day. This would match up with a news story quote from their president putting them at 10,000 subscribers. I don't know the equivalent numbers from anywhere else, but except for VHQ I'd be surprised if anyone else was this large. Of course, small and personal may work better for some people...

[BJ_M]

thanks for some good info

[falberni]

David,

Thanks for the detailed information. Very useful for me. Great job.


falberni

[BJ_M]

wow - i just spent a long time going through your web site and an amazing amount of info ....

totally unbelievable the amount of work you put into this and really well done also ..

even if you dont rent movies in canada -- its worth to see the detailed info on your web site

http://www.dvdinfo.ca