Online DVD Rentals

To foster my hobby of movie-watching, I felt it was time to take membership in one of those online DVD rentals, which are mushrooming all over the city promising to cater to movie buffs like me.

Not having many friends who share my passion of Hollywood films (I have a friend who did not even know who Sharon Stone was and he was a GUY. Yeah lucky me!), I had to resort to the next best thing---Google. I keyed in DVD rentals + Bangalore (yeah Bangalore still works, thank god for small mercies!) in the search box and a few sites popped up.

The list was really small and included:
· Seventymm
· Friday Boxoffice
· Netflix
· Blockbuster
· Catch Flix
· Fusion Rental

And their collection was smaller still! Some of them had the nerve to call it a library with a measly collection. The movies highlighted under New Releases have already been aired even on Star TV.

The membership fees (read deposit) are almost the same starting from as low as Rs 300 going upward to Rs 3000 (for a lifetime membership or for renting unlimited DVDs) including free pickup-and-drop facility. In some cases, the deposits were non-refundable. The monthly fee again varied from Rs 300 to Rs 1000 (with DVD rent ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 99). Some libraries have constraints on the number of DVDs you can borrow and the number of days you can keep a DVD. Some have a referral program where you refer your friends (at last six) to join the library and you walk away with a free membership!

I spent more than an hour browsing through the collection of each of the libraries and finally rose from my chair with an epiphany that for a measly Rs 250 (cable connection), I get to pick and watch movies from at least 5 English movie channels. Should I be screaming Eureka!