Movie Rental Sites

Even to early tech fans used to downloading Coldplay from iTunes and pre-ordering the latest Harry Potter from Amazon, online movie rental sites sometimes seem to be a strange and confusing animal. People have been conditioned by two decades of neighborhood video store shopping to go comb the aisles under fluorescent light every Friday night, constantly asking the teenaged clerk if anyone had returned anything good yet. Movie rental sites may take a little getting used to, but their benefits are starkly clear when compared with that barbaric ritual.

The hardest conceptual hurdle for most people new to online movie rental sites is the fact that they don't get to watch their movies right away. When you think about how many times you have returned from Blockbuster empty-handed over the years, however, the wait of a business day or two doesn't seem like that much of a stretch. Multiple rentals and customized DVD queues mean you always have some great movies on your coffee table, even as the latest one is working its way through the mail to you.

Today the Mail, Tomorrow the Desktop

To shorten already short rental shipping times, movie rental sites are building more regional warehouses around the country. All of this will likely be moot in the future, however, as consumers will likely eventually download movies to their computers the same way they currently download songs via iTunes. In the meantime, though, online movie rental sites are becoming the delivery system of choice for movie fans everywhere.

The long tradition of couples' video store arguments over which tape to rent is quickly being replaced by the "What DVDs should we prioritize in our queue?" discussion. Online rental services allow you to list dozens--sometimes hundreds--of the movies you wish to watch, in the order you want to watch them in. If the first movie in your queue is all checked out when you return a movie, your second choice will be mailed out to you instead. Movie rental sites are taking great pains to make sure that your house is always filled with the movies that you most want to see.