Amazon.co.uk dipped its sizable toe into the world of online dvd rental on December 9th 2004 which makes them one of the newer players in the UK movie rental market, and gives them the jump on one of the other US giant rental companies Netflix who delayed plans to launch in the UK in order to consolidate its US service.
The Amazon DVD rental service is subscription based but is a little different to the way other DVD hire companies are currently set up.
For starters, although you can choose a 2 or 3 disc at a time subscription plan, this is not an unlimited service, but instead is capped on the total number of movies you can rent each month. A one at a time rental plan will set your back £5.99 per month with a maximum of 3 rentals, a two disc plan costs £7.99 with a maximum of 4 rentals per month, whilst the 3 disc plan is £9.99 with a maximum of 6 discs a month. If you happen to want to watch more movies in one particular month than your subscription package allows, Amazon gives the option of renting extra titles for an additional £1.99 at any time which is a nice bit of flexibility.
In terms of pricing, this may not then be the best option for many customers who can pay around £5 more and potentially rent at least double the number of titles from established UK rental companies like ScreenSelect or LOVEFiLM although it is still a lot cheaper than a trip down to your local video store (6 DVDs at £9.99 a month equates to around £1.65 per title as opposed to £4+). However, if you only intend to watch that many movies in any given month then Amazon's movie rental service is one of the few to offer these low volume rental options.
Further in its favour, customers who rent DVDs at Amazon will receive a 10% discount on all future DVD purchases from the Amazno site whilst they remain subscribed to the rental program. New subscribers who choose the cheapest package of three discs per month also get their first month free to try out the service which can't be sneezed at.
With over 40,000 titles to rent including the latest releases there should be something to satisfy most tastes here although if you have more wide ranging tastes then you might prefer to look again at somewhere like LoveFilm.com which has a staggering 53,500+ titles to choose from.
In all, Amazon rentals offers something a little different to what the other rental companies out there are offering which will either appeal to you or not depending upon how many titles you think you will watch in any given month.
