I recently got an email referring me to netflix.com. The offer was for a two week trial of their service. Since I watch a lot of movies I figured I would give it a shot. Netflix offers a pretty cool service if you love to rent DVD's.

There are a few pricing plans once your two week trial is over. The one that you automatically get signed up for is the basic plan. For $20 a month you can rent all the movies you want (you get 3 at a time), keep them as long as you want with no late fees. For me this is a great deal since my local video stores are not that great with the DVD selections and I often have late fees.

The other pricing plans are:

--Service Lite - for $14 a month you can rent all the movies you want (you get 2 at a time), keep them as long as you want with no late fees.
--Service Bonus - for $25 a month you can rent all the movies you want (you get 4 at a time), keep them as long as you want with no late fees.
--Service Plus - for $30 a month you can rent all the movies you want (you get 5 at a time), keep them as long as you want with no late fees.
--Service Ultimate - for $40 a month you can rent all the movies you want (you get 8 at a time), keep them as long as you want with no late fees.


I signed up late on a Thursday afternoon and had my first movie sent out that day and the two others the next day. I got my first movie by Saturday. It came in an envelope marked Netflix and inside was a postage paid return envelope and the movie in a cardboard sleeve. All the DVD's I added to my queue were in stock, even the most recent releases. I found a good selection of movies from big Hollywood movies to more offbeat movies. I returned my first movie the Monday after I got it and they had it in 5 days and my next one was on the way. The other movies I have returned have taken less than five days so I am getting movies pretty quickly.

The way the service works is very simple. You go and fill in a form with your address etc., then you rate 10 movies on a 5 star system. After you are done rating the site shows some recommended movies or you can search by typing in an actor/movie or using pull down menus of Genre, category or experts. Once you see a movie you would like you hit rent it. The movie then goes into your queue. Your Queue will hold 10 movies that you want to see, and as soon as your top choice is available they ship it. You can go to the site anytime and rearrange the queue so that you can get the movies you really want faster. As soon as a movie is shipped you can add another movie to the list.

A great feature of the service is the email you get when the movie has shipped. As the movie ships you get an email with the title of the movie in the subject line and inside it says the movie, when it shipped and the date you should receive it by. It also has links to info about the movie and 'best bets' in the genre of the movie you rented.

Another nice feature is that you can save movies to another queue. The movies you save are ones that are not yet released on DVD, so basically you get on a waiting list for upcoming releases.

At the site itself you can gets tons of information before you choose your movies. Once you click a movie title you like you get a page that features: a graphic of the movie case, the movie title and year, a list of the stars, director, runtime, what it is rated, the genre, if it has subtitles, how the sound was done, extra features on the DVD and screen format. You can also click to see clips of the movie, review the movie, see more movies similar to the one you are looking at or click to rent it. On the same page you will also find a synopsis, a list of movies that people enjoyed that liked the movie you are reading about, and reader reviews (which you can rate as well)

Overall I am really enjoying my Netflix membership and I think anyone looking for a better priced alternative to video stores should check this service out. With the two week trial you have nothing to loose.

Recommended: Yes