Costs

• Watch out for charges to Limited plans if you go over your limit. Some services stop sending DVDs (Quickflix). Others charge (BigPond).
• If you cancel a membership or a free trial you will have a set time to return any DVD´s. Read your terms and conditions carefully as you may get charged and there is often a fee to have that charge reversed once you do return the DVD´s.

Bluray, HD-DVD?

If you have a new bluray / HD-DVD player then QuickFlix or Bigpond are the services for you.

Usability

• Having multiple lists (or a Kid´s list) is really useful for families. That way each family member gets a fair go.
• Remember it will take at a minimum 1 day to get a DVD, often 2. The recommendation for most people is a 3 DVD package. For some families with multiple queue´s, a 4 DVD packages might be the way to go.
• Automatic Selection. Quickflix have a great tool that will auto select movies if your queue gets too small. It actually does a reasonable job based on what you have watched and rated. Of course it doesn´t know about movies you´ve watched elsewhere, but you can go and remove them from the list.

Free Trials

• If you want to test a few services remember that most services (except quickflix) require you to cancel the services before the due date AND have the DVD´s returned, or marked as returned. Quickflix give you 7 days to return the DVD´s after the trial period.

The Queue

DVD´s are not sent in the order they appear in your queue. DVD´s will be sent based on what is avilable and other factors such as your assigned priorities. Therefore you should keep a reasonable sized queue. Usual recommendations are around the 30-50 mark.

Return Notification

Return Notification means that you can get more DVD´s by delaying the change over time in the post. Don´t abuse it, only use it when you post the DVD. Note that BigPond state that this only works if you have already returned one DVD (that doesn´t seem to make sense to us - they should have already sent a DVD to replace that one anyway).

Multi-Disc Selections

Box sets will be sent 1 disc at a time. Some services, such as Quickflix, will send them in the correct order from that box set. Others will send them in any order.

• Don´t add another TV series until the first is watched (or they will come out of order)
• If your service doesn´t send each disc from the Box set in the correct order, add each disc one at a time. We recommend Quickflix - they get the correct order within the box set.

Wait Status

Some services will display a wait status for DVD´s that are for some reason unavailable. Watch out for a queue full of DVD´s that are not due to be available anytime soon.

Other Users

You can find some great movies by looking at lists and reviews supplied by critic´s or other users. Use some of these features to increase your queue beyond the basics that you want.

Playstations

It is claimed that Playstation´s (and other console´s - although its probably not true for the PS3) will damage DVD´s (they are not designed for the constant speed rotation of movies). And it is also claimed that the damage is obvious, so you are advised not to watch DVD´s in Playstations.

NTSC Disc´s

Most services will have both PAL and NTSC format disc´s. Most equipement will disapl both, however older TV´s may not. Your picture will therefore be black and white. Formats are usually listed on the site.