leyton.org

OK, this isn’t a gadget per se, but it has proved to be really rather funky, and solved a dilemma I’ve had over the last few years quite nicely.

The problem I have is I find that video rental shops are altogether rather depressing places, that they rarely have the films I want to watch in (presuming they have them at all). I also find that £10 - £20 just too much to spend on a film I’m only likely to watch the once. I’m also very rarely bothered or interested with the extras many DVD’s come with. Sure, there are films I will buy (Lord of the Rings, for example), and consume every bit of the extras, but that’s the exception rather than the rule.

Also I’m finding that there aren’t really that many films I want to see at the cinema. As much as I enjoy the cinema experience, all too often there’s something going on that conspires to ruin it. Either too many adverts, too many children, bad sound, or uncomfortable seats, or just too damned expensive. I’d much rather sit at home, with the decent TV, positioning, sound and proximity to beer (ie. in a glass next to me - Why is it so hard to get a beer in a cinema?) where possible, presuming I can wait long enough for it to get on DVD.

So here’s where Screenselect is quite funky. I select the videos I want to watch, I wait, I get a DVD in the post. I then play it via my EyeHome device (we don’t have a DVD player attached to the TV, so I stream it off of my computer via the devolo ethernet over mains kit). I then post the DVD back, and await the next movie. It works like a charm. My only complaint is really that I don’t get the DVD’s I want, when I want them. But that’s supply and demand for you: I suppose there are lots of people after the latest titles. That said the three priorities they offer isn’t really enough (I’ve had a couple from my lowest priority group I wasn’t expecting) when there’s absolutely no indication of the demand for particular titles, which would help juggle things slightly.

So the £9.99 per month (with a month free) seems more than value for money given we’ve been able to watch plenty of good films that we’d missed at the cinema, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Sideways, Wallace and Gromit, Spiderman 2, Battlestar Galactica Mini Series, Batman Begins, Serenity and many more. There are competitors to Screenselect, but I found their models too restrictive in how many movies you could rent, or too expensive for what they were. Screenselects “as many as you like, with 1 DVD at a time” seemed the ideal middle ground. Their catalogue hasn’t failed me yet: Watching Channel 4’s “Top blah movies of all time” recently had a few I’d not seen and liked the look of, so a quick trip to their website meant I could quickly add them to my selection before I forgot.

I’m not sure how long I’ll keep up a regular subscription - there’s been (in my opinion) a shortage of good films this year which means there will probably come a time when I’m not feeling I’m getting good value out of it. In the meantime, however, I’m very much looking forward to getting through a lot more of the films we’ve missed over the last year or two, and I highly recommend it if you find you’re in the same situation as me with regards cinemas and the local DVD rental shops.

Oh, and if you like screenselect, and fancy giving it a try, drop me an e-mail (or post a comment below) and I’ll put you in the refer-a-friend programme that’s open to me. This gets me a couple of months free subscription, and you a month free (as you’d get if you went to their website by yourself), so we all benefit