I saw an ad for GreenCine in a recent mailing of the DVD Talk newsletter (DVD Talk features news and reviews of new DVD releases). Anyhow, GreenCine is a DVD rental service (like Netflix) but with a focus on availability of alternative DVDs such as foreign films (including Hong Kong cinema) and anime. Not to worry, their site confirms that they have plenty of mainstream flicks as well.
GreenCine carries a select collection of over 10,000 titles, with an accent on indie, art house, classics, foreign, documentary, anime and Asian cinema. You can check out three titles at a time, with no due dates, no late fees...and we pay the postage! Hang on to them as long as you like. Return one...we send you the next one on your list. Only $21.95 a month, flat fee, with a portion of proceeds benefiting film arts organizations. […]
I’ve been thinking about trying a DVD rental service, though I had only heard of Netflix for the most part. I do enjoy anime and kung fu flicks, so this caught my interest. It's priced a bit higher than some of its competitors, but not tremendously so. Still, I checked Google for reviews just to get a second opinion. And, Stark Raving Normal has a thorough review of various DVD rental services. GreenCine was received favorably there as well:
GreenCine is my current favorite DVD rental service. The customer service people have been great, they have the best selection of anime that I have seen from a DVD rental place, lots of cult movies, sci-fi, horror, indie films, foreign cinema, and even a cool little online community of San Francisco movie geeks.
In terms of Things To Buy, I still need a couch and a DVD player before I commit to a DVD rental service (those were both Jason’s, which he took with him). But, if I get to that point, perhaps I'll consider GreenCine.
I’ve tried both, and I just think NetFlix is the best. GreenCine can take a *really* long time to ship stuff if you’re not in the Bay Area. NetFlix, on the other hand, just opened a Dallas distribution centre, so turnaround time on most titles is now 1 day.
GreenCine boasts that they have the more obscure movies – but NetFlix does have a lot of foreign and art movies. The trick with GreenCine is they will go buy maybe 1 or 2 copies of something as soon as it’s released. Netflix waits until it can buy like 100 copies at a time, so the wait on any one title will not be too long. That’s why you see GreenCine highlighting a few selected titles it has that NetFlix doesn’t – but I’ve noticed that NetFlix usually does get the movies about a month or two later. NetFlix even has several GreenCine accounts, so they can keep tabs on what people are requesting. If something is getting popular, they go ahead and order their own.
Overall, GreenCine may win for absolute number of obscure titles listed in their catalogue. But what you are really going to want is a service that can deliver fast – and no waiting time when you *do* want a Hollywood movie. We can get a new release as soon as it comes out. With GreenCine, I sometimes waited two months or more.
I do like indie and foreign films, but the majority of what we watch are still commercial or classic titles. So if you think that may be the case with you, I’d go with NetFlix.
My DVD rental service is free. Plenty of classic and new titles. It’s called the library.
I’ve been with Greencine for about four months. It’s true that they have an amazing selection of obscure and foreign titles, as well as more mainstream movies. Their customer service is also quite good and responsive (something I’ve heard Netflix is truly terrible with). And their have a good customer community forum, where comments can be posted on movies, their service, or what not…
I’m on the fence about keeping my membership with them. As much as I like their company philosophy and respect their efforts to keep their customers satisfied, I have to rate the nitty-gritty aspects of their service average at best. When it comes down to it, what I really want from a DVD rental service are two things: availability and reliability. Greencine has proven extremely erratic on these two issues.
Charles already mentioned their availability problems; GC’s practice of getting lots of cool titles, but only stocking a couple of copies, results in loooooooooooooooooong waits. Several titles have been at the top of my queue for three to four months and I’ve never gotten them. Supposedly, customer service will try to get titles for you if you’ve been waiting an obscenely long time for something, but I’ve never tried this.
Actually getting the discs to their customers has also been a huge sticking point for GC. This is a non-issue if you live in the Bay Area. People on the east coast report five to nine days turnaround for their discs, each way. I live in SoCal, and it takes at best two days, often up to a week for things to get to me. I’m a patient person, but having to wait a week for something to crawl from SF to LA is rediculous. This may be more of a USPS issue than GC’s fault. It’s something to consider if you want to put $$$ into a DVD rental service…during my brief Netflix membership (actually a gift membership for my roommie) the wait was never more than 1-2 days. Despite assurance from GC that they have been trying to resolve these issues with shipping, I haven’t seen a whole lot of improvement.
I can forsee going back to Netflix. I like supporting small businesses and all, but for someone like me who’s on a limited budget, I need to get my money’s worth and Greencine hasn’t quite proven their mettle in this area.
I would have to concur with the two above posts. Greencine does have alot of obscure titles, but their service is slowwwww.. I live in the OC area in CA, and it typically takes 3-4 days each way, which means I typically have to wait a week after sending one back before I get a new title in the mail.
If anybody knows of a decent DVD rental service, please let me know. My problem is I live about 4,000 mi away from SF. Netflix is really bad. I signed up on a first 3 freebie, and they immediately charged my card even though I had not selected nor received any DVD’s. It just seems to be incredibly unethical.
Blockbuster as a concept is pretty darn replusive,so I was very open to Netflix until they screwed me.
GreenCine Review
I recently wrote about trying out GreenCine, an online DVD rental site, and concerns people have about NetFlix. I’ve now had some GreenCine experience, and can write a more detailed review. Click below for the (detailed, long, multi-page) review. E…
This one is great, but to my knowledge, they are only available in the UK. You may check them out. LoveFilm has over 32,500 titles and they offer a free postage in both ways.
Was a greencine member for 3 months when they stopped sending dvd’s. None lost at my end, none claimed unreturned at their end. I emailed a complaint. Pro forma email saying I would be contacted, never was. I said good bye.
Ditto on george’s comment, except I only waited for 2 months.