Of late, we see a lot of advertisements about Online Movie Rental and Movie on Demand (with DTH). I’m always interested in such stuffs, so decided to do dig and research on this subject.
The results were interesting…
Online Movie Rental
The three main Online Movie Rental companies in India are Clixflix, Seventymm and Catchflix.
Clixflix at Mumbai is one of the first of it’s kind in India, when they started the business way back in 1994.
They have plans that are confusing. They have some 7 plans for different pricing. Check their Membership Plans. Basically their monthly memberships ranging from Rs 400 to Rs 1000 depending on whether you would like 1 or 2 titles to rent at a time. Plus refundable security deposit of Rs 1500 in the case of a 1 tile out membership plan and Rs 3000 in the case of a 2 out membersip plan. Shipping “free” and take-up and delivery at your doorsteps by their staffs.
Seventymm at Bangalore (and now in Delhi also) is a store with over 10,000 titles. They deliver 2 movies at a time (shipping “free”) which you can have it for as long as you want. This is interesting as we get to have multiple viewings of our favourite movies as many time we want (I never get fed up watching Audrey Hepburn or Catherine Zeta-Jones).
They charge Rs 1,000 for deposit, Rs 400 registration fee and 2 schemes. For Rs 200, you get 4 DVDs per month (Rs. 50/DVD) and for Rs 600 you get unlimited access. The referral program is also tempting as you get to watch flicks free if you refer 6 of your friends (Discounts for less referrals) every month.
Catchflix got an interesting concept of no deposit or registration fee. They charge Rs 100 for one DVD and Rs 149 for 2 DVDs for an period of 3 days including the delivery and pick-up. If you Refer your friends to Catchflix, then you save Rs 50 on your next DVD rental.
Their Service is Currently available at Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. “Coming Soon” to other places. It was so hard to find their piece of info at their site, perhaps they call themselves “India’s Online Rental Store”.
Catchflix guys have gone to the extend of doing some smart Advertising campaign via Google Adwords as well. Check the keyword that they targeted:
Cinema Paradiso in Chennai is not exactly an online rental store, but it’s a cool place to rent DVDs. They got English and Hindi titles. The specialty of Cinema Paradiso is that they have a lot of World Cinema (read Foreign Language movies) titles.
Coming to the membership details, it’s Rs 3000 to join, Rs 2000 as caution deposit, Processing fees Rs 500 and Application Fees Rs. 500. Each title would cost you anywhere from Rs 75-100 (heard that it’s reduced to Rs 50 for some titles).
Just from checking their site and their new releases section I guessed it’s waste of time for me to have membership there (if at all I want!). Tears of the Sun, Matrix Reloaded, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, The lord of the Rings 2, Brother Bear, etc.. are their “new releases”.
Coming to the so called famed World Cinema (the site returned 404 error, so couldn’t check the titles), they claim to have City of God, Amelie, No Man’s Land, Bus 174, Rashomon (and other Akira Kurosawa movies), Krzysztof Kieslowski movies, Run Lola Run, Read my Lips, etc… judging by the movies, agreed that they have a nice collection and tempt us to go for such movies, in a way promoting them.
So who are they trying to fool?
Will you pay 50/75/100+ bucks for the DVDs when you can get them for free (via Internet) or pay the same amount and own a pirated DVD (and not to forget that you’re not paying any fucking application shit fees). Plus, ask them to visit my place, I’ll show my movies (250+ DVDs and 1250+ titles and still growing), that puts these Online DVD Rental Stores to shame!
Movie on Demand
After the Advent of DTH in India, this seemed the next logical step for the players to offer the subscribers. Tata Sky (Tata and Star Network) and Dish TV (Zee Network) are the two current DTH operators in India. DD Direct Plus also offers DTH, but they include only the relational crap channels which are Free-to-air (FTA). Sun Media (Sun TV) and Bluemagic (Reliance ADAG) are the other biggies that have already got the permission from the government and ready to take off.
Tata Sky discounted package is for Rs 200 per month for all channels for a period of four months, thereafter they’ll revise rates. 
In Mumbai, the rates after 4 months were: regional channels package was Rs 225, english channels included will be Rs 350 and internaltional included will be Rs 500 per month. Plus this Movie on Demand (Showcase) costs Rs 75 per movie. Taxi No. 9211 and Bluffmaster were the 2 movies aired at the time of writing this article
Dish TV movie on demand airs movies once in a week on Thursday at two slots. 
One from 05:00am to 10:15pm and the other from 11:00pm to 04:15am. So the timings sucks if you ask me. Moreover it’s not even on weekends. Chalte Chalte and Kuch Tum Kaho Kuch Hum were the two “blockbuster” movies that they “premiered” at the time of writing this article. So the timings, day, movies all suck with Dish TV. You need to pay Rs 40 per movie.
So who are they trying to fool?
Movie on Demand is worse than Online DVD rental. There atleast you get to choose the titles that you want to see. Even movie channel(s) that you subscribe will cost less than 30 bucks for a month. I don’t know what they mean by superior DVD quality video quality, I bet the resolution won’t be more than 640 x 360 and DVD resolution is 720 x 480. Agreed that you need to have superior TV to support these resolution, but I bet you can’t get HD type resolution as of now even if your TV supports it.
For name sake only it’s Movie on Demand, otherwise you don’t have any choice as to what movie you want to see and day and time of your viewing.For this do you want to pay Rs 40/75 per movie?
Online Movie Rental and Movie on Demand - In my opinion is a joke
Just because that I said all this, it doesn’t mean that these are bad. No, in fact some people might still prefer this type of entertainment. After it’s a Rs 7000 crore industry in India. Everyone will have their share of cake.
Let me be clear on one fact. I can anyone movie that these people boast to have and even more. Don’t get fooled by claims that you don’t get to see these titles elsewhere. It might hold true if you depend on these movie channels, cable TV and cinemas. We get all types, genres of movies on P2P for free. Customer satisfaction is unmatched on P2P. We usually the DVD way ahead than it hits the stores or gets premiered on TV. Plus more than one copy for each movie in various types (like DVDs, DVD Rips - 1/2/3 CD Rips , HD Rips, SVCD, etc..). I usually see all the movie way faster than it get released here or if I buy/rent the DVD.
Having said all that, Online Movie Rental and Movie on Demand are here to stay only to get stronger. The Internet penetration (forget Broadband) is pathetic, here people think it’s a luxury to have a 24X7 connection. Plus unless you have a real fast connection, you can’t download the things in a jiffy. Snatching is also not that easy and dependent on various factors. Officer goers might not have time to download and even don’t know how to download.
Online DVD Movie Rental and Movie on Demand makes things simple and is of less hassles for many people. For me, it’s waste of time and money as I get far superior stuffs faster and quality stuffs that these people can only dream off.
[tags]DTH, Tata Sky, Dish TV, Dish, Movie on Demand, Online DVD rental, DVD rental, DVD, DVD stores, HD, Cable TV, P2P, India[/tags]
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8 comments ↓
as you & me knows there are plenty reasongs behind why their latest list is ancient for us like leagal issue , region issue, certification & whole other blah blah (though all of them sucks like hell).
They cant have collection you have since they have to do legal business.
It’s 7k Rs. industry because people don’t even know wht actully they can get in “that”price & where they can get “that content” (from street vendors or p2p).
Some office goers are really lame like as Scene says “p2p is lame” . They just waste their b/w ,always block with thier never ending ghost dreams for security.
anyway even the people who dont have fast connections or dont know how to download movies etc can still get a pirated dvd for 50-60rs. and u can keep it for as long as u need.
Yeah, I surely agree upon the resolution of Picture on DishTV.
How can they say DVD clarity ??
Damn, !!! Fraud !! >_
multi -
Let them do legal business.
You know what to do. This article is to target people like you and me,not the rental business people.
You are right Ashwin I may never opt these services until they get more consumer friendly.
My friend who is in US uses a DVD rental service called Netflix, for that he pays around $15 (INR 675) and gets two movie titles at a time (Unlimited rentals per month), the movies are delivered at your doorstep via US postal dept and you return the movie with prepaid postal envelope.
Until such services are launched in India I won’t opt for these.
Why you want to waste $15? Instead you can donate the money to charity or let the money sleep in your bank. The point is that why you do want to waste money when you can get quality stuffs (for free)? Plus how many titles will interest you? Do they offer DVD that you want? Do they allow members to request for any titles?
By the way, Shiva Catchflix, Clixflix and Seventymm all offer ‘free’ pickup and delivery at your doorsteps. Catchflix operate in Chennai. They also allow you to have the DVD as long as you want. Go for it if you really interested.
The Netflix has over 65,000 titles. I usually want a large variety of movies. As of now I am using the free way which you mention
The answer is yes. Well he is US and there is lot of risk in the free way. Well currently I will use the other way
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