Movie swapping - RV-Dreams Community Forum

jlnewby · RV-Dreams Community Member

Movie swapping

Doncat · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sounds like a great idea. I am a newby and haven't started traveling broadly as of yet. Your idea brings a question to mind. Are there places out there, ie Blockbuster, that will rent to someone passing through after a few days?

jlnewby · RV-Dreams Community Member

Doncat wrote:

Are there places out there, ie Blockbuster, that will rent to someone passing through after a few days?

Great question and I didn't know the answer as we haven't started fulltiming yet either! But, I just called our local Blockbuster store and was told that all that's needed is a Blockbuster card from somewhere in the U.S. so it sounds like renting would be relatively easy. I do think, however, that swapping would be much less expensive in the long run and you wouldn't have to make two trips to town for each movie. Your movie choices may be more limited, however...

Lora

mikeway · RV-Dreams Family Member

Some campgrounds have a video library that is just like the leave one take one book libraries. The selection is not the best, but there is that possibility. Hmm, I am thinking web site??

Mike

jlnewby · RV-Dreams Community Member

Howard?

Larry · RV-Dreams Community Member

Since it'll be a while before you travel how about getting a DVD recorder and recording movies off of television and building your own library. I just bought a DVD recorder from Best Buy for $85 and the discs are cheap enought that you could easily create enough watchable material for yourself.

Howard · Host

Well, there already is a website out there that does this - in fact there are a few of them. But Peerflix at http://www.peerflix.com/Default.aspx?tabid=310 seems to be the most established.

Of course it does not consider the mobility of RVers, so it takes for granted some of the things that are not quite so easy for us. Basically it is a DVD trading website and you are charged 99 cents plus about half that in postage for each DVD you receive. They use a system of "peerbucks" which I don't understand fully, but you can post a list of the DVDs you want and the ones you have. You are then matched with traders somehow.

I haven't tried it, so I can't say if this is the solution for sure. Maybe someone can let us know if it has potential. Or, perhaps one of our web gurus could come up with something similar dedicated to RVers.

mikeway · RV-Dreams Family Member

So,

I was thinking, basic site with required registration ( gotta verify the email). Someone says " I've got these to trade", some else says "I want one of those, mail(?) it to me." Site does the hook up.

Query, how does the site pay for itself. Minimal bandwidth, $30 a month, database programming, etc. Some subscription charge, or $.99 a "hook-up" or what would you suggest, anyone. TANSTAAFL.

Might call it "I want to watch a DVD".

Mike

dreamjosie · RV-Dreams Family Member

Re: Blockbuster--it's true. We still have our Blockbuster card from Milwaukee, and we routinely stop at any Blockbuster and rent movies. There's nothing on the card that indicates where you're from, just a bar code. You hand them the movie and the card. They swipe it all, take your money and send you on your way. Like anywhere else, you do have to return the movie to the location where you rented it. But where the card was originally issued is not a problem.

greenlady · RV-Dreams Family Member

if Howard and Linda agree. it could be set up here. On the craft forums I belong to there is always a 'swap' section. it's entirely up to the poster to keep the list updated. But it works like this:

A offers 1, 2, 3 contact information and B contacts A. they work out a swap

Linda

kevinpvb · RV-Dreams Community Member

There's always Netflix and Blockbuster by mail.

DAFT · RV-Dreams Community Member

We use Netflix and have been very happy with it. Cost is minimal for having any three movies and no limit for how long you keep them. Of course, the cost per movie is higher if you keep them longer....

We travel fulltime, so having mail forwarding slows our viewing down a bit. But, we keep a list on the Netflix site of movies we want and they are sent immediately as soon as we return a movie.

Works for us.