Blockbuster rental - availability of Blu-ray vs DVD ?

tfboy

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I recently ditched Lovefilm over a holiday argument and thought I'd give Blockbuster a try as I can benefit from the more recent Universal releases, etc.

But I do find their website increcibly infuriating when it comes to filtering / finding titles.

However, it appears that some of their titles are only available to rent on DVD and not Blu-ray; if you want the Blu-ray version, it looks like you have to buy it :nono:

So they're playing the same dirty tactic as LF do on some of their titles. One example is Senna. I still haven't seen it and would like to watch it. I thought I added it to my list yesterday in BD format, but looking on my list today, it's a DVD. So I then search for Senna under the "Rent Blu-ray" category and here's what I get:
i-Wn93mCS-L.png


Am I missing something?

I guess technically, the second option is a rental at the additional cost of 74p, but then it doesn't fall under the "Rent movies online" now, does it? ;)

IS this a one-off glitch or have you seen several other instances on different titles. It's not as if I was searching for a recent release either.
 
No, you are not missing anything, unfortunately.

I've been a BB customer for a few years now and yes, there are now a lot of new release films that you cannot rent on Blu via their online service. It is really frustrating.

You cannot rent any new Fox BD's, only DVD's and a lot of Universal new releases, although the odd one you can still rent on BD.

Warner titles you have to wait two months from the release date before you can rent online.

Not good :(
 
BB suffers from the same problems as LF regarding Fox and Universal titles. Old Fox titles are affected to as such none of the Stars Wars films can be rented from either LF or BB.
 
Hmm so BB is no better than LF in that respect or rather it's swings and roundabouts
 
Hmm so BB is no better than LF in that respect or rather it's swings and roundabouts

I was with blockbusters and if a blu-ray wasn't available to rent online I would send in email complaining about it and usually got a credit on my account that I could use in store where you can rent all blu-rays. Obviously this is only any good if you have BB near by.
 
Thanks, I'll need to find how to contact them because they appear at first sight to be even worse than LF: only FAQs but no real way to get in touch...
 
Well, I did send them a query but no reply as of yet...

Putting the BD vs DVD argument to one side, my next beef with them is the "Top-Ticket".
According to their blurb:
Are Top Tickets available on all titles?

All titles are available on Top Ticket from 1 week following the release date. You can reserve anything that's available, i.e. not on rent with someone else, or due to go out to another customer.
Yet here is my current list:



Apart from Flight at the top, they all are eligible Top Ticket titles, yet none of the 12 are available.

It sounds like they only have a very small number of copies available. But the worst thing is you can't "reserve" a Top Ticket by its very nature.

So as far as I'm concerned, it's a con! :mad:
 
^ I've noticed once I've got a top ticket out, quite a few of the films at the top of my list have top tickets on them but once I've sent it back and come to choose another top ticket, they are no longer available...
 

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