When I say Netflix I mean the Netflix of a couple years ago when it was a physical movie rental service. The Netflix I’m talking about is the one before the HD streaming and dedicated hardware. It was the good old movie rentals from your computer that stuck it to Blockbuster and delivered it to your door (shipping fees and return postage included).What we have in Canada is Zip.ca. Although feature wise it is not quite a true competitor to Netflix in the US, it certainly puts up a mean fight when compared to Blockbuster and Rogers video rental services.Shipping their first DVD in 2004 Zip.ca has grown their collection of DVD and Blu-ray rentals to include over 72,000 titles. The collection includes movies from independent Canadian productions, to Bollywood, to Hollywood blockbusters and more. They also have a growing television collection which includes all the classic series that you can’t find on bit torrent.More importantly is the pricing. Not only does the new release price fall short of Blockbuster it also includes the shipping cost both ways. Zip.ca has a variety of subscription options from 2 per month to unlimited (with a limit to how many you can carry at a time). All options allow for addition pay-per-title rentals which still fall below the competition price.If you are a previous Zip.ca user and left because you found their website took forever to load there has been some obvious upgrades which make the catalogue browsing much smoother. They have also added a pop-up dialogue box when mousing over titles to get a quick preview (and although I can’t take full credit for that addition I did leave it in the suggestion box:) ).Aside from the typical rating system and recommendation tool that thinks I have an anime fetish mixed with a love for all movies bad or pre 1960, the web tools are easy to use and straightforward. The rentals work on a ranking system that the user puts together based on which movies he/she wants to see and in what order (called the ZipList). They then send you items based on your ZipList as they become available so you may not always get your first choice, in fact you likely won’t right away so keep your list populated. As of writing this post all of my rentals have been within my top ten choices.If you are wondering how much Zip.ca is paying me the answer is nothing, which is likely for two reasons: My blog doesn’t get a lot of attention and I have no association with Zip.ca aside from the fact that I’m a happy customer. I also don’t like driving to Blockbuster in the Canadian winter. They offer a free trial and have a referral program as well, but the referral program really only benefits the referrer. Me. So unless you want to do me a favour you might as well just give the free trial a try.
