Shanafelt Sector Reviews Peerflix & Number Slate

While I'm not as worried about Netflix as Mike over at the Shanafelt Sector, he does a great job reviewing Peerflix and Number Slate. Mike takes an extremely in-depth look at two smaller Netlfix alternatives and he shares his experiences with us:

Both NumberSlate and PeerFlix are decentralized - in that there is no central warehouse for DVDs to be returned to and shipped from. The subscriber is responsible for sending the DVD along to the next person on the list. So, with both service, once I completed watching a movie, I had to log onto the website and get the address of the next person to send it to. In both cases, I was responsible for paying the shipping cost (shipping is "free" with Netflix).

Perhaps the greatest difference between PeerFlix and NumberSlate (and the whole DVD rental business as a whole) is that PeerFlix relies on its customers to provide the DVD library. As you can guess from the name, PeerFlix is similar to a peer-to-peer file sharing program in that users provide the content. To illustrate, say I have several DVD movies that I've purchased but very rarely watch. I can list these movies on PeerFlix to be requested by someone else within the system.

One difference with NumberSlate was the ability to "bid" on movies. If you placed a bid on a movie (anywhere from 1 cent to 5 dollars), your position in the queue for that movie would be increased. For example, if I requested Lord of the Rings and there were 10 other customers who also requested before me, I could increase my position within the queue by placing a bid for it. Of the 20 or so movies I requested, other customers had bid on only 4 of the more popular ones. Bid amounts tended to be between 5 and 25 cents.

If you're thinking about cheating on Netflix, er, trying out an alternative, I suggest you check out Mike's review first.

Comments

[Luke]

Peerflix sucks. Unless you have a TON of movies you'd like to send to others with no guarantee of getting any back, you'll never build up enough credits to get any of the movies you want to see. The subscriber base simply isn't big enough to accomodate the movement of the great variety of titles everyone has and wants. I haven't gotten a request for one of the DVDs I'm trying to send out for over a month (and thus, haven't gotten any credits to recieve any movies on my want list).

[mr_shemp]

I've been a subscriber with NumberSlate for almost a month now, and I'm fairly happy with their service. But I believe this is because I have well over 700 movies in my "Circles" list (their equivalent of the Netflix queue) and because I spin my discs back out in the mail within just a couple days. I've got a pretty consistant stream of movies coming to me - 8 are on their way to me right now, and I've been through 14 discs since August 13th. NumberSlate is NOT the place to only have 20 movies in your queue -- you'll never get a bloody thing. You slap every movie you could possibly ever be interested in watching in your "Circle" list, and then sit back and see what you get. The 2 major annoyances with NS are: (1) I believe there is a high incidence of fraud. The first movie that I got (JASON X - actually not half bad), I watched and dropped back in the mail the next day to another NS customer. They claim that they haven't received it yet. Another disc (A BETTER TOMORROW 2) is supposed to have been shipped off to me over a week and a half ago and I haven't gotten it yet. Whose fault is this? Did the guy before me just never ship it? Did I actually get it, but am claiming not to? I'm not privy to NS's internal communications, but my evil intuition tells me that this situation is epidemic. (2) Just because NS has a title listed on their site doesn't mean they actually have it. In fact, they don't have 80% of them. They claim that they wait until there's sufficient interest in a title before they buy it, but they really shouldn't list a movie as available unless they actually have it.... All of this being said, they do have a number of titles that the Flix doesn't, you have the potential of having a lot more movies at once, the packaging isn't a big hassle, and it's only $10 bucks. I consider it not a replacement for NetFlix, but an "augmentation". If you throw enough titles into your NumberSlate "Circles List", it's kind of like having a film festival progammed by an insane person - you never know exactly what you're going to get.

Hi.

I have been using Peerflix for over a month now. I have a handful of DVD's including new releases in my Movie List. I receive about a movie a week from Peerflix and as more users get on the system, I am counting on receiving more. They have been prompt and customer service has been available to answer my questions. I've used Netflix before but I think it is too pricey and you end up with nothing. I like the idea of keeping a movie if I want it and trading in the movies I already own. For now, I am sticking with Peerflix.

[Ralf Pieper]

I had this idea 2 years ago and started working on it, never got the momentum going to finish the project. I like the model, but was never able to completely resolve the honestly issue. I figure that due to the savings you can tolerate a few lost movies if in general the system works. I would suggest that you can use eBay for the same thing, with a lower transaction cost then peerflix suggests charging, but the interface isn't as well suited for this kind of transaction.

I noticed that both Netflix and Blockbuster are advertizing on this page, great ad sense.

[carobert]

Peer to peer movie services have their pros and cons... so far I've had reasonable luck with them, though I am frustrated by people on Peerflix who don't send movies the supposedly have. I even sent them an open letter about how to fix these issues, but I haven't heard anything back. http://www.carobert.com/articles/1120026317.html

Barterbee is another service I've been trying, and I've had luck with it as well. (barterbee.com) It features movies, music and games at this point, which allows you more flexibility with your credits. You can also set your own price for your stuff, which means you can price it to move, or have a high price if you think it is worth more. They also have user ratings like ebay, so you know who you are dealing with.

I worry a little about these services because they could collapse at any time and you sent off all your movies with nothing to show for it.

I won't ever join Netflix because I just don't watch that many movies. The P2P sites allow me to watch them on my schedule without slowly draining my bank account.