Although India's DVD rental by post companies have a bewildering array of subscription options, almost all use the same the same four-step process:

	1. Selection: First you pick the DVDs you want to rent, in order of preference, from an online library, with the top companies boasting over 15,000+ film titles. New releases or obscure titles are often unavailable, so instead of getting your number 1 choice, you may get lower-ranked ones instead. This is why the DVD rental by post companies suggest having preference lists at least 10-20 titles long, so they can always supply something you want.
	2. Dispatch: The DVD rental company will send your DVDs by courier to either your home or place of work. The discs usually arrive the day after you place the request, though some will make same day deliveries if ordered early enough.
	3. Enjoy: Keep the films as long as you like--if you are on an unlimited subscription, the company will no charge late fees, though some of the pay-per-disc plans allow only three days at home.
	4. Return: When you're finished, you usually contact the company, and they'll schedule a courier pickup, though some companies have drop-off partners. If you are on an unlimited tariff, the DVD rental company will send another set of discs straight to your door from your preference list, and so on.

 

DVD Rental by Post Packages: DVD rental companies offer unlimited packages of one to four discs at home at a time, with two as the industry standard. Unless you only rent a few DVDs per month, you'll save a substantial amount of money by using an unlimited service. In addition to value, you also get a much better range; for perspective, the market leader has 15,000+ titles, far more than any video parlour. You can also try capped subscriptions--you sign up to rent say 4 or 6 or 8 discs in a month, and this subscription repeats each month, and finally, some services offer a simple, pay-per-disc service where you pay for one disc at a time, usually the least economical way to rent.

Security Deposits: This is an unfortunate distinction of the Indian market not present in the West, but with most companies you will have to pay a security deposit on your discs--often Rs 500 per disc out at one time. This is refundable if there is no damage, and to be honest, rental companies have little incentive to abuse this feature and try to take the deposit when not warranted, as it would simply drive long-term customers away. We haven't read any such complaints on the web or blogosphere.

Membership Fees: This is another unfortunate distinction only present in India, but several companies require you to pay an unrefundable membership fee to begin the service--such as Rs 500 with market leader Seventymm. This is no doubt to discourage hopping from one service to the next. We can understand security deposits to deter theft, be we really hope more companies will follow the lead of Movie Mart and eliminate these unnecessary additional fees.

Advice On Choosing the Right DVD Rental by Post Company

Film Range: The overall catalogue size really doesn't matter that much if all you're into is mainstream films--almost every service will cover these well. Catalogue size is important if you're a fan of obscure genres or regional languages.

Price: The costs for these DVD rental by post services are very similar (and you're already getting such a discount over the parlours) that we don't think price should be the critical factor. We'd much rather pay a bit more for a much better service than be stuck with the frustration of one of the many clunker sites out there, but it's entirely a matter of personal taste to balance these various factors

Game Rentals: You may also be interested in renting games under the same DVD rental by post program--with games so expensive to buy, this can be a very attractive combination if you are a gamer or have one in the family. See our game rental table for reviews on the Indian companies renting games (there are none as yet, but when they start, we'll cover them here). In other countries, there are whole companies that do nothing but rent games (see Games-Rental-Guide.co.uk), but there are no such dedicated companies in India as yet.