If you have read my long posts before you know how I love com­par­isons.  I thought it was about time I did some value check­ing on movies.  I’ve picked a few pop­u­lar ser­vices avail­able to all Cana­di­ans.  Let’s talk price, value and expec­ta­tions for each.

The Movie Net­work (Cable and Satellite)

My Rat­ing:  3 out of 5

Cost is the most pro­hib­i­tive fac­tor here and I will get to that in a sec­ond.  The Movie Net­work has awe­some selec­tion includ­ing some great series and near-new releases for movies.  Also, they deserve a plus for the amount of Cana­dian con­tent they carry.  I would have scored The Movie Net­work a lot lower except for the OnDe­mand ser­vice you get included with it.  No longer restricted to watch­ing the pro­gram­ming sched­ule you can select which fea­tures you want on your own time­line.  Find out more here.  TMN might not be avail­able where you are but with some national com­peti­tors like the Super Chan­nel there is always some­thing sim­i­lar available.

Now let’s talk cost.  At $20 for the ser­vice you also need to have a basic dig­i­tal pack­age with most ser­vice providers.  For what you get it’s good but look­ing at other options makes you want more value.

Net­flix

My Rat­ing:  5 out of 5

For $8 a month (plus the cost of at least a 5mbps Inter­net con­nec­tion) and you can stream all the movies the carry for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.  The value is great but the selec­tion has it’s naysay­ers and it’s cham­pi­ons.  Per­son­ally, I love the choices.  Of course it isn’t the newest of the new but for the vast library of tele­vi­sion shows this ser­vice has is worth the cost of entry alone.  Just this last week I enjoyed Para­nor­mal Activ­ity 1 and 2, hours of sketch com­edy shows (while fold­ing laun­dry), and watched my wife squeal in excite­ment at the avail­abil­ity of every episode of the clas­sic 90210.

Throw in pop­u­lar shows like Mad Men and Star­gate, Stand-Up Com­edy, and tons of kids fea­tures and I’d be will­ing to pay over dou­ble what I do now for this good stuff.

You can get Net­flix on your com­puter, video games con­sole (even works on the Wii), Tablet and even some smartphones.

Block­buster The Video Store

My Rat­ing:  1 out of 5

The local video store was a sta­ple when I was a kid.  You could rent a movie for a buck and return it the next day.  Free pop­corn to eat while you browse and staff that knew how to rec­om­mend a good flick.  While I am sure there are still small cor­ners of the coun­try where these still exist the model of the video store has shifted.  A sin­gle movie rental is half the cost of own­er­ship and you take the chance of the movie you want not being in stock.

I can no longer rec­om­mend the video store as a viable option but if you have a small loca­tion you like to sup­port please give me your thoughts in the comments.

Online Video Stores (iTunes, PSN, xBox)

My Rat­ing:  4 out of 5

While the prices vary between online movie retail­ers I find that it’s kind of like eBook com­par­i­son shop­ping ; while a few pop­u­lar titles might be cheaper now, over­all you will end up at the same total down the road.  These online loca­tions offer renatls start­ing at about $2 for tv shows, $4 for clas­sic movies and about $6 to $10 for high-definition new releases.

To be hon­est, I find rent­ing dig­i­tal con­tent weird. You pay for some­thing you don’t actu­ally hold in your hand and you have to stop watch­ing in 24 hours.  I guess you could make a sim­i­lar argu­ment about buy­ing dig­i­tal movies.

The high rat­ing?  Convenience.

Pirat­ing Movies

My Rat­ing:  How can you rate free stuff?

Of course this has to be men­tioned.  The pre­v­e­lance of this activ­ity in Canada tells me a lot of the saavy smart­canucks read­ers are down­load­ing their con­tent.  Tor­rents, News­groups and shar­ing use to be a reg­u­lar thing for me but the inven­tion of movie stream­ing via PS3 and Net­flix has elim­i­nated my desire.  Recent expe­ri­ence has shown me that I really wanted con­ve­nience in enter­tain­ment not a 100% discount.

I love dis­cus­sion please add to my reviews below.  How do you get your movies?