In my continued search for entertainment, or more specifically for value in entertainment, I've decided to check out Peerflix a bit.
For those unfamilar with Peerflix, it's a big DVD exchange facilitator. They don't actually stock any movies on their own, they simply facilitate trading between peerflix members. Membership is free, and currently you can even get credit towards your first trade (first trade where you are acquiring a disc, apparently there are no charges associated with trading away a disc, except for the mailing costs that are borne by the person that is trading the discs away, rather than the one acquiring the discs).
Once you become a member you can get trading credits -- "peer bux" -- that are used to acquire discs from other traders. You get those peer bux by trading away some of your own unwanted discs, or by paying cash (or credit card money actually) over to the Peerflix folks who convert the credit card payment into peerbux on a scale they have set at the site.
Going by memory, I think the exchange rate is something like $20 buys 5 peer bux (special price break to get that price, normally something like $5 gets 1 peer bux).
Anyway, the Peerfix people run a virtual exchange, similar to any commodities market, where popularity and demand help determine the prices for any disc in the system. If it's a very popular disc, it's worth more bux, less popular, less bux. Works the same when trading away as when acquiring. If you owned a popular dvd or dvd set, it'll be worth more bux when you trade it away.
You can stockpile the bux, or start asking for other discs in exchange for your bux right away. Of course that means you should spend time browsing the available titles, and you get to learn a bit about the popularity of the various sets, as well as availability of the various titles. There are, like with NetFlix or Blockbuster's online rental services, backlogs for popular titles, and you could find yourself stuck waiting a while for some titles. The que for the titles seems to be first come, first served, which is good. You can't jump ahead of someone else that has been waiting longer than you have (which is fair to those already in lines).
A few things I know going in that I don't like as a "buyer" in the Peerflix system -- Peerflix helps it's members keep costs down by not requiring traders to include original cases or other original materials (except the discs). Without having to mail the packaging, the costs are much lower for mailing, meaning a trader only pays approximately $.60 (US) to ship off two discs in one envelope, or $.37 for a single disc in a self-printed envelope. When I am trading things away, I don't mind that much saving the $$, but when I'm acquiring discs, I'm still anal enough that I personally would prefer to get the original packaging, even if it cost me a little more. Also, when trading things away, as I did with a few sets of the Alias series, I'm then left with packaging materials that I have to dispose of, in theory adding to our nation's landfills. Wasteful.
When buying (or acquiring) through Peerflix there's a flat fee of $.99 that is paid to the Peerflix system. That fee helps cover their administrative costs, and helps them make a tiny profit. I mention covering their costs because they do run their own databases that track the trades, and track the available films, as well as films and dvd's that can be made available. They do it via use of the UPC code for the film, or via a title type search. The UPC code being the easy way to put stuff into the system. Said UPC code normally found, d'uh!, on the back of the packaging that Peerflix doesn't require it's members to mail.
I have hopes that in the future Peerflix will add UMD format movies to their trading services. They don't currently have them available, but if I could acquire some via their service, I might be more encouraged to get things in that format, knowing that I could trade the discs away after I get tired of them (rather than using eBay and paying them fees on each transaction where I sell also).
Anyway, I'm giving Peerflix a try. Same as I'm also now doing with Blockbuster's online rental service (see separate article on their service later). If you'd like to check out Peerflix yourself, you can find a link in the sidebar that can be used to get to their site. If you use the link I may get some sort of referral, so thanks in advance. If you want to visit the site yourself you can just go to www.peerflix.com yourself. Either way, if you do check out the service, or already use it, feel free to add a few comments here on what you think of it.
