Which UK DVD rental sites offer Blu Ray?
CommentsAS HD DVDs prepare to go the way of Betamax, film-lovers everywhere are slowly starting to invest in the great quality of Blu-ray discs.
But not only is Blu-ray pricey, not all discs in the new format were created equal. Some are noticeably higher quality than others.
Our solution: save cash and try before you buy with Blu-ray rental.
Blockbuster currently has a good stock of blu ray rental titles in stock - 2143 - as well as a good selection of DVD rental deals and quick turnaround, even on new titles.
That little lot makes them our overall best buy for blu ray rental.
Blockbuster also gets a thumbs up from us for offering the opportunity for you to pop down to your local Blockbuster to pick out exactly the blu ray you want to rent on a Saturday night in.
Blockbuster's fairly new 'Xtra' plans come with free in-store rentals on top of the unlimited (or limited) online by-post rentals and here at Choosedvdrental you can get their Unlimited Xtra deal for £12.99 a month for life (normally £14.49).
Lovefilm Blu-ray: a close second
Coming a close second in our blu ray rental countdown are LoveFilm.
They have 3,340 blu-ray titles according to their site but note that they're counting bonus discs and actually don't have some new releases.
In their favour, is a really user-friendly site and a 1 month free trial.
The 1-month free trial is available exclusively through Choose, you can find more details on our LoveFilm review.
Other sites
Cinema Paradiso have around 2,000 Blu-ray rental titles.
OutNow (formerly MyMovieStream) brings up the rear with a lacklustre 800-odd Blu Ray titles for rent.
Blu-ray your way to great movies
If you have a yearning to see the just exactly how craggy Mickey Rourke's face is - and let's face it that impressive facial landslide does most of the acting in films like Sin City - you need Blu-ray.
Not everyone will be able to play Blu-ray Discs: you need a Blu-ray compatible DVD player (or a Playstation 3) to play them and a HD TV to properly show off the quality.
Once you've got that, though, you can fit over 9 hours of high definition video onto one 50 GB disc.
HD offers five times the amount of detail of standard definition movies and in the future it's expected that Blu-ray discs will offer innovative features such as downloadable extras, content that's updated via an internet connection and the ability to watch live broadcasts of special events.
Since big studios such Disney, Fox, Warner and MGM as are starting to release Blu-ray discs at the same time as Standard Definition DVDs the vast majority of Blu-ray films fall somewhere into the thriller, adventure or action genres.
New comedy comes a close second, though, and a limited number of oldies have also converted to the format: we tracked down John Wayne classic The Searchers for example.
Is DVD dead?
Although Blu-ray will eventually replace standard DVDs altogether there's not much point replacing your standard DVDs just yet while Blu-ray is still so much more expensive to buy.
Renting out Blu-ray will continue to be the smart film-lover's choice for some time yet.
"We'll continue to buy every Blu-ray DVD released for rental," points out Malachi Simons, Online Customer Experience Manager with Blockbuster.co.uk.
"We'll continue to buy and supply back catalogue DVDs to our members and should Blu-ray versions of the same films get released as well, we'll buy and supply those too," he added.
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