HEB Supermarket Movie Machine Problems

The past couple of times my wife and I have rented a movie from a movie rental machine at our local HEB supermarket, the movies have not worked right and for the life of me I can’t figure out what is wrong with them. Here’s what happens, we put the movie in our DVD machine, start watching the movie and in about one hour the movie just stops working. We have other DVD’s that we have purchased from other stores and we are able to watch them from start to finish with no problem. I guess we will just have to quit using the HEB machine, even though it is convenient and cheap to do so. I still think the problem might be with our DVD machine, but I can’t tie down what the problem might be.

This problem brings up a huge issue when using these DVD rental machines instead of going to “Blockbuster” or using a rental by mail service like “Net Flix”. While there is an 800 number to call if there are problems with a rental, I have never called it. Instead we will most likely end up going back to Blockbuster and paying more for video rentals because we have not experienced the same problem with their service. I know what you are probably saying to yourself right now and you’re right. We all get what we pay for, but like most folks I still keep hoping that someone will find a way to offer $1 per day DVD movie rentals, that work the way they are suppose to.

I have written before about how good the idea is to have these movie rental machines in high traffic locations which people go to several times per week, anyway. I know we are not the only folks who have forgot to return movies on time to a retail location like Blockbuster and when we forget to return these movies on time, the late charges will begin to add up very quickly. The reason I like this HEB DVD machine is because we are going to visit that store a couple of times per week for various things to eat around the house. The only reason we go to Blockbuster is to rent movies and if we are not in a movie mood, there really isn’t anything else to purchase at their stores, which would cause us to go there in the first place.

While these DVD rental machines are a good idea, there are definitely some bugs that still need to be worked out of the system before they should go mainstream. The biggest bug I can think of is this constant stopping problem. Last night I was wondering if these DVD’s have some kind of protection device on them which prevents them from being view again in their entirety if someone who rented them before tried to make a copy of the movie for their own use? I don’t know enough about this technology to speculate on whether this might be a problem with these types of DVD’s, but if it is possible and that is what’s happening, then this new movie rental system will enjoy a short life with the American people.