There has been a huge movement recently into the online DVD rental market by a number of key players in the DVD rental arena. This movement has caused confusion among consumers on how you rent a DVD, how you pay, and how you return the DVDs you’ve watched. Here are the simple answers to the online DVD rental process.

First you sign up for the online DVD rental service. This is a fairly painless task, but you will need to have a credit card available to complete the process. You will also have to give the service your home address so they know where to send the DVDs.

Next you need to look through the online DVD catalog and make selections that you want to watch. This is a pretty easy process. You browse the catalog of DVDs and click on the ones you want to watch. Most of the DVDs have user rating and some services also include ratings from well know critics. Most of the services give you a place to keep and prioritize your selections until they are sent to you.

Once you have selected your DVDs, they are sent to you in the mail and they arrive in a couple of days. You watch a DVD, and then put it in a handy prepaid envelope so that it can be sent back to the DVD rental service. Once they receive the DVD, you get the next one on your waiting list.

You can watch as many as you want, most services allow you to have out 3 – 5 DVDs at a time and you keep the DVDs as long as you want. There are no late fees (that is the really great part of these services), and other than the subscription cost, there is nothing else to buy.

Right now, there are many new services entering the market and most are currently offering a free trial. The free trial can be anywhere from 2 weeks to a month. I would recommend trying the service with the longer free trial if you are just testing the waters. Something to keep in mind is that a more established DVD rental service has the shipping, receiving and tracking in place to handle your order in a timely fashion