The RedBox rental places are halfway decent. I’ve never had a scratched movie from them, but I’ve heard smatterings of it depending on your areal demographics.
I think Blockbuster is following that trend too.
Worst case, get yourself a Roku box (www.roku.com), and you can stream stuff from the Internet like Hulu and YouTube straight to your TV.
I’ve tried Netflix and Hulu Plus and find that Netflix has an easier to navigate interface for TV series and, while it’s streaming selection for movies is limited to the point of bein frustrating, Netflix still has a better selection of streaming movies than does Hulu Plus.
When we want to watch a movie, we look first on Netflix to see if it is available via streaming. If it’s not available on Netflix we just rent it from Amazon on Demand.
Scratched DVDs may well cause a dvd to “freeze” while playing,in my experience; most severely scratched dvds result in massive SKIPPING and some freezing while playing.
This also can happen when playing movies burned on very poor media..that is, poorly manufactured blank dvd media.
Perhaps..rather than blame the FREEZING on scratched dvds, I would suspect that when a newer release (especially from SONY) either on standard dvd, or Blu Ray, FREEZES while playing.. it simply means that the manufacturer of that dvd or blu ray disc (Sony, or any other studio) has UPGRADED the COPY PREVENTION “features” on that disc..which means that your DVD player or Blu Ray player REQUIRES a FIRMWARE update to be able to PLAY these new releases.
I had the worst time playing the newer releases that I got from NETFLIX, on my Blu Ray player..I complained to NETFLIX..then I also consulted the various video forums to see if anyone else had this problem. I found this to be a common problem, regardless of who manufactures the Blu Ray player. Most people on the video forums recommended that a FIRMWARE update is needed for the player.
The solution to my specific problem was found when my Blu Ray player manufacturer issued a new FIRMWARE update.. I installed the new Firmware Update, and have had no problems since that time.
So; I would suggest that perhaps if you install new firmware in your Blu Ray player..this might well solve the freezing problem. It’s worth investigating.. simply go to your Blu Ray Player manufactures website to see if they have a new firmware update available for your specific model. Just a suggestion.