[PIC] Moviestar.ie offer

The code is buy4now

Play.com, up to 85% off

Of course, your mileage may vary. Usual electronics restrictions and free shipping apply.

DVDs from €4.49


CDs from €4.49


Books from €4.49



Games from €11.49

Play.com £5 sale

So play.com are having a sale with a lot of items for £5. Unfortunately, all they've managed to do is highlight the myriad problems that afflict them. For example:

• They won't ship electronics to Ireland, so a whole category is ineligible for purchase.
• The exchange rate on this sale is almost £1 = €1.49 as opposed to the more realistic £1 = €1.24 (source: xe.com)
• Some of their items have increased in price for the sale! This fondue set was £3.99, now £5.00! Only, at power ci- I mean, play.com!
  

So, caveat emptor. They are still a reasonable bet for your purchases but not totally without problems.

N.B.
I see boards have picked up on it as well. Boardsie lindtee suggests using http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/ to compare prices for DVD's and I concur. The storewatch section is particularly good. Thanks, lindtee!

Rent Games and DVDs online

A rather handy way of watching your must-see list of films is to use an online DVD rental service. They all work the same way: first you sign up for a free trial (credit card required). Then you create a queue which is essentially a list of the films you want to watch in descending order of preference. When the film at the top of your queue becomes available, it is posted out to you. You watch it, and when you are finished you pop it in a freepost envelope and send it back. Depending on your plan, you may be able to take out more than one at a time. So if you have a list of films you never quite got around to seeing but don't want to buy, one of these services may be for you.

If you're into games then it works even better because they are so bloody expensive whereas DVDs are comparatively cheap.

Moviestar.ie
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD, BluRay
Mini MOVIE : €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
MOVIE 1: €12.99pm, 1 disc at a time, unlimited rentals
MOVIE 2: €17.99pm, 2 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
MOVIE 3: €24.99pm, 3 discs at a time, unlimited rentals

Screenclick
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD
Lite: €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
Bronze: €12.99pm, 1 DVD at a time, unlimited rentals
Silver: €17.99pm, 2 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals
Gold: €24.99pm, 3 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals
Platinum: €31.99pm, 4 DVDs at a time, unlimited rentals

OnlineDVDRentals
Free trial period: 2 weeks
Available: DVD, PS2, PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, PC Games
Lite: €7.99pm, 2 DVDs
Bronze: €10.99pm, 1 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Silver: €15.99pm, 2 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Gold: €22.99pm, 3 discs at a time, unlimited rentals
Platinum: €29.99pm, 4 discs at a time, unlimited rentals

Now, the gotchas. Not every company has the same amount of discs to go around. So, you could be waiting for the discs in your queue to become free. Ranges also differ, with some offering TV show sets and classic movies. Also, Moviestar.ie are the only ones who rent BluRay discs at the moment. My advice is try them all. Why not, it's free!

New look

Hope you prefer the new style, the old one was getting on my nerves a bit. There's a new subscription link at the side so you can get the latest news directly into your RSS application or online reader if you're not doing so already. Now, onto business!

If you can manage a trip up North, and there are many reasons for doing so, you can grab a 40" Samsung TV for ~€700 in Currys. Beats the hell out of their recent Irish pricing.

Argos are doing a DVD recorder for ~€55, which is as cheap as I have seen.

Note: Currys.ie is down at the moment (Sun 16th Jul, 6pm).

[iBood] 500 GB Argosy mobile video HDD HV356TB

Right. This is the LAST 500GB drive I will ever blog about. From here on out, it's a minimum of 750GB. But it's a good one, truly. The drive itself is nothing special but the multimedia case is superb. It supports a ton of different video types so you spend less time mucking around converting them, has component connectors for HD viewing, a handy remote that can be clipped underneath the drive when not in use, supports subtitles files, it's quiet, it's compact and it's €119.

Oh, and it's a standard SATA drive, so when 500GB just isn't enough just take it out and pop in a bigger drive. It even supports NTFS.

HD-DVD, picking the corpse clean

HD-DVD gets a bad rap. It was unable to beat blu-ray, blu-ray's much maligned copy protection, the PS3, the Xbox didn't want it, Microsoft were closely associated with it... the list goes on. And now it's on the way out, a fate it richly deserves. But hold on, as evidenced by the budget price of the Xbox HD-DVD add-on, there are a few bargains to be had. It is still a HD format with all the fancy bells and whistles that go with it, and now the prices are on a par with regular DVD! So for a modest investment in a player you can pick up HD titles at rock bottom prices from the following:

• Asda Entertainment from GBP £4.93 (free shipping)
• Play.com from GBP £4.99 (free shipping)
• Ezydvd from GBP £4.39
• DVD Crave from GBP £4.39

XE.com Universal Currency Converter