Head to Head: Zip.ca vs VHQOnline.ca

Here's a comparison of Zip.ca and VHQOnline.ca for the month of April. I live in Ottawa and my friend and I each have a membership with one of the above online DVD rental companies.
I'm with VHQ and my buddy is with Zip.

For the month of April, 2005, the zip account received 20 DVDs.
During the same period, my VHQ account received a dismal 11 DVDs.

A few things to keep in mind.
1. We both tend to "watch" our DVDs and mail them back the very next day from the same postal outlet.
2. I lied once and told them that I had sent my DVDs back more than 4 days before to accelerate them sending me my next 4 DVDs. They emailed me on a Tuesday saying that my next shipment was sent, and I didn't receive them until the Friday. Pathetic!
3. VHQ ships from Toronto and Zip ships from Ottawa, so there's a definite advantage for Zip.
4. One thing to note is that when you put a new movie at the top of your list with your VHQ account, it usually gets shipped right away, where you can have 2 new movies on your Zip ASAP list and they won't get sent for several shipments.

So... my conclusion is that if you don't care so much about quantity and you care more about receiving the latest releases, your best bet would be to go with VHQ. You should be able to get 10 to 12 movies a month with VHQ and they'll most likely send the ones at the top of your list. You'll get closer to 20 DVDs with Zip, but you might not get the ones you put on your ASAP list.

One other note... I'm pretty sure VHQ purposely waits a day or two to say they received your DVDs before shipping your next DVDs and I think they also only ship the new ones the day after they email you that they've been sent. There's no way it takes 8 business days to send and receive something between Ottawa and Toronto.