Lovefilm

[I, Cosh]

Well it turns out LOVEFILM INSTANT streaming servive is pretty much the equivalent of going to a Video shop at 930 on a Friday night.  There's no good/recent films there at all. I don't doubt that I shall manage to get my £10 worth in the next six months though...

I actually meant to reply to this when you first mentioned it. It's certainly worth a tenner for six months, especially if you're a fan of second rate and obscure action films, but the streaming selection is very limited as you've already discovered. I just checked my own account and I have fifty currently available films in my queue, only fourteen of which are available to watch online. This may be slightly skewed because I primarily use Lovefilm as a way to catch up with stuff that I can't easily get from my local video shop. Lots of documentary, kung fu and other foreign films.

The other thing worth considering is that it's probably not for you if you're bothered about picture quality (fortunately, this is one of the few modern snobberies I don't subscribe to) as you can't download or buffer the films and the picture quality adapts according to the strength of your broadband connection.

[Tiplodocus]

just checked my own account and I have fifty currently available films in my queue, only fourteen of which are available to watch online

I don't get this - pretty much everything I've clicked on has just started playing.

Oddly, they have 3 or 4 Kurosawas in the selection so I'll be checking those out.

The six month deal is good but I don't think it will be worth a fiver a month. But we shall see, I can watch THE LOVERS GUIDE as many times as I want, yeah?

[Emperor]

just checked my own account and I have fifty currently available films in my queue, only fourteen of which are available to watch online

I don't get this - pretty much everything I've clicked on has just started playing.

Oddly, they have 3 or 4 Kurosawas in the selection so I'll be checking those out.

The six month deal is good but I don't think it will be worth a fiver a month. But we shall see, I can watch THE LOVERS GUIDE as many times as I want, yeah?

I think the streaming option is really only worth it as a supplement to getting DVDs sent you, so you can watch the films you want and fill in the gaps between deliveries with online streaming, it also helps if you like older genre flicks of... variable quality (The Horde, Galaxy of Terror, Mutants, Mutant, X-Cross, Street Trash, House of 1,000 Corpses, Quarantine 2, The Hidden, Rare Exports, etc.). That said I've caught Source Code, Terminator Salvation, Adele Blanc Sec, The Hangover, Tucker and Dale vs Evil, Dark Knight, The Losers, The Wrestler, Splice, Black Dynamite, Rubber, Red and HHG2G. Hmmm I should really drop a note of what I've watched in here.

I got the Black Friday deal, which is 6 months for £17.50, I'll probably quit for a bit later in the year (partly as I'll have burnt through a lot of films I want to watch) and see if I can pick up the deal again at the end of the year.

[I, Cosh]

just checked my own account and I have fifty currently available films in my queue, only fourteen of which are available to watch online

I don't get this - pretty much everything I've clicked on has just started playing.

I subscribe to the standard, DVDs through the post version of Lovefilm. In addition to my allotted number of discs, I can also watch a certain amount of streaming video per month. The range of films available to watch online is much smaller than what's available on hard media.

Depending on how you're accessing it, it may not be showing you their full catalogue. For example, when I gp to watch a film through the X-Box app, it only shows me what's available to stream but when I go to their website I see everything.

[radiator]

Think I posted here a while back about LoveFilm streaming - I signed up for a free trial of it last year, but swiftly cancelled the day after. I had naively expected pretty much their entire catalogue to be on there, but it's 95% the sort of films you've never heard of that you find on racks in pound shops. I'm quite picky about what I watch (and don't have time to see that many films) and would never sit through some old B-Movie claptrap just because I'm paying for it.

A few things worth watching here and there, but it's certainly not a service worth paying for imo.

Not really a fan of paying a monthly fee for a service like that anyway - they're always carefully calibrated to make sure that the customer ends up paying over the odds (I suspect that LF's entire business model relies on people forgetting to use the service while still paying for it). I'd rather just pay for films individually when I want to watch them.

Anyone tried out Netflix to compare?

[Van Dom]

I'm on Netflix about a month and I'm pretty impressed. Everything starts instantly and plays perfectly, no stalling or audio/visual sync issues or anything. Picture ad sound are great too.
The only problem is content - at first glance it seems great but after about a month or so you find yourself struggling to find anything on it you want to watch. I know they have only launched here and they are adding new titles all the time, so that situation will probably change. I am mainly watching Doctor Who and a few other tv shows on it at the moment, along with the occassional movie, such as...

Just Friends. A Ryan Reynolds rom-com thingummy. Not my usual viewing fare by any means. Why did I watch it? Two words: Anna Faris. Was it any good? Two words: Anna Faris.  Would I watch it again? Two words... you get the jist.

Did I mention I really , really, really like Anna Faris. If I won the lottery I would blow it all on a night with her...

[radiator]

I'll be using that LOVEFILM instant as much as I can over the next six months to catch up on stuff like RED, THE LOSERS etc. that I might have contemplated buying on impulse when they got down to £3 or £5 on DVD in ASDA.  But a fiver a month after that? I don't think so.

Well good luck when you call them to cancel! I ended up having to get quite firm with them. What should have been a simple phonecall ended up taking ages because they kept asking me if I was sure and trying to convince me to keep the service.

[Van Dom]

I'll be using that LOVEFILM instant as much as I can over the next six months to catch up on stuff like RED, THE LOSERS etc. that I might have contemplated buying on impulse when they got down to £3 or £5 on DVD in ASDA.  But a fiver a month after that? I don't think so.

Well good luck when you call them to cancel! I ended up having to get quite firm with them. What should have been a simple phonecall ended up taking ages because they kept asking me if I was sure and trying to convince me to keep the service.

I hate that crap. Hope I don't have the same prob cancelling Netflix next month.
"Are you sure?" Yes I'm bloody sure or I wouldn't be bloody doing it!

[The Legendary Shark]

Always cancel something in writing and insert penalty clauses if they fail to do as you request. For example, "...please cancel my membership of X-Club beginning (time & date). Please understand that if X-Club, for whatever reason, fails to cancel my membership as I have stipulated, I will be levying a penalty schedule of £5 for every day, or part thereof, during which my instruction is not followed" or something like that. Send it recorded delivery.

[radiator]

Hope I don't have the same prob cancelling Netflix next month.

Oh, I'm sure you will.

Microsoft are the same. They could make it so you could easily cancel your Live sub at the touch of a button, but of course you have to call, wait on hold, then request cancellation, where you'll then be asked why you are cancelling etc etc etc.

[I, Cosh]

Anyone tried out Netflix to compare?

They were offering a month free trial on through X-Box live but, when I looked, it seemed like the selection was even more limited than Lovefilm.

[radiator]

Tbh, the standard postal/disc film rental subscription never seemed to make much financial sense to me. It sounds like a great idea in theory but most people I know who have it barely use it or have films sitting in their flat for months unwatched - seems like it takes quite a lot of organisation and enforced watching of films to get your moneys worth month on month. It's easier and more convenient for me to just download films as and when, or buy DVDs and Blu Rays I want when they get cheap in the sale.

[I, Cosh]

Tbh, the standard postal/disc film rental subscription never seemed to make much financial sense to me. It sounds like a great idea in theory but most people I know who have it barely use it or have films sitting in their flat for months unwatched - seems like it takes quite a lot of organisation and enforced watching of films to get your moneys worth month on month. It's easier and more convenient for me to just download films as and when, or buy DVDs and Blu Rays I want when they get cheap in the sale.

It's certainly easy to go a month or more without watching anything but I think the cost-effectiveness comes down to how and what you use it for. I pay £8/month for up to 4 discs and 4 hours worth of streaming. Now it's not often I use all that in a month, atlhough it does happen. On the other hand, the last couple of things I've had through have been the Bill Douglas Trilogy and God of Gamblers (a Chow Yun-Fat classic.) Neither of these are likely to be found in my local video shop, despite it being pretty well stocked, and a quick look on Amazon and eBay suggests I'd be paying around twenty quid for the pair.

I find it pretty handy to read a review or be reminded of something I'd like to see at some point but I'm not desperate for - all the Tarkovsky films I've missed, for example - then stick it on the list and have it turn up sometime.

The other thing is that I'm consciously trying not to buy more DVDs as I already have too many which I'm never going to watch again.

[radiator]

Good point - I'm strictly buying only 'classics' on DVD and Blu Ray now - ones I know I will watch more than once. Just not worth impulse buying DVDs, that's why I looked into the streaming option.

I don't understand why they don't just put their entire catalogue on streaming, but put a cap on how many you can watch in a month (with sliding price plans as with the discs) - surely that's where it's heading?

[JamesC]

The problem I have with Lovefilm is that you're never totally sure that the film you want to watch is going to work properly - either with discs or streaming.

I have the Xbox ap and wanted to watch 'Futureworld' last night. It turned out to be unwatchable as it was so jerky - I 've found this happens quite a bit with the older films although the newer blockbuster type films seem to stream okay.

As for the disc option - my old housemate used to get the lovefilm discs through the post and they were often sratched and jumpy. I've still never seen the end of 'In Bruge' because the last 20mins of the disc were buggered. They offer to send you the same films again if this happens but that doesn't stop it ruining your evening!