back to article Lovefilm: video streaming outplays disc rentals

Lovefilm says it streamed more films and TV series than it rented DVDs and Blu-ray Discs during February. The Amazon-owned service even claimed that adding games into the mix failed to lift the rental tally above the number of videos streamed. With games included, the number of videos streamed topped the number of rentals by …

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  1. Craigness

    Even if everyone liked every film they started watching, there would still be more downloads than dvd rentals simply because of the time it takes for an old dvd to go to lovefilm and a new one to get sent back to the customer. Also, with TV shows you can do more than one episode in a single sitting. There might be more than 1 episode on a DVD but it's only 1 rental.

  2. Cosmo
    Meh

    Sort the apps out!!

    They'll get even more streaming popularity when they sort their iOS and Android apps out to allow streaming films. Come on LoveFilm!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sort the apps out!!

      WITH SO many variations on android OS's with so many hand sets an sooooo many branded phones they will really need to pull their finger out.

  3. jai

    it's the ease of access.

    i'm switching my subscription over to download only this month.

    that said, most of what we've been watching has been via Netflix. Lovefilm just doesn't have the right kind of stuff and the interface on the playstation and the samsung smart tv is much much easier to use on Netflix than Lovefilm

  4. Citizen Kaned

    still poor selection and poor quality?

    is the quality still like bad youtube and terribly limited selected, like it used to be? we had a free trial and it was garbage

    can they even do 5.1 yet?

    1. John Sager
      Facepalm

      Re: still poor selection and poor quality?

      I wonder what bitrate they stream at? Out in the sticks my broadband gets to 5Mbit/sec on a good day, so with all the protocol overhead I'm unlikely to get more than 4Mbit/sec of video & audio.

      As a Blu-Ray can peak up to several times that, I do wonder that people are happy with the result. And watching movies on a fondleslab? Gimme a break!

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: still poor selection and poor quality?

        I can't answer for LoveFilm, but Netflix has a setting to cap how much data is sent for video - options are:

        - up to 300Mb/hr

        - up to 600Mb/hr

        - up to 1Gb/hr

        - up to 2.3Gb/hr (HD content only)

        The Netflix quality is very nice and the player is great, I'd recommend trialling it (do so through TopCashBack and they'll give you a tenner for your trouble).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: still poor selection and poor quality?

          So for HD it's at best half the quality of a DVB-T/DVB-S broadcast and a mere fraction of the quality of Blu-ray. Why on earth did everyone rush out to buy 1080p HD TV if they were going to watch such lousy quality video on it? I'll stick with the discs thanks.

        2. Chris Parsons

          Re: still poor selection and poor quality?

          The trouble with Netflix is the catalogue - all right if you just like mainstream stuff, but I don't. I think this is where the disc rental side of Lovefilm excels.

  5. Suburban Inmate
    Holmes

    Mustard

    It is said that the mustard maker makes his money not from the mustard used but from the blobs left on the sides of plates.

  6. NomNomNom

    Have they added more movies yet? When I last checked it seems like they only had about 1% of the movies ever made available

    I don't mind a 70% availability but 1% is far far too low to be reliable

  7. Mark Wilson
    Alert

    Getting worse

    Since they moved to Silverlight, I have been unable to use the streaming service at home even though I meet the minimum specs just. Even at work with a far faster connection playback quality is very poor.

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Getting worse

      Lovefilm use SL as well now? It works beautifully for Netflix on both Mac and Windows for me.

  8. jason 7
    Meh

    OKay I switched to getting Lovefilm via the 360.

    I have the unlimited DVDs and Streaming option.

    My feelings are as follows.

    The choice of latest material is limited, very limited. Lots of crap on there and stuff that's been shown to death on Film4/ITV4 already.

    It's a total nightmare to navigate using the 360 Dashboard as it currently works (or doesn't). Trying to find stuff takes ages and you really have to dig to find the odd nugget.

    Picture quality and streaming are good. Once the movies start all the artefacts disappear in a second or so. I do have a 16Mbps service though. No stuttering or breakup, in fact its better than Freeview.

    I am disappointed with the DVD side. I appears that I cant get any of my top picks for ages and then we walk into my local lending library down the road and they have all the top titles in ready to be rented for £2 that are in my pick list. Much to my other half's amusement, "Oh look they have this and that and that and that...aren't we still waiting for all of those from Lovefilm?"

    Currently on a 3 months for price of 1 but to be honest the streaming isn't worth it in the present state and if the DVD side doesn't hurry up then its back to the library.

    The streaming side should mirror the DVD side. It's galling to see all the current releases sitting in the Zune video library too. If they can do it.......

  9. b166er

    I recently signed up for the 3 month trial for £11.

    Streaming is flawless and so 'if' I can find something worth watching, I choose to stream it, of course.

    Therefore, I've watched way more films online than I have via post.

    At the end of the trial period, I won't renew however, because there just aren't enough decent titles available for streaming.

    In this respect, I sympathise with LoveFilm/Amazon, because the reason for this is most likely the buffoons in the movie business.

    I would also note, that Silverlight doesn't appear to have any controls and playback is quite dark on my GTX480. This will also stop me renewing my subscription.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As they're doing so well...

    ...maybe they'll fix their idiotic trials policy.

    They won't let me have a trial of the streaming service because I once had a trial of the postal service. Particularly irritating as the trial "worked" and we took up the service for a number of years.

    .

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: As they're doing so well...

      How do they know it's you? Same address, or are you using the same email/payment details? Worth trying with the wife's email/CC perhaps.

  11. defiler

    Guess I'm not normal then...

    I hardly stream anything from LoveFilm. Wife's watched a couple of TV series, and I've watched a couple of movies on my laptop, but while I can't do streaming to my XBMC I'll keep pestering the post office.

    I want my movies on my TV, and I want my soundtracks through my 5.1 amp. And the reliable way of doing that is with plastic discs right now.

  12. measmyself

    I quite like the disks arriving, choosing them a few weeks in advance then seeing what comes next, and I think "oh cool, ive been waiting to see this".

    I also choose all the Blu rays to be sent and stream the lower quality ones, I wanna take advantage of my PS3 bluetooth

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I watched two whole seasons of Cougar Town on streaming

    as a part of my 30 day free trial. Which it is now time to cancel, of course.

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