Source
r/unitedkingdom•
lyingit

LoveFilm is awful, and there are no rental stores over here...

...so do you all just buy all your movies?

I just canceled my lovefilm account, as I received an email yesterday that although I have 12 titles on my wait list, they are unable to send me anything.

it's a completely crap service when compared to Netflix, and I'm really disappointed in it overall, hell, 3 of the titles on my list are old ass movies, 3 have been there since I first signed up, 2 are videogames, and the others I added just to get my wait list up last week.

I guess I could just dl movies, but the internet over here isn't as fast, and that takes forever.

Posted Oct 5, 2011, 7:54 AM UTC

17128
brigantusLondon via Leeds•

I tend to stream them. LoveFilm is awful for that too: sub-youtube quality for same price as renting a DVD. Film4od is better, but they don't have a very wide selection. iTunes is also not bad.

Still no proper "iPlayer for films" though. It's irritating - the technology has been around for years, the brick-and-mortar versions started disappearing even earlier, but because there's so much inertia in the industry we're still waiting. And they wonder why people pirate films.

20
palad1•

uh... iTunes?

Got an apple TV for 89quid (refurb), and SWMBO is a happy streamer.

Jailbroke it and installed XBMC on it so I can use different 'content providers'.

Such as the day9TV plugin :D

7
GeneralRamDerbyshire•

Sky has a nice selection of films on demand also.

2
FreddyDeusAyup•

There are no rental stores because Blockbuster put them all out of business. And then Blockbuster went the same way.

I tend to find (if you're not too bothered about brand new releases) that you can pick up plenty of decent DVDs (not Blu-Ray yet I'm afraid) in your average supermarket for £3 or £4.

14
tabris•

There's also places like CEX that have tonnes of second hand DVDs for mega cheap. New releases are usually half the price of HMV, old ones as low as a quid. I tend to pop into CEX every so often with 20 quid and come out with a haul of movies, some classics, some new. Easiest way to increase my collection... I need a new DVD shelf, the current one is now full...

6
NoiselessPenguinLondahn•

Trade the old DVDs in at CEX for more DVDs. You can even check the price on the CEX website before you go in.

4
[deleted]•

LoveFilm isn't that bad really, I've had quite a good experience with them. The trick is to have at least 20 titles on your list. I have about 83 (including games) and of about 40 things they've sent me, only one hasn't been one of my top priority titles.

13
montoya456France (I know, I know)•

Why the fuck is there a waiting list for any kind of digital media? The whole point of digital is that it can be reproduced infinitely at little or no cost. And sent over the internet instantly. Its like the USSR and the NHS has been put in charge of fun. Maybe if you know a comrade in the regional Commissariat he can bump you up the list for popcorn.

5
JaraxoGrimsby Area•

Lovefilm rentals are physical discs, that they have to buy originally, so they'll only have a finite number of copies available to rent out.

15
CA3080United Kingdom•

I guess his point is that they should just be able to burn him one.

1
LeMoofinateur•

Its like the USSR and the NHS has been put in charge of fun.

ha, I like it.

9
Razakel•

Why the fuck is there a waiting list for any kind of digital media? The whole point of digital is that it can be reproduced infinitely at little or no cost.

Because the studios won't let them do that.

4
atheistmilUnited Kingdom•

It is the reason we have pirating.

3
ox_•

That's what I've found as well. Since they brought in the "High, Medium, Low" system I've never not had something from my High list and that's with having ~8 titles on it at any one time.

I think it's a brilliant service.

4
HarryBlessKnappSouth Weezey Mandem•

Lovefilm is shit. I signed up twice simply for the streaming service. 95% of films I looked for were not in the library.

8
muoncat•

Yeah, this is what I did, and despite being on a supposedly 'free' 14-day trial, they were still trying to get me to pay to stream anything. I quit after a day.

Fuck LoveFilm.

1
Mepsi•

They have a pay per view, free to view and free to view for cetain package members streaming model.

Members have to pay to view certain movies even if they are on the £20 a month package.

The same movies are available for free as a physical rental.

For example right now I can get the new Anthony Hopkins movie 'The Rite' sent to my flat on free rental, or pay £3.49 to watch it online.

I am on the the £20 a month (don't worry it's part of a 60 day free trial).

2
muoncat•

That's just bizarre though, because surely it costs far more for them to send me a physical copy than to simply let me stream it?

3
Mepsi•

It depends how big their userbase is, and the server costs. I don't know the cost per movie for service provider either.

But yeah it seems crazy, why would anyone pay to stream something they can get for free on their plan?

And why should a user have to pay for the privilege of paying to stream in the first place?

All the package movies are free to the highest subcribers but they don't include the newest movies. The newest ones on package are Twilight part 3 and Red.

The free to any subscriber movies are a joke, there are only 15 films the rest are TV, the most viewed is '50 greatest magic tricks'.

3
Fenris78Norwich•

Hmm - I've always been extremely happy with Lovefilm, been with them years. But I have ~140 titles queued.

but the internet over here isn't as fast, and that takes forever.

What speed are you used to and what do you have now? I'm on 10mb and could get 50mb if I wanted.

8
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I don't think I could find 140 titles that I'd want to see...then again I'm more of a watch once kinda guy.

in Chicagoland I've had 10-20mb down for the past 8-10 years. Just prior to moving I could torrent a BDRIP in just over 2 hours, full albums would take ~10 mins.

here, as I said, I'm lucky to get 1.5mb down, and some days it's dialup speed.

close to the top of my list of "wants" when we move out of the in-laws is much much better internet

1
[deleted]•

Its just cities, if you lived in a big city in the UK you could get high speed internet.

There isn't a big enough incentive to put fibre out to the country and suburbs.

Have a look at BT infinity (assuming you haven't already) they're planning on hooking up loads of more rural areas.

3
lyingitOPAmerican in•

one of the first things I did in my first week here was look at all my options, BT held a meeting for the villages around me to answer complaints sometime in March (before I moved here) and said they were going to have it improved by late september, but then after the meeting essentially said they were just paying lip service to the meeting. Quite nice.

I asked for a new line to be ran from the pole so I wouldn't have to share my in-laws line, and the BT Tech that came out said there was already a second line to the house, it's spliced off the first, he didn't understand why that wasn't a viable solution.

2
kaiise•

the Uk is tiny and all existing infrastucture apart from the CATV/DOCSIS has been paid for by the tax payer anyway so its pretty sad that the same judifications of why Grand Bumfuck, UTah pop. 11 doesn't have FIOS but has ADSL2+ is being used to justify why the internet is shit and overpriced in the UK.

0
Fenris78Norwich•

Fair enough - villages often still suffer with relatively low speeds.

I tend to buy films when I see them cheap (£3-5), torrent films I have no intention of buying (e.g. The A-Team), cinema for new releases I want to see, and then Lovefilm for a mix of stuff including old films I've not seen; in general I've been pretty happy with their selection, and more and more stuff is on Blu-Ray.

1
[deleted]•

Strange, in the countryside I get 8Mbit (north of Scotland).

Anyway the solution is to leave your computer on overnight and while you're at work. I used to do this at my university halls on 50KiB/s (4Mbit) and never ran out of things to watch!

1
haywireBrighton•

I guess I could just dl movies, but the internet over here isn't as fast, and that takes forever

What are you talking about? 50Mbit Virgin XXL for £~35 a month + a $10 usenet account = winner. I get a 720p movie in ~11mins.

7
BrodgarOrkney•

You're lucky to be in a cable area, I live in a village not far outside Birmingham, i'm lucky if I even get 512Kb/s.

2
haywireBrighton•

Bloody hell. I don't think I could ever live in a village.

2
BrodgarOrkney•

Yar. I miss Brighton with it's lovely fast internet and beach.

2
haywireBrighton•

It is so awesome. Why did you move away?

1
atheistmilUnited Kingdom•

My father who lives in a village in Shropshire gets 5mb/s. Where do you live?

EDIT: he gets a faster speed than I do and I live in a major city.

1
BrodgarOrkney•

Only a couple of miles outside of Warwick.

I'm the lucky one, two of my neighbours have been disconnected by BT because they say they can't provide a service. So slow is better than none.

1
whencanistopGreater London•

I get 1mb/s upload and download on my phone's 3G connection. Sign up to a unlimited data connection plan and you'll get better internet than BT.

1
BrodgarOrkney•

Don't get any signal on 3, don't get 3G on Orange/T-Mobile. Haven't tried O2 or Vodafone yet.

It's not like rural areas are any better served by the mobile providers :)

1
lyingitOPAmerican in•

where I live BT hasn't improved their network, there are days where I get dialup speeds.

The pole from the box out on the main road has 8 lines coming off of it.

the speed is awful.

on a good day I get 1.5Mb down, coming from Chicagoland, I haven't had that "slow" of internet in over 10 years

1
haywireBrighton•

Where the hell do you live? Why on earth are you using BT? They are shitbags.

3
lyingitOPAmerican in•

Bassingbourn, outside of Royston.

everyone uses BT, unless you happen to live where Virgin has rolled out their own network, you are on BT's line, and definitely from the house to the street.

BT hasn't run fiber out here because people are apparently picky about where they put their lines.

As for why BT is used in the house I'm living in, after talking to my FIL about it, they are the cheapest option in the area for what he gets, and even if he went with another service, it's all BT back to the longhaul circuits, which would not help speed one bit.

3
rikbrownExpat (USA)•

There are many alternatives to BT for ADSL.

2
haywireBrighton•

I guess that's one of the issue with living in a tiny little place :/

2
[deleted]•

Which usenet indexer do you use? Newzbin? I used to use that with demonnews, was so fast, but I hate having to burn a movie onto DVD (and hate watching movies on my pc).

1
dead_reckoner•

Instead of burning to DVDs, you could get one of these to hook up to your tv. It's a bit pricey, but might turn out to be worth it.

1
[deleted]•

Ah awesome, so I'm guessing you can get similar blu-ray quality that way without having to burn anything?

1
[deleted]•

Full Metal Jacket 11GiB in under 30 minutes.

The best!

I still can't really justify usenet and a 50Mbit connection when torrents and 20Mbit did me fine but whatever, it's awesome!

1
[deleted]•

I don't have a problem with Lovefilm. Maybe it's because I have a ridiculously high number of things in my queue, I'd never suffer lyingit's problem (interesting username it must be said). From my perspective, 12 seems incredibly low number of films to have on a waiting list, you've either seen almost everything or incredibly selective about your viewing.

I'm quite happy with Lovefilm, but I'd like to be able to stream to my x-box and have a greater selection of movie I can do this with. I have noticed a few issues with their streamning service though. Megavideo puts them to shame it must be said.

Netflix is apparently looking into launching over here, and if that's run like it is stateside, I will be switching.

Also don't Amazon own Lovefilm?

6
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I've been in England for 3 months, a great number of films that are "new releases" over here have been out in America for a decent amount of time, and as someone who has regularly watched movies, I can't seem to find anything there that interests me beyond them. I think I had my list as high as 20/25 a month or so ago, but since then they haven't added much to make my list grow.

as for my username, I've used it for quite a while, it started as a trolling thing on another site.

0
rtuck99•

I've not had any issues with Lovefilm choice - granted new releases are often not available but I think that's more to do with studio releasing DVDs late and people pre-ordering them. Let's face it, any rental service won't buy shedloads of DVDs of one movie if they are mostly only going to be used in the first couple of weeks.

The only stuff I've had trouble finding tends to be movies that have never had a UK distribution, but then I generally tend to watch a lot of foreign films and rarely rent Hollywood blockbusters.

Maybe you should diversify your film choice? There's a lot of really good cinema out there and one of the benefits of renting fro something like Lovefilm is the catalogue is really large.

2
boob•

You're on BT, have you tried BT Vision?

5
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I've looked at all my options in the area, nothing will increase my speed.

hell, I almost went and bought a cellular dongle, but even they couldn't get me higher speeds

2
boob•

No, BT Vision for movies.

2
lyingitOPAmerican in•

didn't even know of that, I'll have a look at that later with the wife when we look at the blockbuster thing, thanks!

1
balancedhighsBrummie gone south.•

I use love film, but I've never used the digital media version. (If I wanted digital films I'd torrent them for free). But the Games rental service for my Xbox is brilliant. Every game arrives within 48 hours, they have most of the new games and I've never had to wait for anything longer than the estimated time.

Console Gaming and Torrenting on Reddit? Bring on the PC/morally elitist downvote's.

4
N4N4KI•

A download can be left running, they really do not take that long to finish even on slow connections, there have been a spate of really good 600-700mb MKV's being released with fantastic HD picture quality.

2
lyingitOPAmerican in•

yeah, I think I'll buy some, dl the others, just very annoying that there aren't any viable rental stores/options.

hell, I'd even take redbox

1
tizz66US Expat•

I haven't used LoveFilm for quite some time, but my experience was fine when I did.

While rental stores are declining, they do still exist. Blockbuster (separate from the crumbling US business) is still around in most towns, and there's still some independent stores too. Double check your area to see. (I like Blockbuster since I can rent a TV boxset and actually get all the discs, instead of one-at-a-time like with mail-in rentals).

The other option is iTunes rental, though not all movies have a rent option. If you have a US iTunes account, like me (you mentioned Netflix, are you American?) you can rent from the US iTunes store which is much better value, usually around £2-2.50 a movie. Of course you do need an AppleTV to watch on your TV though.

2
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I am american, I refuse to use itunes (longstanding thing), but do have an amazon account and a VPS, maybe I can look into that.

as for Blockbuster/Independent shops, the closest Blockbuster to me is in Cambridge, and is not in an easily accessible area, and according to my in-laws, the independent place that was in Royston hasn't been there is 6 years at least.

I just got really aggravated this morning with LoveFilm, and especially the lady on the phone telling me that I just need to add more titles.

1
frankthechickenSussex•

Have you tried the online Blockbuster service?

I used to use it, and it is the best service in the UK in my opinion. I only really had delays on movies for obscure titles.

YMMV.

2
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I did not know they were over here, I will look into this.

1
Power5Herefordshire•

Blockbuster online just uses lovefilms library so if you can't get disks from lf you'll have the same problem with bb online.

edit-turns out I was talking rubbish :(

1
frankthechickenSussex•

Really?

Not they I doubt you, (though I had a quick search and could find no mention of this) but why would Blockbuster use LoveFilm's library and still get their "exclusive" movie titles?

Would love to see a link about this?

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
zed_three•

I just got really aggravated this morning with LoveFilm, and especially the lady on the phone telling me that I just need to add more titles

Did you actually try adding more titles? It works much better if you have about 20 titles in your list, rather than just 12. I keep mine around 25-30 titles, with about 4 or 5 high priority, and I've never had a problem.

1
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I did last week. My problem is I shouldn't have to fill my list with 20 movies I don't really want to watch to get them to send me movies I don't want to watch.

Netflix doesn't have this issue, at least it didn't when I was using them, so I don't see why a company with a much smaller land area to cover can't cover it properly.

2
zed_three•

Then fill it with films you do want to watch..?

I imagine it's probably because netflix is a much bigger company, with a much larger stock of dvds.

1
[deleted]•

I've got lovefilm and just add 20 titles, set a few as high priority, they like it when you do that, don't add films you don't want of course, but it does seem to work a lot better if you have 20 titles on there.

The only films I've ever had to wait for are new releases. Lovefilm have a lot less subscribers than Netflix, that's what makes a difference in terms of the number of dvds they have, not the area they have to cover.

Oh their streaming is beyond shit though, waste of space on the website I think.

1
[deleted]•

Royston's rental place shut down (less than six years ago... more like four) was another death knell for that town. Can you believe we used to have a cinema and an outdoor pool? Used to spend my summers practically living at both.

1
lyingitOPAmerican in•

well I know that the houses for local people (as you come in to royston from the a10 way) have been being built for a couple years now.

and the downtown area is all resale shops and cafes, which baffles me

1
[deleted]•

Yeah Royston has plenty of houses alright, it's just lacking in stuff to DO.

1
UnoriginalGuyWales•

How do you pay for your iTunes US account? I used to use PayPal but they have since discovered and killed that.

1
tizz66US Expat•

I have a US bank account, I actually live in the US although I travel back here frequently.

1
savocadoLeeds•

Find a fast, ratio-less private BT tracker.

2
lyingitOPAmerican in•

I'm on demonoid and iptorrents, don't really have a problem keeping my ratios, although demonoid is helped tremendously from all the years of dl'ing coronation street for my wife back in America, and forgetting they were running for days on end

2
[deleted]•

Pretty much. Most DVD's are so cheap nowadays.

You can get most for way under around £6-£9 from Amazon, and HMV tend to do some very good '3 for £10' deals.

If I've been looking forward to picking up a film for a while, I'll just buy it day one.

2
LeejSm1thNottinghamshire•

I have used Amazon and then lovefilm for 7 or 8 years and have no complaints at all. I just make sure I have plenty of titles in my list at all times and have never had a problem when they cant send me something. I dont use the online stream service the quality was not that good but I dont pay extra so it's no big deal. While working my way through seinfield and Next gen it was great I would watch one a day and send it back 99% of the time I would have a new disc before I had watched all three at home.

2
marley88England•

Not sure where you are but my internet is plenty fast for downloading torrents, maybe you should check out other providers?

2
samw11Sunny Runny•

I've never had a problem with LoveFilm but I also have a blockbuster card and if it's older films you're looking for, try your local library - they usually do cd's and dvd's as well as books and audio books. They might not be the brand new top titles at the library, but Blockbuster is pretty big & have stores all over and they do have the new dvd's and usually plenty of them... I think they still do that 'if you can't rent the top title you want first time you can get it free next time' deal too.

2
SirMuttleyBritish in Bangkok•

I used to use lovefilm and it was great, but I've not been a member for 4 years so perhaps the service has deteriorated with increased subscribers.

As for the other problems you listed, might help if you didn't live in the middle of nowhere.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
redundanthero•

They've just closed my local Blockbuster...

2
Dangadingdangdoo•

I think lovefilm is pretty good myself! Their rates are decent, all the free with package online movies are good, especially if you have a ps3, and they add new ones pretty regularly. They also give you free extra rentals every month or two. Their customer service is pretty top notch too.

2