The Lovefilm TV advert states we have thousands of film you can stream.Yes just over 5000 to be precise but it's a con since most people do not appreciate the online streaming choice is so much smaller than the offline choice available when renting a DVD.
It make you cry when you see most of the films listed.Really old stuff which most people would never watch and all of sudden lots of the various categories list the same films eg all of the episodes of Lost fill up a few screen pages just to fill out the numbers.
I can't beleive it is all down to the licencsing deals which make some films too expensive. LF are trying to get away with showing a lot of shelf filler.Shame on you.:

What do you expect for something so cheap? It's less than the price of a cinema ticket... Transformers 3 is currently on demand in HD costing more than a month of Lovefilm Instant. It's a nice library of material for a small fee - pay it or don't, depending on whether you think it's worth it, but why get upset about it?

Also not everybody wants the latest hollywood hits. I have found some real gems while scrolling around the online selection especially some of the foreign language films. That's something I won't get from Sky Movies.

are the pay extra to view films in with the rest or in another section - can't see them when i browse just the older stuff

Exactly. I've come across a few films and documentaries I'd not heard of before. I watched a few of Nick Broomfield's documentaries from the '70s on there that aren't avaliable to rent and are pretty expensive to buy.

i agree, what do people expect for 5 quid a month. I have found loads on there that i would not normally bother with. There are some hidden gems in there if you look hard enough, So imo well worth the small fee per month. Add netflix you get a good choice for £11 a month, Better than countless repeats on sky movies.

LF never bothered with their online until Netflix came to this country, now they're in a scramble. It will get better over time but LF's streaming quality at 2Mb isn't very good either, sub-DVD. At least Netflix has some HD and the bitrate adapts better.

LF is still good for the discs, consider the streaming a benefit on top of that but not on its own.

Even though I have access to their streaming service, I find it unwatchable due the dire quality they stream it in. It has nothing to do with my internet connection as I have bt infinity.

its because you think to yourself that online is the new way to go and that as such it will be at least as good as renting by post otherwise what's the point. thn you see t he selection is crap and it makes you depressed. irrespective of its cost. that is why!


same goes to you

I don't expect the quality to get significantly better any time soon, especially with Sky releasing Now TV which will only serve to corner the market further (they have exclusive rights to show a lot of programmes and movies via VOD first). VOD at affordable non-iTunes prices with a wide selection of content is a long way yet. If these companies keep signing exclusive deals, segmenting the content (eg. one has Disney content, one has HBO , Universal etc which is what we're starting to see) we're just gonna see a rise in piracy imo.

Given yesterdays announcement from Lovefilm that streaming has overtaken physical DVD/BluRay rental for the first time, I have no doubt Lovefilm's focus will shift and their streaming service will get better and better.

However they now face even tougher competition, first of course Netflix and soon Sky's NowTV which given their catalogue could be a winner depending on it's pricing.

Looks as though what we need is a bunch of companies in the middle to act as a wholesaler entity... instead of studio-to-retailer.

Remind me - wasn;'t it a whole load of antitrust actions that split the studios from the cinemas initially?

Found it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_..._Pictures,_Inc.
Last edited by alcockell : 24-03-2012 at 09:56

Agreed, I've been saying something similar for years in regards to the movie and music industry and their online products.

If you want to start your own physical bricks and mortar store you generally deal with, and buy your products from a wholesaler. This gives you access to pretty much all of the available CDs and DVD/BluRays in the market (or at least from the studios the wholesalers have deals with). You don't need to spend months in negotiations doing deals with individuals labels and studios and if there is something a customer wants that you don't carry you can normally order it for them. Of course the bigger stores can still do exclusive deals though, but normally it's just for extra features, a fancy slipcase etc. with the product itself still being available to everyone else.

But if you want to open an online store you have to deal directly with the big labels, negotiating individual deals with each one and the myriad of smaller studios too. If a label has an exclusive deal with another online retailer then you are out of luck.

We need a wholesale market for online products that works along similar lines to the physical market.

Yup - and of course most retail companies have contracts set up with multiple wholesalers - so it really doesn't matter at all to the customer where stuff comes from.

Out of interest - how long did it take for all this to shake through and end up in place during the formation of the home video market?