Been a long term user of LoveFilm (rental/streaming) and generally think it’s a pretty great service for 10 quid a month.

However, over the last year or so, I have noticed that they seem to be very slow at making some new releases available to rent. Skyfall, for example is still not available, even though it’s been out for ages, although they do make it very easy for you to buy it from Amazon (hmmm strange that!)

For quite a few years now, films have been released for sale at the same time they’ve been released for rental. Now Amazon have pretty much got a monopoly on film rental in this country, are they trying to manipulate the market to encourage sales over rental by delaying the availability of titles to rent?

They blame the studio and licencing issues, but Blockbuster didn’t seem to have the same issues with getting new titles.

Nail on the head.

Don’t get me started on Love Film. They seem unable to send me any of the films in my priority list, even though they are a few years old. I’m on a free 3 month trial ATM. So far it’s not endearing my to continue to pay for it.

As for instant……….

They blame the studio and licencing issues, but Blockbuster didn’t seem to have the same issues with getting new titles.

Blockbuster didn’t have anything like the same business model. You paid per-title.

A closer analogy would be Spotify (who, oh look, don’t carry every record label, for some reason).

Blockbuster does have an on-line rental service which works the same as LovFilm, where you pay a monthly fee, so I think it is fair to compare the two.

http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/bandsignup/start-trial.aspx?cust=new

and Skyfall, as an example is available.

I’ve been with Lovefilm since it was Amazon Rental and it’s not perfect.

I tried Blockbuster it last year due to the same issues as the OP; and it was much worse. They sent titles completely at random, and they took up to a week to arrive.

Lovefilm Instant is tremendous; what’s your issue with it?

I think the LF streaming is great, especially when it’s part of the rental package as well (£10 inlcuding unlimited disc rentals, compared to £6 for Netflix, just for streaming).

I do think the interface lets it down a bit though. If you browse on-line there seems to be a whole host of newer films available to stream, that you struggle to find on the interface, unless you do a search (ie. you have to know what you’re looking for).

^^ The streaming interface on the PS3 is dire, it needs a serious overhaul. Slow and crappy.

It also doesn’t resume in the right place if you stop playback as iplayer does, and accidentally pressing the shoulder button (i.e. as happens every single time you put the controller down) starts it rewinding, and it doesn’t stop when the button is released.

The PS3 is OK if you use the remote rather than the game controlled, it does seem to have been designed around the remote though. It does seem slow though.

Plus the lack of an Android app for viewing is very annoying. Their excuse there is that it’s difficult to getting it working properly on different devices. Maybe they should head hunt some IT people from Netflix, as they seem to be able to do it without a problem. I suspect this is maybe another cynical ploy to get you to choose a Fire over other android options.