Just got a rather unfortunate email - that Lovefilm is shuttering at the end of October due to 'lack of demand and increasing use of streaming'.
That's quite a shame as no streaming service I've encountered has nearly the selection Lovefilm has, have stupid IP battles and arrangements meaning pretty much everything is only transiently available, and there's very little older stuff available.
Oh well, I'll have 7 quid or so per month freed up...
Real shame, i went on the Website to see if i could join for 2 months as there were 8 dvds i really wanted to see but nope, you cant join anymore.
Amazon prime video selection is some what lacking but I'm sure with closing LoveFilm they can invest in Prime Video & original content. I watched Badlands and i thought that was great.
For me, I guess I'll just have to go back to buying older DVDs for a couple of pounds if I want to watch them!
TBH, I've not been using Lovefilm as much as I used to and recently kept some discs for so long (like a month) it prompted them to send me a 'you know you can return it for another film' email, so TBH I'd probably save money by buying them instead.
There's still something to be said for quality though - while it's improving for streams, they're still very bitrate-limited vs blu-rays and it's fairly noticeable on some content. I find the adaptive quality irritating too - there's more than enough bandwidth for the 1080p stream so why do they insist on playing the first few seconds of the stream in some horrid bitrate - I really don't care if you have to buffer for a second first!
WRT selection - the problem is my Lovefilm list is filled with content that is not available on either Prime Video or Netflix! Even combined, their selection for older stuff is simply dreadful.
I'm a bit conflicted about this.
On the one hand, I far prefer DVD to streaming, for many of the reasons stated above. I had periodically thought about rejoining Lovefilm. Butcthen, I haven't rejoined, which I guess tells me something.
It's chicken or egg, though.
I quit Lovefilm (post, 3 discs) because I found I was waiting months and months for my top picks, yet was sent a steady supply of also-rans tyat I wasn't really bothered about but had to put something as my replacement selection.
So, I quit paying a sub fir thinfs I wasb't bothered about, and put the money towards buying items I really wanted on discount. It's surpriding some of the deals that show up if you keep your eyes open, especially boxed sets.
So in theory, this is a shame. But in practice, Lovefilm ruined itself for me after about 6 months by never seeming to have what I really wanted available, forcing me to go buy them.
Outside of the streaming I get with Virgin, 'cos the wife wanted a soecific channel selection and it includes some generic streamjng, I don't really fancy streaming, and certainly don't see me paying a sub fir Prime, Netflix, etc. And I rarely use the free streamjng on Virgin beyond the occasional catch-up for something I missed .... like E1 of Blood Drive (not sure about it yet).
So I guess my overall reaction is .... shame, but ... meh, whatever.
See, there's a lot of BBC-made stuff I'd like to buy on DVD/BD too, but it's seldom available. Some stuff was available in that BBC Store but that too has closed, refunding everything I'd purchased!
And therein lies my other major issue with any digital 'ownership' - you never really do, and your ability to watch the content can be removed with the press of a button. That, and timed availability, are two of the most serious issues standing in the way of it being taken seriously as an alternative to physical discs. The frustrating thing is, they're not even technical issues! You know the system is broken when piracy offers greater convenience and availability of content.
To be honest, I'm surprised that Amazon even kept it going this long after buying it.
I understand the point about streaming selections always changing and how physical media usually offers better quality anyway, but I can only assume that the fees to run it and income from it just don't add up, and the logic is that if people want a disc they can always buy it from Amazon instead.
Overall, my reaction mirrors Saracen in the "shame, but meh" sense. I'm happy enough to see streaming as a discovery method and to then buy the physical release if I enjoyed it enough. In the cases that it's actually released physically too and isn't just exclusive to streaming anyway.
That is indeed one of my issues with "subscription" services. That, and the fact that a subscription is an on-going cost. Now if that on-going cost gets you a constant stream of new material that you actually want, then fair enough, I guess. But I'm pretty selective in both music and video entertainment. I have a pretty large collection of both, on disc, and to find something new coming out that I want is not a constant experience, not least because I don't watch that much TV anyway, and so much of what comes out is poor quality drivel, IMHO. A sub, every month, amounts to paying, constantly, for much the same relevant content, whereas buying it on disc means paying ONCE and having years, even decades of usage ftom that one payment.Originally Posted by watercooled
For instance, a recent quiz question reminded me of an argument with a friend over whether an LP (that's a vinyl record gor the younger members) was in stereo or mono (note 1). So anyway, I dug it out an played it, an LP I bought in 1963. So, so far, I've had 54 years of use from my one, fixed payment.
But yeah, the notion that you can "buy" something, and it can then be electronically taken away from you, on a whim, with little or nothing you can do, is a non-starter. That's certainly why I amnot spending £30-£50 a time on games that require Steam.
Note 1 - Turned out it was released in both formats, and he'd bought the mono and I bought the stereo. For the curious, it was the Beatles "Please Please Me". It might even be worth something now.
i heard about this the other day and was surprised it was still running, as a bit like phoneboxes, how many people still use them regularly? most people by now who have an interest in movies would have a connection to let them stream, and streaming quality is now better than dvd, plus you can choose to watch what you want when you want on a whim, without ordering and waiting at least till the next day to get it. even in the video shop days you could usually pop in and get what you want and back home in a few minutes
as for streaming and ongoing costs, i used to spend literally about £100-£200 a week every week on music in the 90s. if i had something like spotify back then i'd have most of the music i wanted for a tenner a month. so kids instead of spending large sums like that can save a fortune. with a family membership even cheaper per person, so for families and certain people, the ongoing costs of a tenner a month for a service give a lot of entertainment for the money, plus instant access and allowing stuff to be played at a whim, or stuff tried out without any extra cost or money wasted in trying new things. check out a foreign movie or new album by new artist at no extra cost and no need to watch all the way through if you don't like it, move to something else without paying more
I was paying £4 a month for 2 discs at a time, then when I went with a Prime Trial and didn't carry it on, I lost Lovefilm and to get it back would have been more than twice the price for the same package, so I didn't rejoin. I do miss being able to get films in higher quality (BR) that I wouldn't necessarily buy, and the choice was better than streaming, but as with most people here, meh, I'll live without it. I have done for 4 years or so. For those people wishing to still have disc rentals, there's Cinema Paradiso, which also has a limited amount of UHD disks, but I don't know what the costs are.
Hasn't this been replaced by "the local charity shop"?
It's a shame, I've been with LoveFilm for years, mainly for the video quality and huge selection, specially older titles. I was on the original unlimited 4 discs at a time (including games) package. Once amazon took over it got progressively worse.
They stopped the game rentals, then reduced the number of discs to 2, took longer and longer to send them out, and now this.
Seems like a bad move for Amazon going by how bad their streaming selection is. That £7 a month will pay for Netflix though, which is good value for me.
I've been in and wiped everything but the last few titles I want to see off my Rental list, I wonder what they will do with all those discs..
Probably start a charityshop.amazon.com
My guess is that they'll sell them through the Amazon Warehouse account, listing them as ex-rentals in the description of course.
It would be quite good if they could sell them off, but I think there are some restrictions on reselling rental copies. Having said that I've got quite a few ex-rental DVDs from a local rental shop which are an unusual transparent orange colour!
But yeah I think I'll just blast through the stuff on my list I actually wanted, and get rid of the stuff I had on there more as a reminder to watch.
TBH I was also kind of expecting this, and nearly cancelled a few times but wondered how tricky it was to re-join as it's really buried in the website. I might just have to start getting rid of the DVD/BD cases (or chuck them in a bag in the loft) and keeping the discs in some sort of organiser as they take up quite a lot of room otherwise!
Ah nuts. I moved over to Amazon Prime from Love Film for a try out and it's rubbish for films. Was going to move back to Love Film with those nice high-quality blurays with HD audio.
They didn't own them for long. I really hate it when companies buy up other ones and then dismantle their business. Love Film when it was Love Film was really good.
Yep, couldn't agree more.
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