Join lovefilm mate I pay £9.99 a month and get around 10 bluray rentals by post a month so that's £1 a movie.
I think the way forward for digital rentals is for a premium streaming service where you pay a higher monthly fee to include new release titles alongside the catalogue ones.
Which it's not at anyway.And yet the movie industry moans it's being destroyed by illegal downloading. I wonder why...
I have been with LF for about 5yrs now and had about 1000 blurays off them, never had trouble getting new releases either,in most cases I will get a new release movie in the first week or two of release.
I've just done a search on Amazon under 'LoveFilm by Post' and they show Philomena 23rd May, The Counsellor 16th May, Gravity 2nd May, Don Jon 23rd May... All these are currently available to rent on Google, iTunes and Sony Entertainment Network.
Never mind renting, what about the price of buying digital downloads? More often than not it's cheaper to buy a better quality DVD/BD than it is to buy a download.
I certainly prefer BDs to streaming. I'm on a free trial with Netflix at the moment. The quality is often very poor going down to below VHS standards and there's way too much judder. I used to rent BDs when we had a local Blockbuster and I don't think I ever paid over £3.00. They also often had deals on so I paid less than that.
The ones I don't want find themselves in the classifieds...and if it's a new release, it's a £3-4 hit, same as what a rental from Blockbuster would have been
That's fine if you have the time and are organised enough to do that. Here's the thing - I don't want to organise my weekends viewing days in advance. A big part of renting a movie is the spontaneity of it. In the 'old days' I would nip down to blockbusters and pick up a blu-ray, but I can't do that now. The only way I can now watch a new release at short notice is by streaming it and I'm being forced to pay £4.50 a time which I think is unfair. It used to cost £3.50 to rent a blu-ray from blockbusters (or £3.95 I can't recall exactly), streaming should be cheaper in my opinion, at the very least it should be the same.
On Netflix for only 5.99 a month I don't expect everything to be super high quality, same applies to Amazon Instant at 5.99. On Netflix I've watched House of Cards and a couple of movies and the quality seems more than acceptable, House of Cards looked like blu-ray and sounded great too.
I don't exactly organise a weekend viewing day/s in advance in the manner I'll calculate what time my buttocks will hit the couch or what time exactly the movie must end. Although there's spontaneity involved on your behalf, you're aware of what the new releases are and I'm the same. You also know that you'll be watching a flick..so it's not complete spontaneity or randomness.
Indeed. You may well be like me in that you don't always watch your latest buy straight away so you build up a selection of unwatched discs especially with regards to TV shows. That combined with old stuff you want to watch again means you have an excellent choice of titles to choose from with little or no worry about the pic and sound quality.
Bri
It sounds as though youre over complicating things! I don't exactly organise a weekend viewing day/s in advance in the manner I'll calculate what time my buttocks will hit the couch or what time exactly the movie must end. Although there's spontaneity involved on your behalf, you're aware of what the new releases are and I'm the same. You also know that you'll be watching a flick..so it's not complete spontaneity or randomness. So when I go shopping on Saturday at the local supermarket, I'll pick one of the new releases, or watch one of the discs sat at home that I still havnt had time to watch.
I do agree though, I miss my local Blockbuster. And although there isn't a great deal of choice, no one is forcing you to stream, that's the way things are going though with t'internet!
As well as judder the picture resolution often goes down to 240 which is terrible. At first it appeared only to be happening at peak times but I've found it can happen at any time. It spoils my enjoyment even when it's ok as I'm expecting it to happen again at any moment. If the picture quality drops for any reason I'm thinking it's down to the streaming but it might be something the production team have done such as introducing grain for effect. On a Blu I'd just accept it but on Netflix I'm thinking "Here we go again.". Even at it's very best I find streaming a poor second to Blu. The sound is only DD 5.1 and don't get me started on the menus. It's very hard to find stuff. The other day I found a Lee Evans stand up show in the sports film section.
What device are you using to stream Netflix? Just wondering becasue you commented in thread with the guy asking about Netflix on the Wii so wondering if that could be the issue.
I'm using a PS3 which works fine with Blus and 4OD. When I have the pic problems with Netflix I tend to check to phone line download speed and it's ok so it must be Netflix themsevles rather my gear. The odd thing is that my TV picks up a 1080i signal from Netflix rather than 1080p as it should be. The PS3 outputs 1080p from Blus no problem.
Bri
New release HD rentals (subscription free) are £3.50 on Blinkbox. That's about a quid cheaper than the Playstation store . Mind you, I still think that's too expensive and I have to think twice (or comb through Netflix) before renting.