LOVEFiLM - Generic

[Matt H]

I've just phoned up to cancel my LOVEFilM account.

 

By the sounds of it, I got through to a foreign call centre (which is fine); the person on the end of the phone asked how she could help me. I said I would like to cancel my account to which she replied that they were having technical difficulties and they couldn’t bring up customer details. She said I should phone back in an hour...

 

I changed tone and said to her “well, can you take my details down and process the cancelation when the system comes on-line?” She then said “ugh - one second”, and then went into fully fledged cancelation mode - filling details in on her computer (I could hear the keyboard and mouse clicks) and then telling me I should receive a cancelation email shortly – Ummm. Obviously no one else but me was on the phone just now, but I’m pretty sure I smelt a rat there and I get the feeling the system wasn’t down.

 

Anybody else cancelled lovefilm or had any other odd experiences with them? What do you think of the service lovefilm offers in general?

 

There are three main things that made me decide to cancel, plus another two that aided the decision but wouldn’t be a deal breaker on their own.

 

1: The priority list.

 

It only allows you to rank films in ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ priority. Why can’t I rank every film on my list in order from priority ‘1’ onwards. This would allow Lovefilm to work down my list from the film I most want delivered to the one I least want out of my selection when they are seeing what they have in stock to send me.

 

2: Postage turnaround.

 

Now this started off really good; I set a film back on the Monday, then the new film would arrive on the Wednesday, but the past month has been terrible. My account detailed two films ‘at home’ but they took 6 working days from postage at their end to arrive. This is a bit annoying when you’re paying for an unlimited package, because the value for money you get is depicted by lovefilm or the post office’s ability to get the disc delivered.

 

3: The third issue ties in with the first.

 

I’ve had one film queued on my ‘high priority’ for 2 months (The girl with the dragon tattoo). I really want to watch this film, but it has never come.

 

4: Mistake

 

I had the rocky saga on my rental list. I received it and looked forward to watching the ones I hadn’t seen before. I put it in and they had sent me the bonus disc – great. Now this wasn’t that much of a problem as I was on an unlimited package, but if you were on say the 2 discs per month scenario, then that would be a right ball ache and would involve either taking the hit or messing around with customer services to sort it out.

 

5: Renting box sets.

 

I rented a box set during my subscription period. For some reason, there were only two or three episodes per disc. All the extra features were bundled in on the main discs, not on say a bonus disc at the end. This meant that to digest the series, it took 8 separate rental and returns. This can obviously change depending on how a series is boxed up. I think the policy for box sets should be changed so instead of them taking each disc out of the package, sending them separately and charging you one rental per disc, they should allocated a nominal disc total per box set. If I was on a two disc per month package, I would have take 4 months with no other films to get through that box set. It would have been cheaper to buy!

 

 

In general, LOVEFiLM is a great idea, but I was surprised to see how flawed the service is. It has to offer value for money otherwise I’d much prefer to go down the local blockbuster or use one of those rental machines that are turning up everywhere.

 

For me to go back, the flaws need ironing out and the service needs improving. As Bannatyne would say, for now, I’m oouut.

[martini]

Thanks for the info.

[Scott]

I was with lovefilm for ages. When it came time to cancel I just cancelled it via my account - subscription. Is that not available anymore? It's certainly available to restart/upgrade your chosen bundle.

 

I left them as I got fed up waiting on the next disc coming out. Apparently I was such a high user that I got dropped down on the priority list, meaning I had to wait a few days until my next movie was sent out. I emailed them a couple of times about it, and each time my service picked up, but then I got a playstation and started using it as a mediacenter. Couldn't tell you the last time I actually watched a DVD.

[Scott]

1: The priority list.

 

It only allows you to rank films in ‘high’, ‘medium’ and ‘low’ priority. Why can’t I rank every film on my list in order from priority ‘1’ onwards. This would allow Lovefilm to work down my list from the film I most want delivered to the one I least want out of my selection when they are seeing what they have in stock to send me.

 

You can list your movies in order though. They will work from the top down, depending what is available. I agree that there is no point in the High/Medium/Low but I certainly got my top choice 9 times out of 10. I just made all my list high priority.

[Matt H]

I was with lovefilm for ages. When it came time to cancel I just cancelled it via my account - subscription. Is that not available anymore? It's certainly available to restart/upgrade your chosen bundle

 

The button is still there, but it takes you to a page that says

 

'Please call 0800 xxxxx to confirm your cancelation'. It was obviously too easy to allow people to do that.

[Scott]

The button is still there, but it takes you to a page that says

 

'Please call 0800 xxxxx to confirm your cancelation'. It was obviously to easy to allow people to do that.

 

Ahhh, fly beggars.

[Matt H]

You can list your movies in order though. They will work from the top down, depending what is available. I agree that there is no point in the High/Medium/Low but I certainly got my top choice 9 times out of 10. I just made all my list high priority.

 

You can't do, there's no way to move anything 'up' or 'down' - I've just logged back on to try They say you should have 10 films in your list at any given time - perhaps that was my downfall, giving them more options.

 

I don't understand why you would have everything on high priority. Surely out of say 10 films you would want to watch some more than others? You're not telling them, in that case, which out of the selection if more important to you than others.

 

I don't know if they've changed it since you were a subscriber, or perhaps the whole serivice just has a much bigger demand on it, but it's seemed to be about 1 of every 3 discs I recieved were out of my high priority and there was always 5 in there at a given time. Seemed like you got a much more amicable service than I

[Thorin]

Exactly the problems we had with LoveFilm, and that was years ago too.

[Scott]

You can't do, there's no way to move anything 'up' or 'down' - I've just logged back on to try They say you should have 10 films in your list at any given time - perhaps that was my downfall, giving them more options.

 

I don't understand why you would have everything on high priority. Surely out of say 10 films you would want to watch some more than others? You're not telling them, in that case, which out of the selection if more important to you than others.

 

I don't know if they've changed it since you were a subscriber, or perhaps the whole serivice just has a much bigger demand on it, but it's seemed to be about 1 of every 3 discs I recieved were out of my high priority and there was always 5 in there at a given time. Seemed like you got a much more amicable service than I

 

yeah, it must have changed a bit since I was on. I was able to move movies up and down my list.

 

The 6 and 7 days between DVD's was the real falldown for me. That and utorrent

[JustGav]

Waste of time and VERY dated technology IMHO.

 

Online rental once companies pull their fingers out of their backsides it will be the way forward. It should negate the need for physical media anyway. Technically it is a piece of urine to set up a service like this as all the technology does exist for it....*rings dragon's den *

 

Netflix/itunes have an offering, not what I'd call decent yet, but they have something

[Matt H]

Waste of time and VERY dated technology IMHO.

 

Online rental once companies pull their fingers out of their backsides it will be the way forward. It should negate the need for physical media anyway. Technically it is a piece of urine to set up a service like this as all the technology does exist for it....*rings dragon's den *

 

Netflix/itunes have an offering, not what I'd call decent yet, but they have something

 

Lovefilm offer online viewing rentals already - 3500 films ready to view online, but that's the future. I disagree that's it's dated as there's no way you can stream a Blu-ray quality film. Downloading one would be a nightmare as well for the majority of people in the country that can't get more than a few meg broadband.

 

If I want to watch a full 1080p qaulity film, for now, it's got to come on a disc

[martini]

iTunes will destroy this in good time.

[kill1308]

that's it's dated as there's no way you can stream a Blu-ray quality film.

 

If I want to watch a full 1080p qaulity film, for now, it's got to come on a disc

 

It is possible, just not with Lovefilm

[Matt H]

It is possible, just not with Lovefilm

 

Great input.....?

 

 

 

 

I've done a bit of reading and appartently Zune on the xbox can stream 1080p using 4mb bandwith on the other side, a jap site was qouting 100mb connection.

[kill1308]

Great input.....?

 

 

 

 

 

I was actually just compiling a list of resources for you and was coming back to edit my post, but your attitude stinks so you can work it out for yourself.

[JustGav]

Lovefilm offer online viewing rentals already - 3500 films ready to view online, but that's the future. I disagree that's it's dated as there's no way you can stream a Blu-ray quality film. Downloading one would be a nightmare as well for the majority of people in the country that can't get more than a few meg broadband.

 

If I want to watch a full 1080p qaulity film, for now, it's got to come on a disc

 

Wanna bet

 

I can currently stream 720p over a 2mb ADSL link which happens to be the market average for most people. Also with the correct reflector technology it can be used to lighten the backbone load on a network.

 

Alternatively a torrent style system with DRM could be used, so you could queue up the film.

 

Perhaps it may not be true blu-ray quality, however I challenge most home users to notice the difference, and for those who are in the position to have home cinema systems capable of realizing the full potential of blu-ray/HD media then yes a higher quality version may be needed, but do you have sky/virgin? their quality is awful on compression and yet nobody seems too bothered with it.

[caseys]

Technically it is a piece of urine to set up a service like this as all the technology does exist for it....*rings dragon's den *

 

Oh I agree, technically possible but I'm sat here trying to imagine how many frikkin arrays you'd need to be able to stream that sort of data, also bandwidth.

 

Globally dispersed, clustered environment with a heck of a lot of pipes then mebbe. Either that or have a setup box which has a very very good GPU type processor in it that could deal with some very heavily compressed but lossless media format.

 

Certainly by no means a very expensive idea. But yes, over time costs are gonna fall.

 

Your setup indeed does work Gav, but you've got to think of how it's going to scale, hundreds, thousands of users suddenly wanting to download the same media at the same time, whilst trying to keep copies of it down at the host end etc, but an environment that should have a very good write profile. And most people are going to want 1080p. On a nice 50 inch telly the difference between 720 and 1080 is dramatic imho.

 

And you're right about Sky. Watch a Sky HD broadcast then watch a nice blu-ray (on a 50" 600hz 1080P telly) and it's shocking. I think the £10/month for HD with sky is actually a bit too much

[JustGav]

Oh I agree, technically possible but I'm sat here trying to imagine how many frikkin arrays you'd need to be able to stream that sort of data, also bandwidth.

 

Globally dispersed, clustered environment with a heck of a lot of pipes then mebbe. Either that or have a setup box which has a very very good GPU type processor in it that could deal with some very heavily compressed but lossless media format.

 

Indeed, you would need a master array where the data is stored, however CDN systems already exist for this so not inventing new tech for this. Most if not all new films are currently digital anyway, so a transcode is all that would be required. ABC/NBC/syfy store their tv shows already for streaming to the web and that works rather well. GPUs are definitely at the point now where they are powerful enough, in fact there are plenty of stb options out there for exactly this sort of thing, admittedly on a consumer scale, but even virgin's v+ box currently has mpeg4 hardware decoding. Using a suitable codec such as On2's VP8 (well, now google's WebM codec), it is possible to have a bandwidth adaptable stream which can deal with blips and variable bandwidth scaling up to highest possible quality.

 

In fact I can already think of a certain company capable of providing this at the moment.....(Wonder how long it is till they set up a service.....)

 

Certainly by no means a very expensive idea. But yes, over time costs are gonna fall.

 

Your setup indeed does work Gav, but you've got to think of how it's going to scale, hundreds, thousands of users suddenly wanting to download the same media at the same time, whilst trying to keep copies of it down at the host end etc, but an environment that should have a very good write profile.

initially costs for something like this would always be high during setup, but for operators like Virgin for example, their network is already in place and more than capable of handling the data load on their private network.

 

And most people are going to want 1080p. On a nice 50 inch telly the difference between 720 and 1080 is dramatic imho.

 

Get a smaller telly

 

And you're right about Sky. Watch a Sky HD broadcast then watch a nice blu-ray (on a 50" 600hz 1080P telly) and it's shocking. I think the £10/month for HD with sky is actually a bit too much

 

I know I've rattled on about this before, but the quality that we accept in the UK is just rubbish, I occasionally stream shows from the US over vpn and the quality is better than what virgin push down a fibre optic to my house, and that is just a crazy situation I think

 

I really should patent some of my ideas and maybe in oh I don't know 20 years.... I'll still be in the same position

[Mike]

Exactly the problems we had with LoveFilm, and that was years ago too.

 

 

I ended up just filling my list with random crap to keep it topped up. I never actually got the stuff I wanted to see

[JustGav]

And most people are going to want 1080p. On a nice 50 inch telly the difference between 720 and 1080 is dramatic imho.

 

Actually this bit is something I want to pick up on...

 

I know we are the type of people that want the 1080p high quality, BUT how many people in the 'real world' really know what it is. Casey, you and I both know we are tech-geeks, so would go out of our way to make sure we had zero noise and all that rubbish, but joe-public.... I look at people like my dad who still has a CRT and has zero interest in HD. Does anybody actually know what the market penetration of HD is, I'll qualify that a bit further and say, does anybody know what the market penetration is for people who would pay/want 1080p films compared to those who would be satisfied with lower quality.

 

People are still buying DVDs in higher numbers than blu-ray which does say something.

[Scott]

Yeah, they don't have Blu-ray players and DVD players are £10 from your local supermarket

 

 

I know what you mean though Gav. I wouldn't have anything less than a 50" 1080p screen now, as I LOVE my movies/shows/games etc and always want the best visible quality possible.... however... my Mum in law was getting a new TV a while back. She asked me which had the best picture quality so I told her 1080p is technically the best but that she wouldn't notice the difference. She told me it was for her Virgin HD box etc so I said the 720p would be the perfect choice, this was also on a 37" TV. No matter how much I told her there would be no difference, and for the difference in money she could get a better brand/model etc, she wouldn't listen and went for a 1080p.

 

Why even ask me?

[martini]

You could tell most people that a DVD is HD and they'd not argue, nor be able to tell the difference.

 

I was actually just compiling a list of resources for you and was coming back to edit my post, but your attitude stinks so you can work it out for yourself.

 

You've only just noticed this?

[JustGav]

You could tell most people that a DVD is HD and they'd not argue, nor be able to tell the difference.

 

Exactly.... how people have seen the sky HD adverts on normal sky and have gone 'Wow, that really does look better...' And yes I know people who have

[Scott]

Exactly.... how people have seen the sky HD adverts on normal sky and have gone 'Wow, that really does look better...' And yes I know people who have

 

Guy in my work told me a story when they were advertising a year or so back, you know the one with Rooney Rooney Rooney slide tackling?

 

She said to him "That looks really good, do you think we should get that for the living room?". He replied asking what she was on about for her to reply "The HD, you can really see the difference in clarity there".

 

Took him 10 mins to calm down enough to tell her.

[JustGav]

I was actually just compiling a list of resources for you and was coming back to edit my post, but your attitude stinks so you can work it out for yourself.

 

Lighten up... this is actually a rather good discussion I think... and helps with the diversity of people on here.. There are a few hardcore techs such as myself and Caseys (I know his background which helps ), as well as high-end users such as Matt H who don't give a toss about the tech but are purely concerned with the experience.