I've just finished watching new film number 52 of the year. This puts me well on track to complete the 250 in 2011 challenge, and even as I write this my iPhone buzzes with an email from Lovefilm to tell me Kung-Fu panda on Blu-Ray is on the way to me.
I'm really impressed with Lovefilm so far and it is fast becoming my preferred way to watch movies. The fact that I can stream movies from my Playstation is brilliant. I was so dubious about watching movies this way at first as I really expected long buffering times and the movies to be cutting out in all the best places, but so far it has worked seamlessly and the picture quality is not a million miles away from DVD quality most of the time.
It's worth noting that if you're expecting the latest blockbusters straight to your Playstation you might be disappointed; while the online films I can watch with my package are plentiful they are not necessarily the best films in the world. Saying that, there are some pretty good movies and I've never been short of something I fancy watching on here and plenty of good old films that I've seen before, and if it weren't for the film challenge I'd happily be watching them again.
In fact my only problem with the playstation side of Lovefilm is that the it only has lists of 100 movies, so if you view a genre by A-Z you can only see as far as letter E. You can however search for any film and either watch it online if it's free with your package, pay to watch it online if it's not or add it to your rental list and get it sent through the post.
The getting sent movies through the post part of Lovefilm is proving fantastic too. It's so easy and finding the nearest postbox when I'm done watching a film is much easier than finding the time to drive back to Blockbuster and worrying about getting it back on time. I should say the turn around is impressive too, they really don't waste time getting your movie sent out. I think we're averaging a new DVD every 2 - 3 days.
The only mild annoyance I have is that you can prioritise the films on your list to low, medium and high depending on how much you want to see the film. The only film I have on my list marked as high priority is The Expendables. It was the very first movie I added to the list and it still hasn't turned up. It will eventually, I know, but once you have your list the films can be sent out in any order. This probably isn't a problem if the movies on your list are just for you but my list consists of movies for myself with an eclectic taste, my 21 year old brother who has possibly never seen a movie without a car chase, and my girlfriend who likes dramas and people in period costume.
It is possible to create separate lists though so I will be looking into that and seeing if that works out any better.
It looks like Blockbuster is on borrowed time and I can only think of two independent video rental stores and they're both a good 20 miles from my house. iTunes is good but it annoys me so much when I have to download a rental movie all afternoon to watch it in the evening, it's just not practical. Overall I think Lovefilm, for me anyway, is the cheapest and most convenient way of renting movies in the 21st century.
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