Amazon Acquires LoveFilm, The Netflix Of Europe | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Acquires LoveFilm, The Netflix Of Europe

techcrunch.com

35 pointschegra8425 comments

For all the Americans (and probably Europeans, I think LF is mostly a UK company) it's important to bear in mind that LoveFilm ain't Netflix.

On the other hand; it's the best we've got.

I have a love hate relationship with them - the selection is pretty good and the service is fine (with only a few hiccups which, given the state of our postal service is probably understandable). Although; their main UK depot is about 40 miles from me, and I have heard people out in the wilds have some issues.

On the down side the online streaming catalogue could be expanded (5,000+ films, but not always the latest releases) and I tend to have trouble getting popular disks (sometimes they seem to send me random disks from my list for no apparent reason).

I've been waiting for series 3 of Battlestar Gallactica for about 3 months now... :P

I'm pleased Amazon are buying them, that's a positive move IMO. Their easily one of my favourite companies and seem to manage to let their acquisitions flourish rather than die off. So... looking good :) (and if LF eventually merges into my Amazon account, win :D)

LF made a statement here btw: http://www.lovefilm.com/features/detail.html?editorial_id=32...

EDIT: their recommendations engine is pretty dire as well incidentally, that is probably the main difference from Netflix

I eventually cancelled my lovefilm account when I moved out of london, and I had been on a waitlist for up to a year on some items. Recently I've been thinking of signing up for their online service and this backing by Amazon may have just convinced me.

I signed up for Lovefilm earlier this month for the film streaming. I searched before hand and they had a nice film selection so I figure I'd go for it, if it sucked I could cancel. I signed up for the best plan that had streaming included (had no intention of doing postal DVDs) and found the following:

- The only films you can watch for free (after you've paid the monthly registration fee) are from before 2007, even though their entire catalogue contains newer films and it says "Your package includes unlimited online viewing" and "With access to 5,361 watch online titles" on both the sign up pages and in my account.

- After paying £4 for a film (Inception) which I expected to be included in the first place (a pipe dream I guess) I load it up... it's 360p at best, full screening makes it unwatchable.

- I figure if this is the state of it and I have to pay for shitty quality films I may as well go out and but the DVD, which I wanted to avoid... so I decided to cancel my account to find it's impossible to do online, you have to phone up... it was 4am, they were closed.

Terrible experience, but the joke is on me I guess, I didn't realise I could buy/rent films on iTunes so I'm doing that now.

Yeh... it leaves a lot to be desired (another "this is not netflix" situations). Particularly the streaming quality, which is why I don't bother.

I'm on the "three disks at home" package which apparently lets me watch about 4,000 of the streamable ones for free. In the past on cheaper accounts I got less I think.

In my experience the "top" recent films are always pay-for, and the lesser known ones are free. I personally don't mind that because I've always enjoyed indie/arthouse cinema :)

Definitely do not think it is worth it for streaming only.

I've been a LoveFilm customer since 2004. I must have watched well over 1000 DVDs through them. Their DVD selection is indeed very good, and in general I'm fairly happy with them.

My biggest gripe is the penny-pinching changes they recently made to their DVD-postage system. A couple of years ago, if they sent you 2 or 3 DVDs at once, they'd always include spare envelopes so that you could post the DVDs back as soon as you'd watched them (thus getting your next DVDs faster). But recently they stopped doing this, stating that their customers should use their own envelopes when they've run out. It may have escaped their attention, but most homes do not have DVD-sized envelopes handy, or the desire to spend their relaxation time fiddling about with addresses and labels.

When I mentioned it to their support staff they reeled off some nonsense about environmental benefits. Pffh. They have no problem stuffing each and every envelope they send with useless advertising. I call them out on sacrificing customer goodwill to skimp on postage costs. More on this issue at http://www.majorgrooves.co.uk/2009/04/lovefilmcom-film-deskt...

Anyway, in contrast to my somewhat tepid feelings towards LoveFilm, I am practically in love with Amazon - more so with every AWS service I start using. So I too am pleased to hear that they've bought LoveFilm. Hopefully they'll do great things with it.

This is weird. Amazon Germany used to operate a "Netflix" offering which they sold to LoveFilm in 2008. I was actually a customer and canceled at that point, LoveFilm's site was just terrible.

So now they are buying back what they partially sold in 2008?

Amazon sold it's DVD rental services in Germany and the UK to Lovefilm for a 48% stake in the company. Today they acquired the outstanding 52%.

The Netflix of europe? I'm european and I've never heard of LoveFilm before...

LoveFilm is very big in the UK, and would say the NetFlix of Europe is an apt description.

I think this deal has to be good for both parties here, and would be surprised if they rebranded LoveFilm. It's a good name.

The only thing I know about lovefilm is they RL spam my postbox with "offers" that go into the bin none of which have mentioned that you can do anything other than get DVDs by post. I looked at their site today and it seems I can watch their entire catalog online. Useful information perhaps?

And I really question "very big"; asking around 20 or so friends (20+ all very IT literate/gamers) pretty much everyone said something like "who?" or "they do delivered DVDs right?".

I'm surprised you didn't know about the online thing, and even more so that your associates have barely heard of them. They have advertised a fair amount - try asking your non IT literate and gamer friends.

Oh well.

It might be a good name in the UK, but almost everytime I tell someone here in Germany about lovefilm, the first thing I get asked is "So, it's a porn rental thing?"

Fair enough. If I could edit my first post, I'd change it to "Netflix of the UK is an apt description"

Apologies to all you other Europeans.

Netflix of UK would be far more apt.

I see on their website that they have versions for Germany and most of Scandinavia, but I have no idea how big they are there, and that's a far cry from the whole of Europe anyhow.

I'm in Norway, and a film buff, and I've never heard of them before. If they've done any marketing at all, it has managed to escape me-- which seems unlikely.

So my guess is: not very big in Scandinavia.

I'm in Sweden and I've heard of them but never used the service. I think they had some commercials on TV a few years ago.

They don't have streaming in Scandinavia yet, only the UK and Germany.

Actually, they have streaming in Sweden. Small selection though, only about 100 movies.

As far as I can tell from their homepage (lovefilm.se), there is no streaming available. Where did you find it?

Number 1 in the UK, Number 1 in Germany. Big growth in Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

Unfortunately last time I checked they didn't do streaming of movies, only mailing DVDs and Blueray disks around.

They've streamed movies for about 6 months or more now; the selection isn't brilliant, but getting there.

Thanks, good to know. The other day I heavily overpaid again because I didn't return DVDs in time...

That's the main reason I started with LoveFilm; getting stuff from, say, Blockbuster, was a pain for someone as forgetful as me :P

No late fees is, well, a winner - even if you have to wait a day or two for a new film to wing it's way to you.

LoveFilm also white-labels its service. List here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovefilm#Operate_rental_service...

It would be interesting to know what proportion of LoveFilm's business is under its own brand, versus under these other brands, and whether amazon will continue to white-label the service long term.

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