Does LoveFilm keep up turnaround speed?

December 9, 2010 8:37 AM

UKFilter: How do people feel about LoveFilm these days? There used to be concerns that they throttled the turnaround speed after excellent initial (teaser) service. Are MeFi users satisfied with their experience?
posted by sagwalla to Shopping (13 answers total)

I've been using them for some time and am very satisfied. On the couple of occasions where there have been problems (discs not received, or arrived damaged) they've been very quick to deal with the situation. The turnaround time is excellent, too.
posted by Nick Jordan at 8:39 AM on December 9, 2010

I've been using them for around 2 years and I haven't had any problems.
posted by Chenko at 9:16 AM on December 9, 2010

Ditto. Some periodic blips on turnaround time, but mostly super fast. I've had a couple scratched up disks and it was easy to deal with. I'm not too fussy, but no complaints here.
posted by oneaday at 9:17 AM on December 9, 2010

(Oh, and I've been with them 2 yrs as well)
posted by oneaday at 9:17 AM on December 9, 2010

Been using them a year, it's been pretty good. The key thing is to be honest about yourself when you list films. We've got a ton of 'difficult' and attention-demanding films on our list, which get sent to us constantly. Nine times out of ten we're too knackered to watch them and just want something escapist or fun, so we send them back. So either regularly prune your lists or get in the habit of quickly returning films you're not actually going to watch.

Also, I'd suggest starting with the top-end 'Light Use' package (4 discs a month, 2 at home at once) and see how you do, rather than the unlimited one. You'll probably find 4 discs a month is plenty. We're going to downgrade to that shortly.
posted by Happy Dave at 9:26 AM on December 9, 2010

Always fast. Only slow when it's us forgetting to return them. And great regarding discs that don't make it.

Happy Dave's EXACTLY right about your film list. We've suffered in the same way with too many high falutin' interlectual ones. We just send the clever ones back if we're not in the mood.
posted by dowcrag at 9:33 AM on December 9, 2010

Oh yeah, and their iPhone app is brilliant for spur-of-the-moment adding to your lists.
posted by Happy Dave at 9:37 AM on December 9, 2010

I have a 3 disc at a time (to a max of 20, which I never get near, the most I ever do is 15, and it gets pretty low at times) service from them, they have had their ups and downs over the years but have been mostly good recently, with 2 day turnarounds being quite common (eg post one Tuesday, get one back Thursday). Have had some problems this week and I was wondering if it was weather or because I've had a lot of rentals this month. My SO uses their 6 discs a month service and finds that meets her needs.

I agree with the others, try to set a limit on how long you will keep a disc at home unwatched, I got some arty Korean vampire flick earlier this year which I then struggled to motivate myself to watch and it sat there for months.

They are also pretty good with TV series, once you have seen the first disc then the others come through rapidly and generally in order. (This increases my turnover, but works for me as we don't watch broadcast TV.)
posted by biffa at 9:54 AM on December 9, 2010

another satisfied customer here.

Their new streaming service is working great on my PS3 (if a little lacking in titles).
posted by TheOtherGuy at 9:55 AM on December 9, 2010

I've been with them since they started (and previously when they were Amazon). They've always been very prompt of getting films back to me. Well, they slow down a bit this time of year - but I'd blame Royal Mail for that (and the one time a disk actually went missing). And they have always been very good at replacing the odd scratched disk without a quibble.

The only problem I've had has been with the free streaming I get which just doesn't work for me during the early evening (and not at all last week). I've complained but they say the problem is with my ISP.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:10 AM on December 9, 2010

Response by poster: Thank you, one and all. The consensus is definitely that there seems to be no slowdown in fulfilment of the DVDs, though perhaps a bit slow on the download speeds for the streaming player.

I'm going to go ahead and subscribe. Thanks for your insights!
posted by sagwalla at 2:18 PM on December 9, 2010

Also satisfied, though I've only been with them a few months. I've been particularly impressed that if I leave most of my list of moderate priority and one on high, I'll almost always get the high priority one, so can pretty much choose what I want to receive next.
posted by penguin pie at 3:29 PM on December 9, 2010

Been using them a few years now and am happy. The only problem is when I leave worthy documentaries on the coffee table for weeks at a time...
posted by cmarie at 10:32 AM on December 17, 2010