Lovefilm coming to PS3 next month

OriginalJonty · 11 Oct 2010 at 12:09

In what's undoubtedly one of the most understated announcements of the year, LoveFilm's confirmed it'll be launching a movie service on PlayStation 3 next month.

A trailer that stealthily appeared on YouTube last month states that the PS3 film rental service will be kicking off in November. Don't put out a press release or anything, chaps.

Existing mail customers will incur no additional charge on their current monthly fee, it says.

Lovefilm currently has 1.4 million members, offers thousands of movies and TV shows online via its Lovefilm Player, and 67,000 titles for DVD rental.

This summer the firm hinted it'll also be launching a service for Wii and iPad.

It's about time. I use Lovefilm and I'm excited that I'll be able to stream their vast selection on my PS3.

The Running Man · 11 Oct 2010 at 12:11

does streaming actually work? what about skips and pausing and compression artefacts?

is it not easier to just get the dvd?

OriginalJonty · 11 Oct 2010 at 12:13

Nickg said:
does streaming actually work? what about skips and pausing and compression artefacts?

is it not easier to just get the dvd?

I use Lovefilm on my laptop to stream some movies while also using the service to rent BluRays. I don't have a problem with the streaming service but it will, obviously, depend on your connection.

K1LLSW1TCH · 11 Oct 2010 at 12:17

I'm guessing this will be a download service where you download the movie and it renders it's self unusable 48 hours after you press play (or similar).

mcwildcard · 11 Oct 2010 at 13:46

Do they do HD streaming?

OriginalJonty · 11 Oct 2010 at 15:52

mcwildcard said:
Do they do HD streaming?

http://www.lovefilm.com/help/dyn_faqs.html?faq_cat=watch_online&editorial_id=19713

I'm not sure if that really answers the question but if they're going to be streaming to the PS3 then I'd assume they're at least working on a dedicated HD streaming service.

Alpherah · 11 Oct 2010 at 16:52

Ill just wait for it to arrive in the post tbh

better quality! and always arrives in time for that 'special night in' if you plan ahead a little.

iv-tecman · 11 Oct 2010 at 17:21

If its in HD then on demand film rental sounds a really nice idea, even a modest 4mb line can obtain a 4GB or even 8GB download within a few hours...

Depends on the link speed to lovefilms servers, but considering you have to wait a few days for online postal rentals, and even then your list isn't anything to go by. You never get the films you want to watch first, reason I don't use these services.. but on demand rental means I get what I want within a few hours - if its in HD then happy days..

msmalls74 · 11 Oct 2010 at 17:24

Looks like there is about 4000 free videos to stream, prices start at £5.99 a month so not to bad. Not sure but i know with content on a pen drive or whatever the PS3 upscales the video, not sure if it does the same with streamed content.

rp2000 · 11 Oct 2010 at 18:57

Never used a streaming DVD rental company before. The only one I have heard of is Netflix (US based).

Do they:

1) Have films encoded themselves on a server and stream that to you?
or
2) Have some sort of automated jukeboxes that have loaded (or load) the DVDs you would rent and stream the DVD to you in "realtime"?
or
3) Do they get the streamed/digital copies of the movies from the film studios directly (like iTunes etc).

OriginalJonty said:
I use Lovefilm on my laptop to stream some movies while also using the service to rent BluRays. I don't have a problem with the streaming service but it will, obviously, depend on your connection.

How much does this cost a month?

rp2000

cb_linus · 11 Oct 2010 at 19:29

If this happens I will be very pleased - I've been considering upgrading my membership to include free online movies for a while now, but never really had the hardware to make best use of it

Jamesbcd · 11 Oct 2010 at 22:12

The selection of films available for stream aren't that great tbh. The sooner Netflix launch, the better.

OriginalJonty · 11 Oct 2010 at 22:54

rp2000 said:
Never used a streaming DVD rental company before. The only one I have heard of is Netflix (US based).

Do they:

1) Have films encoded themselves on a server and stream that to you?
or
2) Have some sort of automated jukeboxes that have loaded (or load) the DVDs you would rent and stream the DVD to you in "realtime"?
or
3) Do they get the streamed/digital copies of the movies from the film studios directly (like iTunes etc).

How much does this cost a month?

rp2000

I pay £9.99 a month. For that price I rent any DVD/BluRay/Game I wish, though I can only have one at home at a time, use the Lovefilm streaming service for certain films, the whole collection is available but at a higher price and there are no late fees.

Their postal service is good and I've experienced usually a 2-3 day wait between posting a film back and receiving the next one. I'm not sure about the finer details of their streaming service when it comes to their source.

Substance · 12 Oct 2010 at 01:03

OriginalJonty said:
I pay £9.99 a month. For that price I rent any DVD/BluRay/Game I wish, though I can only have one at home at a time, use the Lovefilm streaming service for certain films, the whole collection is available but at a higher price and there are no late fees.

Their postal service is good and I've experienced usually a 2-3 day wait between posting a film back and receiving the next one. I'm not sure about the finer details of their streaming service when it comes to their source.

When you put blu-rays, dvd's and games in your list do they still send them out at random so you have no idea if you will get a blu-ray or a game when they next ship them out to you?

OriginalJonty · 12 Oct 2010 at 12:25

SuBsTaNcE said:
When you put blu-rays, dvd's and games in your list do they still send them out at random so you have no idea if you will get a blu-ray or a game when they next ship them out to you?

Well you can put the item as a high, medium or low priority. I usually choose one thing as a high priority as I go through my list so I know what I will get next.

VelvetAcid · 12 Oct 2010 at 20:14

SuBsTaNcE said:
When you put blu-rays, dvd's and games in your list do they still send them out at random so you have no idea if you will get a blu-ray or a game when they next ship them out to you?

As well as setting the priority you can also create a separate list for each type (Blu-rays, dvd's & Games). You are then able to assign rental slots (discs) to a list so you always know what type of media your next rental will be.

OriginalJonty · 10 Nov 2010 at 13:27

Lovefilm now available!

So with all the talk of Black Ops and such, I think this may have come in under the radar, but you can now use Lovefilm on PS3. I'm happy as I have a lovefilm account and can't wait to stream films direct from my PS3.

Pav89 · 10 Nov 2010 at 16:01

What is the selection of streamable films like?

Can I, say, share an account with my brother, while he uses the postal service, I just use streaming?

nlr · 10 Nov 2010 at 17:02

Does lovefilm get all the new film releases? is it coming on xbox?

thedoc46 · 10 Nov 2010 at 17:03

Nickg said:
does streaming actually work? what about skips and pausing and compression artefacts?

is it not easier to just get the dvd?

Being in the USA we've had Netflix for sometime now and yes, if you have a decent connection, it's flawless. I'm on cable 5mb and the other day i had to double check to make sure it wasnt a Bluray playing when my son started up an HD film off his own back, that impressed was I !

TV was a Panasonic G20 THX plasma.