Online movie rental

caff

caff

caff

Soldato
Joined
8 Feb 2004
Posts
3,825
Location
London
Any suggestions on good sites to rent/stream individual films from?

I've tried a few so far:

Curzon Home Cinema: definitely the best I've tried so far - good quality, prices good (£2-£4) on older films, but new releases more
Blinkbox: mixed quality, tried to complain about one HD film but they refused to refund me
Google Play: again mixed quality, films advertised as HD but streaming in low res.

Any others I should try?
 
I used Amazon Instant for the first time this week - £3.50 for a "premium price" movie. All needed to do was turn on 1-click purchases under my Amazon account.
I used the included app on my Samsung TV and streamed/watched in HD.

The subscription price is also good, but there seems to be a host of "premium" content that is not included in your subscription.
 
stoofa said:
I used Amazon Instant for the first time this week - £3.50 for a "premium price" movie. All needed to do was turn on 1-click purchases under my Amazon account.
I used the included app on my Samsung TV and streamed/watched in HD.

The subscription price is also good, but there seems to be a host of "premium" content that is not included in your subscription.
Click to expand...

Quality is as good as Blu-Ray? How big are the downloads?

caff said:
Oh nice, I didn't know about Amazon Instant.
Click to expand...

What used to be LoveFilm.
 
For older movies you might as well spend an extra £1-2 and buy them.
ITunes or Xbox movies depending on your set up. Plenty of £5 films.
Rentals are a complete rip off.
 
V F said:
Quality is as good as Blu-Ray? How big are the downloads?
Click to expand...

Yes, fullHD, so streamed at 1080p, so long as your internet connection can cope. If for any reason your connection speeds drops below a certain threshold then the stream will revert to SD. We watched the whole of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at FullHD.

Cannot tell you the size - we streamed directly to our Samsung TV via the built-in Samsung app. Becuase the TV only has a small amount of RAM we would have been downloading only a buffer rather than the whole thing.
 
stoofa said:
Yes, fullHD, so streamed at 1080p, so long as your internet connection can cope. If for any reason your connection speeds drops below a certain threshold then the stream will revert to SD. We watched the whole of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at FullHD.
Click to expand...

You can still get lots of heavy compression with that.
 
stoofa said:
Yes, fullHD, so streamed at 1080p, so long as your internet connection can cope. If for any reason your connection speeds drops below a certain threshold then the stream will revert to SD. We watched the whole of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at FullHD.

Cannot tell you the size - we streamed directly to our Samsung TV via the built-in Samsung app. Becuase the TV only has a small amount of RAM we would have been downloading only a buffer rather than the whole thing.
Click to expand...

How did you get dawn of the planet of the Apes?
That's just out in the cinema!!
 
Ive had Lovefilm/Amazon instant and Netflix. IMO Netflix is way better. Amazon instant has lots of cheap low budget crap films on it that no one wants to watch. You know, the type you would see on Movies for men on Sky.
 
Showboat said:
How did you get dawn of the planet of the Apes?
That's just out in the cinema!!
Click to expand...

Sorry - having seen them both within 24hrs of each other I got myself in a muddle. Saw Rise on Amazon on Monday and then Dawn in the cinema Tuesday evening.
Amazon was the only place I could find that would allow me to watch Rise - although must admit I didn't check all of the streaming services.
 
I've used Blinkbox a lot. My free credit is running out now though, so ill probably revert to Xbox Video. The 'Smartglass Edition' films seem like they could be interesting, but expensive versus the non-Smartglass counterparts (and can't be rented...).

I think overall digital prices are still a bit too high. There's little price competition within the market and no incentive to reduce the price of older films dramatically (given they take up no physical space). Separate pricing for HD and SD is silly, especially in the rental market. A £3.49 flat price would be much more reasonable, with quality scaling to match connection speed.
 
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We just got a Prime membership trial because we needed some stuff delivered quick for a holiday.

Currently trying to decide whether to keep it when the trial expires. Not sure that there's that many films on there we'd want to watch, but the search mechanic is a bit pap to tell for sure.

What are people's thoughts? (And do they keep the best films away from prime members and only for people with full memberships?)
 
I really don't like the way Amazon Instant works. It feels dirty how they direct you to Amazon Instant Video, and then show you a bunch of films that you have to pay extra for before you can find the free ones.
 
I've tried Netflix and lovefilm, and I have to say I really liked the selection that Netflix had to offer, not only all the movies etc, but the TV shows as well really is a great idea.
 
Glaucus said:
Rentals are a complete rip off.
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I would rent/stream a boatload of movies if they were 99p each. I'd probably end up spending a fortune.

At £2.50 (SD) to £3.50 (HD), I'm really not fussed. I can happily wait for most things to turn up on TV.

At most places, even movies that are years old still cost £2.50 to watch them. No thanks.

[edit: actually for new releases you can add £1 again. £3.50 for SD and £4.50 for HD. Rip-off central. I can go the cinema for £8, why would I want to spend £5 to stream movies on my small PC monitor? Beats me. Should be a *lot* cheaper]
 
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