LoveFilm DVD Rental

LOVEFILM are by far the UK's largest online DVD rental company and with more titles to rent than anyone else plus a whole range of innovative new services it looks like they're determined to keep it that way.

Long trial

Lovefilm currently have a special offer available when you sign up via us.

The 30-day trial (only 14 days if you go direct) is available from any of the sign up links on this page.

Huge DVD and game library

Lovefilm have over 65,000 movie titles (including bonus discs) on their virtual shelves - only Blockbuster can really claim to compete on that front.

There are also just over 6,400 games available to rent for a variety of consoles, a count beaten by few.

There isn't an option for a 'games only' subscription but with a 'games included' deal you can choose to rent whichever combination of games and films suits you best.

What really impresses us, though, is Lovefilm's guarantee that if you manage to find some long forgotten UK-released DVD that miraculously isn't in their collection (and, trust us, we've tried) they'll not only source it for you in days but send it to you first too.

Online streaming

Lovefilm users can already take advantage of online streaming on site - hotly tipped to eventually overtake the DVDs-by-post model.

There are just over 2000 titles currently available. Those with unlimited deals can watch as many of these as they like while those on limited deals have a few hours to watch online or on TV either through an internet-enabled TV or via the PS3.

£5.99 gives you two hours and £8.16 (£10.20 with games) gives you four hours but you won't get any at all with the very cheapest £4.99 and £5.99 with games deals.

There's also a range of free and one-off fee videos for everyone else (even those who aren't Lovefilm subscribers). Prices vary but expect to pay around £2.99 to watch once and £9.99 to watch and then keep forever.

In some cases you can also buy the download to watch immediately and Lovefilm will send you a hardcopy of the film on DVD to keep. Now that's what we call service.

Great website

Cleanly designed, without n'er a broken link in sight, Lovefilm's website is definitely one of their biggest assets.

It's exceptionally easy to navigate around, add titles to a rental queue and find answers to common problems - in other words, do all the things that'll allow you to get hold of the films and games you want with as little stress as possible.

More than that, though, click in a few pages and you'll realise that the site is rich in extras - film gossip, celebrity interviews, competitions and lists of recommended titles to name just a few - from Lovefilm's staff writers and small army of subscribers.

A particular favourite (if fairly addictive) of ours is the section where celebrities recommend titles for your rental queue: The Godfather? Don't mind if we do, Jamie Foxx.

We're also pleased to see that Lovefilm have taken a leaf out of Cinema Paradiso's book and added in multiple rental lists to make it easier to manage your DVD rental subscription when you're sharing.

Having said all that, we have heard some subscribers complain of late that intrusive advertising is blocking content on the Lovefilm site.

This is a bit of a blot on an otherwise unblemished online record and one we hope Lovefilm will resolve soon.

A reputation for innovation

Despite being - as we may have mentioned a few times before - a massive company, Lovefilm continue to lead the way in the UK DVD rental market when it comes to innovation.

Lovefilm Pay As You Go rental service too where, instead of unlimited rentals, you simply pay for each DVD you rent. Read our full review of the Lovefilm Pay As You Go DVD rental service.

Note that once you're a customer there are extra rental deals to be had: a 5 disc at a time/10 discs a month family rental deal and cheaper - 1 disc at a time - game deals.

We think we can put Lovefilm's original thinking at least partly down to the fact that they actually seem to listen to their users - they have a big presence on both Facebook and Twitter, for example.

Customer experience

As you might have gathered, the vast majority of feedback we get about Lovefilm - and certainly, our own experience - is very positive.

For such a big company that's pretty impressive and, in fact, when we do hear complaints about customer experience from Lovefilm users they generally fall into one of two categories: availability of popular titles or speed of turnaround.

The former is the Achilles heel of all online DVD rental companies: with almost a million subscribers, the mind just boggles at how many copies of popular titles Lovefilm would need to stock in order to fulfil everyone's wishlist in order.

If you want your first choice of movie at exactly the time you want to watch it, there's always Lovefilm online but only Blockbuster's 'top ticket' deal allows DVD rental customers to order discs on demand.

The second complaint is more worrying; for unlimited users, the faster titles arrive the better the value for money. However, users should remember that Lovefilm are constrained by the service of the Royal Mail so don't expect discs to arrive faster than a 1st class letter would.

Lovefilm get two-thumbs up for:

Being the closest thing to actually being in the video shop! We also love Lovefilm's massive title range, fast turnaround and innovative features.