inside LOVEFiLM

On May Bank Holidays past, I’ll have been polishing my best It’s Still Good To Watch Films Even When The Weather’s Hot & Sunny speech. Would that such a thing were required for this weekend.

Alas, grey skies and temperatures under 10 degrees is the lot for most of us. Still, it’s a 3 day break, so if you’re looking for the latest additions to our streaming service, here’s the May issue of the New to LOVEFiLM Instant feature.

Some great titles therein, including Guy Ritchie’s first geezeriffic take on Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downey Jr in truly excellent form, Morgan Freeman superb as Nelson Mandela in Invictus (and able supported by Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar), and Spike Jonze’s version of the popular kids fantasy story, Where The Wild Things Are.

Some tasty superhero titles make their entrance too, courtesy of our friends at WarnerFilms, tying in nicely with the Avengers action kicking off all over the big screen at the moment.

And on the subject of Warner Bros, if you’ve heard word of their recently opened Harry Potter studio tour and wondered if it’s worth it, wonder no longer: it’s fabulous.

A few LOVEFiLMers took the tour and even the most cynical and buttoned-up of our number were well and truly wowed. There’s a bit of history, a small amount of helpful guidance through the early parts (including the Great dining Hall), and then you’re left to explore some amazing sets and marvel at the incredible level of detail, care and passion that has been poured into this ground-breaking film series.

You can even fly a broomstick if you want. Probably best to do this before you sample the Butter Beer.

But whatever your plans, from all of us here at LOVEFiLM, have a great Bank Holiday weekend…

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager

Hello, I’m Fern, and I’ve been at LOVEFiLM for… well, longer than I care to mention or admit, actually. I’ve seen a lot of changes in that time as we’ve grown the company and expanded the service from humble beginnings.

Choice has always been a key principle for us. Early on, that simply meant making as many films available as we possibly could. These days, it’s also about providing different formats – games, for example, and Blu-ray, and streaming on LOVEFiLM Instant.

Your options continue within the LOVEFiLM Instant service, of course, with an array of different consoles and apps.

And if you’re using a PlayStation®3 to watch films instantly, you have yet another choice – the option of High Quality or Standard Quality streaming.

This option appears each time you select a title to watch. Simply hit the High Quality or Standard Quality button, and your film or TV episode will then play appropriately.

• High Quality – choose this option if your broadband connection is strong and fast (with a speed of 3Mbps or more), as it improves the picture and the sound to near HD levels
• Standard Quality – choose this option if your broadband connection is slower than 3Mbps, to reduce buffering and smooth out playback

If your broadband speed tends to vary depending on the time and day you’re watching, you can choose whichever option suits you best at the time.

Even during playback, just hit the ‘O’ (circle) button, choose the title from the menu screen again, and the HQ/SQ selection page will appear, which could be useful if you’re using High Quality and you start to experience buffering and need to swap to Standard Quality.

I hope you find this helps with your viewing…

Fern O’Sullivan,Group Operations Director

Update: we’re keeping low priority – more details to follow

Today, I’m pleased to reveal some changes to the Rental list page. We’re always speaking to our members about how to keep improving LOVEFiLM, and the need for a more simplified, easier to use Rental list page was coming over loud and clear. We’ve also introduced some new features that we hope you’ll enjoy too.

New ‘look and feel’

It’s cleaner and less cluttered, but we’ve retained all of the great features from the previous version, including:

• Titles at home panel, which displays the titles you have at home
• Main Rental list panel, where you can prioritise, move and remove titles
• Reserved list panel, where you can add titles that are yet to be released

The new features on the Rental list page include…

Change disc format

You can now change your disc format (from DVD to Blu-ray, for example, or from Xbox 360® to PS3™) on the page. If there is no option to do so, it means other formats are not available for that title.

Add titles to your Rental List without leaving the page

You can now add new releases without leaving the Rental list page, as we’ve introduced a New releases panel on the right hand side.

Prioritise your Reserved titles

You can now prioritise titles on your Reserved list – another much requested feature we are pleased to incorporate.

Direct access to your Rented titles and Rated titles from the Rental list page

Above the Titles at home panel, some handy new links give you direct access to titles you’ve previously rented and rated.

Easier management of multiple lists

If you have more than one list set up within your Rental list, we’ve simplified the display of those multiple lists. What’s this?

Simplified prioritising

• Instead of using High, Medium and Low, the simplified priority system just uses High and Normal, which should make managing your list quicker and easier
• Don’t worry if you currently have titles set to Low priority – they won’t be changed, but any new titles you add to your list can’t be assigned to Low priority
• You might find it easier to manage low priority titles on a separate list altogether, and our multiple list system makes this all really easy – Find out more here

We hope you enjoy these changes and that they improve your LOVEFiLM experience. As always, we look forward to your feedback.

Simon Waldman, Group Product Director