inside LOVEFiLM

Hey Everyone – in my last post, I was responding to loads of contact about the song in our TV ad. Well, new ad; new song; loads more contact…

Somebody once told me that, in life, “the right thing to do, is always the right thing to do”.

That’s why we chose the current music track for our November and December TV adverts. It’s a cover of a Steve Winwood track called Higher Love. And this unique, haunting and emotional version is sung by a fella called James Vincent McMorrow.

I stumbled across it after I saw him on Later with Jools Holland. Straight away I knew this was the right track for us, so I started digging. As it turns out, James and his record company are great people as well as great musicians. Because the best thing about all this is that proceeds from the use and sale of this track are going to a charity in Ireland called Headstrong.

I am very proud of that fact, and that we can support it by using the song. And we’re delighted to have got involved with something that is (to my earlier point) the right thing to do.

Everybody wins here, basically, so if you want to find out more about the Headstrong charity, click here.

And if you want to hear James’ Higher Love, here it is…

Simon Morris, Chief Marketing Officer

Today I’m really excited to be telling you about a package designed especially for anyone who just wants to stream films & TV episodes.

We think that the combination of renting DVDs, Blu-ray and Games by Post, together with thousands of titles to watch instantly is just about the best value entertainment around. But we also know that some of you just want the instant satisfaction of streaming.

That is why we have created a new package – it’s unlimited, it’s instant, and you can stream in loads of different ways: on your PC or laptop, via internet-connected TVs, on a PS3™, an iPad, and – now – on the Xbox 360.

And it comes at the special launch price of only £4.99 per month. Which is fantastic value for money and just the latest step in our ongoing mission to provide you with convenient ways to watch at an affordable price.

How do you get this streaming only package?

Paying customers: go to your My account page, click the ‘Change package’ link, and choose the ‘LOVEFiLM Instant’ option to switch your package (the change takes affect once you’ve returned your discs).

New customers: if you’re already on a 14 day free trial, you can use the same process (again, the change takes affect once you’ve returned any discs you have at home).

Anyone on a promotional offer of more than a 14 day free trial: please contact us here by email or phone, and we’ll switch your package manually. (This link to contact us is also good if you’ve tried to Change package via your My account page, but haven’t been able to make it work.)

Not yet a customer? Sign up here, and select the ‘LOVEFiLM Instant’ option.

We’re always looking for ways to enhance and upgrade and tweak the LOVEFiLM service, so we made it happen as quickly as we could. There’s still a little bit of ’smoothing out’ work left to do on the website, but the streaming only package is live and available, and we figured that was the most important thing.

So if you decide to switch or sign-up for it, we hope you enjoy our unlimited streaming only package and, in these austere times, enjoy paying a little bit less each month too.

Jim Buckle, Chief Operating Officer

Change is always tricky. Not many of us like it, it can be unsettling, and most of us would prefer things to stay just as they are. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be how life works.

The software that streams our films online is a case in point – it will soon be moving from Flash to a system called Silverlight.

Studios require robust anti-piracy measures

We’ve been asked to make this change by the Studios who provide us with the films in the first place, because they’re insisting – understandably – that we use robust security to protect their films from piracy, and they see the Silverlight software as more secure than Flash.

Simply put: without meeting their requirements, we’d suddenly have next-to-no films to stream online.

Just to be clear – this change doesn’t affect or apply to any of our streaming devices (PS3, iPad, internet TVs, etc); only PCs, laptops and Macs.

And very regrettably, Silverlight software is not supported on non-Intel Macs (those with an operating system of 10.5 or lower) or on computers using the Linux/UNIX operating systems. In fact, none of the solutions available to us allowed secure streaming to Linux users.

HTML 5 was considered, but video streaming via HTML 5 is an open-sourced solution that is still maturing, and there are simply no security protections available within HTML 5 that would allow us to stream content securely.

Silverlight offers the best combination of security, quality and customer experience from a small number of available solutions, and the majority of our customers already have Silverlight installed.

Here’s another reason: a better streaming experience

Silverlight contains a technology called Smooth Streaming, which automatically adjusts the quality of the video stream to the best level for your internet connection. This reduces buffering for customers on a low broadband speed, but then improves the streaming quality when broadband speed increases.

So what now?

Flash software will continue to run alongside Silverlight until the first week of January 2012, so that everyone has time to make the switch (by following the prompt on the LOVEFiLM website, when you click ‘Watch Now’ on a streaming title).

And we’ll continue to offer streaming across a wide range of platforms, DRM services, Players and application technologies – the service will constantly evolve these as new technologies enter the market and new services mature.

Paul Thompson, Streaming Project Manager

Our iPhone app has been one of our great successes. It has now been downloaded more than half a million times, and hundreds of thousands of our customers use it to manage their rental lists on the move.

But not everyone has an iPhone, and over the last year the big story in smartphones has been the spectacular growth of Android.

Until now, LOVEFiLM customers with Android phones have been able to choose from a number of unofficial applications such as Alf for LOVEFiLM, Eye on LOVEFiLM and Lovedroid. All of these are great, but we felt it was only right that we offered an official application that we could commit to supporting.

So, today we’re delighted to introduce our official LOVEFiLM App for Android.

The App lets you browse and search your way through the full, 70,000 strong catalogue of DVDs, Blu-Rays and Games with trailers, reviews and ratings. You can manage all of your rental lists through the ‘My Lists’ section, adding, deleting, changing priority or swapping titles between lists.

We’ve also made some improvements from the iPhone app – the search results, for example, are much cleaner (you’ll only find one result if you search for a particular movie, rather than different results for DVD and Blu Ray.)

It works best with versions of Android 2.2 onwards, and is available in the UK, Sweden, Norway and Denmark (Germany’s to follow soon).

If you’re one of the growing army of Android users, you’ll find it in the Android Market now. We hope you like it.

Rose Tighe, Mobile Manager

Horror films are a curious business – perhaps there’s something primal or elemental (or just plain mental) about our love of stories that scare us half to death, then leave us with sleepless nights and peering petrified into the shadowy corners of our own homes.

Whatever the reason, if you’re looking for an instant fright night on October 31st (or any other night), here are a few screaming streaming suggestions.

Sam Raimi’s rather excellent B-movie horror-comedies The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 are both available. And from even earlier, George A Romero’s Night of the Living Dead brings the zombies to town.

Ring is just one of many Asian terror-mongers; Audition and Ju-On are really creepy too, as is the original Dark Water. And on the subject of originals, the atmosphere created in Ole Bornedal’s Nightwatch - about a security guard in a mortuary – is intense.

More recently, Dead Snow is proving very popular (skiers run into Nazi zombies!); likewise The Box, starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden.

Trick ‘R Treat has obvious Halloween credentials going for it, but if you’re looking for the all-time classics how about The Exorcist (it’s a version you’ve never seen before, apparently), or Vincent Price in The House on Haunted Hill, James Whale’s Frankenstein, or even FW Murnau’s silent Dracula horror, Nosferatu, from 1922.

Or, you know, there’s always the attack of the giant ants in Them…

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager

Everybody loves throwing shapes on the dance floor (even if they’re not very good at it). I remember trying to replicate the moves after watching dance films like Flashdance, Footloose, and – of course – Dirty Dancing. I thought I was amazing, but I’m sure I looked like I had two left feet. Anyway, they’ve remade Footloose, so we took the LOVEFiLM members’ pulse on the Best Dance Moves in Film.

Top spot went to Dirty Dancing’s Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, because – fairly obviously – nobody puts Baby in a corner.

John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s ultra-cool twisting in Pulp Fiction secured them second place. And Gene Kelly splashed into third with his iconic scene from Singin’ In The Rain.

Napoleon Dynamite’s infamous stage dance came fourth. This routine has been recreated by many on YouTube, and seriously, who can keep their feet still while listening to Jamiroquai’s Canned Heat?

Travolta’s slick, hand-jiving, solo routine in Saturday Night Fever and Kevin Bacon’s highly-charged moves from Footloose came next – I just hope the remake does justice to the original; not too sure about the introduction of line-dancing!

Mike Myers, with his cat-like cavorting in that unforgettable scene in The Spy Who Shagged Me, was in joint seventh place with Jennifer Beals, who used a bucket of water so memorably in Flashdance.

Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan in Step Up took eighth, with their fancy footwork and sexual tension. And the lads from The Full Monty were next, with a routine that you simply could not take your eyes off – need I say more?!

Finally, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill’s Superbad routine – all awkward, retro steps, and delivered in a manner that only the Superbad boys can – came tenth.

Hopefully, just the mention of some dance classics has got your fingers clicking (add to rental list), your toes tapping, and your feet itching to recreate the best dance movie moves all over your living room floor. Just mind the lamps…

Astrid Beretta, UK Brand Manager

Tempus fugit, said the Roman poet, and October seems to be pretty well fugiting too (although the Romans would probably have been talking about August, of course, but that’s not especially relevant). What IS important is that we’ve already reached the ides of October, so with half the month left, here are a few must-see pointers:

First and foremost, you can stream RED at no extra cost, like about a gazillion members have done already since we launched it last week. Maybe loads of people missed it at the cinema, maybe it’s just massive fun – but get a load of Bruce Willis and his OAP A-Team (Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich) while you can.

A slightly younger crew of special ops agents also get grumpy and vengeful in The Losers. And R-Patz, K-Stew and T-Laut continue their L-Tri in the third instalment of the Twilight saga, E-Clipse. You can stream both of these as part of your subscription too. I know, like OMG, right?!

Far more serious vamp action comes in the pared-down, road-movie form of Stake Land – which is premium pay-per-view (so £3.50 to stream), but pretty damn good. And also combining damn and good, Devil’s Advocate is on streaming – yeah, it’s 14 years old already, but who doesn’t enjoy Al Pacino over-acting his head off and Keanu Reeves getting into seriously hot water?

Texas Killing Fields looks dark and thrilling at the cinema – that’s Sam Worthington (Avatar, The Debt) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen) hunting a serial killer in the Texan swamplands. Not 100% sure about The Three Musketeers, but it might be rompy fun (and director Paul WS Anderson’s Event Horizon is one of my all-time favourites). And Contagion is the 21st century version of Outbreak, which we’ve got on streaming, if you fancy a global viral epidemic nostalgia trip.

Plenty more to enjoy, of course, in every department. I’ve just added Life In A Day to my DVD rental list – director Kevin Macdonald’s collage movie of YouTube films from across the world, all sent on one day: 24 July, 2010 – and I’ve added The Beaver too. Stop sniggering.

But if I’m looking forward to one thing more than any other this month, it’s George Clooney returning to triple-hatted duties as star/writer/director of a US political thriller (based on the play Farragut North, which itself is based on a real-life Presidential primary campaign). It’s released on 28 Oct, and it’s called The Ides of March.

See…? All that nonsense in the first paragraph makes some vague degree of sense now, right…?

Darren Bignell, Senior Communications Manager