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Update 20/6/12: We’re switching back to the old list for a couple of days as we make some performance improvements, and prepare to roll it out as a default to all customers without low priority

Two weeks ago, we announced a number of changes to the rental list and gave some of you early access to the new list. As expected, the feedback flooded in, so – firstly – thanks for all your comments.

The new list is faster and cleaner, and those who’ve seen it are adding more titles to their list. But it’s clear from your responses that we got a few things wrong. So, we have a plan, which is as follows…

Low priority is staying

We decided to remove low-priority with good intentions, but it’s clear that that was a bad decision. We plan to make low-priority work fully within the new list, but that will take a bit of time to sort out. Hence our next move…

From 18 April: choose the list you want

We will soon start to make the beta release of the new list available to all customers. The default will be that if you currently have low-priority titles, you’ll see the old list; and if you don’t have any low-priority titles, you’ll see the new list. You will, however, be able to switch between lists at any time.

So you’ll still be able to add low-priority titles to your list on the website or on other devices. And on the beta of the new list, you’ll still see low priority titles, you just won’t be able to change a high or normal priority title to low priority.

When we fix low priority on the new list – we will move over to the new list

Keeping two lists live isn’t the best way of doing things, and the old list is particularly draining on our servers. So when we have full low priority functionality on the new list, we’ll start to move everyone over.

See up to 200 titles at a time

A consistent item of feedback related to the removal of the ’show all’ option (changing to a fixed view of 50 titles). So we’ll amend this on the new list to give you the option of seeing 50, 100 or 200 titles. We’re not planning to go back to ’show all’ at this stage, I’m afraid, because activating this for members with very long lists causes knock-on performance issues. A 200 title view will allow most people to see their entire list at a glance, while also ensuring the list is faster than before.

An easy way to move low priority titles to a new list with no dispatches allocated

We know that some of you love your low priority, and some use it to list LOVEFiLM Instant titles for watching online – if that’s you, you could create a dedicated list for this with no dispatches allocated to it. We’ll soon be providing a one click solution to make this even easier. Ultimately, of course, we’ll provide a new and dedicated list for LOVEFiLM Instant titles. More on this soon, but in the meantime, you can find multiple lists here.

Bug fixing

We’ve already fixed a number of bugs, most notably the hovers that disappeared on some lists. Please keep letting us know if you find something isn’t working – we’re committed to getting this absolutely right for you, so thanks again for all your comments…

Simon Waldman, Group Product Director