Love Film: Saving space for the DVD Collector March 30, 2007
Posted by Daniel Stephens in : Artfully Deranged, The Film Industry , trackbackRecently, my DVD collection passed 700 discs and I found what started out as a novelty - sharing a bed with the hundred or so overspill from my last Ikea do-it-yourself bookshelf - was becoming dangerously unsociable. Some might think I should have figured this out a lot sooner, but ever since I bumped my head as a five-year-old I’ve been rather slow.
Regrettably, I was forced to sell nearly 50 DVDs at a car boot sale. I started to believe there was nothing left to do. My collection was on the verge of dwindling. Those lovely DVDs that had brought such movie-joy into so many lives were about to be sold-off and probably, at least eventually, replaced by those awful, gloating, high-definition discs.
Then I found postal DVD rental and signed up immediately with LoveFilm.com. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t jumped on this ship sooner. LoveFilm.com provide you with two or three DVDs at a time. You can keep them as long as you like and you pay a monthly subscription. The great thing about such rental schemes is that you can see new releases and all those older films you have been trying to get around to, without the hassle of finding space for them. It also cuts out those problem ‘buys’ where on impulse you’ve purchased a film only to find out it’s total and utter rubbish (my recent example would be George Clooney’s insanely pretentious Confessions of a Dangerous Mind – suffice to say, that went in the car boot sale).
Another great thing is: if you rent a film and love it, there’s no reason why you can’t go out and buy it. There will be plenty of space left after you’ve cut out buying things directed by George Clooney.
I’d certainly recommend LoveFilm.com as a viable option for your DVD rental service. They are very prompt with sending discs out. Their first class return envelopes usually arrive within a day (as should be expected) and they almost always have your next discs out on the same day. Their recommendations list, new releases, and back-catalogue titles are all very well presented on an easy-to-use website. They also have a very extensive collection of DVDs available. They’ve had everything I’ve searched for and I’ve really put them to the test with some older, niche eighties films, television titles, and sports DVDs. They also have a good reviews service, so you can comment on films after you’ve viewed them. I haven’t had any problematic discs from them so far, but if you do receive a DVD that doesn’t work, they have a very simple ‘report problem’ function on the website for quick rectification.
It also works out much cheaper. I found that over the past year, I’d spend between £20 and £50 a month on DVDs. I’ve gone with LoveFilm’s £12.99 a month package which allows me to have 2 DVDs at home for any length of time, with an unlimited amount of rentals a month. After two months I’ve rented around 16 films. For £15.99 per month you can have 3 DVDs at home. As expected, I haven’t bought a DVD during that time, and I haven’t felt the need to.
STOP! Don’t jump into renting with Love Film until you’ve read my UPDATE
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I used to be with a very similar service to this a couple of years ago - can’t remember the name, but they might have merged with lovefilm since then. I quite liked it, and agree you can get shot of a lot of the crap you might otherwise have bought. On the downside, it’s a service that only represents value if you keep watching the DVDs. Also, we sometimes found the new releases didn’t get delivered in favour of stuff way down the list that would nearly always be in stock. You only get a certain amount of choice in the discs that are sent out.
But hey, if it works for you…
Yeah, I do agree that you have to keep watching the films otherwise it isn’t cost effective. With new releases, I think they must have improved as I’ve managed to get my first choices each time. There have been delays on The Departed and another new release I can’t remember the name of, but they keep you up-to-date with unavailable titles.
[…] As a consequence, Sky Movies and Sports have gone, along with the slew of deafening music channels (is it just me, or do they all seem to have a fixation on Christina Aguilera? Don’t get it, personally) and some of the news stations. Instead, I’ve gone back to using a service I once got fed up with, and that’s to subscribe to Love Film’s DVD rental gig. It’s all Daniel Stephens’ fault. Ever since he waxed lyrical about its virtues, it’s been like a cancer in my brain, eating into the recesses of my consciousness until I decided to ship out reams of Sky and go for that instead. […]