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I can’t say this has exactly come as a shock to me — I said as much in my review of the two services — but now we have statistically undeniable proof. According to the streaming aggregation masters at Oric, almost every film of TV show is an exclusive to either Neftlix or LoveFilm, but not on both. Good thing they’re both cheapish.
It seems that, out of LoveFilm’s library of 3,284 movies, 92 per cent of them aren’t available on Netflix. Likewise, Netflix has 1,668 films on its roster in the UK, with 84 per cent of them absent from LoveFilm. The various TV shows available on the two services make similar reading too, which just means that if you want a decent library to stream from you’re going to need to sink your cash into both, and that’s not even taking into account Sky’s Now TV offering either. Pricy stuff when you start adding them all up.
What we really need is one box that will search both for the movie you’re after, which is exactly what YouView’s promising, it’s just that neither Netflix or LoveFilm have jumped on-board Sir Sugar’s platform yet. If you’re a PC or Mac streamer, though, Oric might be worth checking out to make the hunt for TV shows and movies a little easier. [Cnet]
Image credit: Film from Shutterstock
“What we really need is one box that will search both for the movie you’re after”
Xbox 360 will do that, provided you’re willing to pay for an Xbox Live subscription on top of your LoveFilm and NetFlicx ones.
Lovefilm on consoles doesn’t have the vast majority of the content available for streaming. God knows why, but it basically makes it completely useless. Especially as they don’t stream in HD.
So does the PS3, but they are all very shitty layouts on both consoles and even the website is not laid out very well.
I think Apple could dominate with the massive library, I would easily pay £15 – £20 a month for unlimited streaming off iTunes, only if they could put it on consoles aswell.
The integrated search is the key thing I was talking about. The dashboard Bing implementation on Xbox 360 will search for films, TV or music across all your media apps, including iPlayer, 4OD and such, as well as MS’ online rental store.
Ahh, never used that, but then again I never want to watch a specific film unless I see an advert for it, and if there’s an advert for it I can pretty much guess it wont be on Lovefilm or Netflix.
I, like most people I know, want to go through a list of films until they see an interesting looking one and then read the bio, reviews and maybe the advert.
The fact that you need an Xbox Life subscription to use things like Netflix etc really irks me for some reason. Is it going through Microsoft Servers? if it’s not then it feels like a bit of a rip off (though most Xbox owners are going to have an Xbox live subscription I guess…)
Correction, if you want a decent ‘legal’ streaming library you’ll need both Lovefilm and Netflix
I suspect that the current legal system may well be a little immoral. The fact that there are so many exclusives for each company makes me suspicious of them. Would not be surprised if there was the occasional phone call between bosses, discussing who should have what.
It’s the movie studios who are most to blame. They like having strong competitors in the market as they can peddle exclusivity deals to the highest bidder. The streaming services end up paying so much for these deals that they make relatively little profit.
The streamers lose out, the customer loses out. The current status quo is weighted heavily in favour of the studios, who are raking in money for old rope.
LoveFilm needs to sort out better quality streaming for it to even think about being a competitor to Netflix in anything other than haggling exclusive content deals.
As much as I’d be happy to sub to both for the best of both worlds, the fact is that Lovefilm’s streaming is ass-backwards and unfit for streaming to a TV.
As both LoveFilm & Netflix both use Amazon Web Services to serve their content, there isn’t any difference
Lovefilm don’t use an adaptive bit-rate algorithm like Netflix do. They cap it at a pretty low level, meaning that’s the best you’ll ever, ever get.
Netflix, meanwhile, will serve your content at as high a quality as you can manage it.
When I’m paying for a connection capable of streaming HD content, I expect to stream HD content on it.
Yeah, Netflix’s technology is impressive. The full HD streams are decent quality and it can pipe Dolby Digital 5.1 into my AV receiver.
It’s just a shame that not all of their films stream in such high quality, and their overall selection is limited.
I also noticed a lot of dropped frames and stuttering when streaming from my PS3, a problem that wasn’t shared by my Samsung smart TV. Odd.
Works nicely in HD on my telly. Not so well on my PS3 but that may well have something to do with the ram on the PS3.
…or just avoid the whole half-assed streaming thing and get a Lovefilm DVD subscription instead.
All the convenience of being sent a film randomly on a long list and waiting 2 days to get it and 2 days to send it back (IF you watch it straight away).
IDEAL
It’s far from ideal, but then neither is streaming.
My point is it’s arguably better, not ideal.
I’ve been getting Blu Rays by post from LoveFilm instead of streaming as I wanted to try out some 3D movies before buying them, as no one offers 3D movie streaming.
Yep, just one of the many advantages of Blu-Ray rental.
Video/audio quality, features and (most importantly) the range of available titles are also superior.
Netflix are starting 3D streams aren’t they?
Interesting, I hadn’t seen the reports of Netflix and 3D streaming yet. Seems to be US only for now, and via certain ISPs, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for more news on that.
Yep, fair point
If you feel it to be half-assed, you need to get yourself a netflix subscription and this browser extension: https://mediahint.com/
Lovefilm’s crap quality service with bugger all choice is nothing compared to Netflix’s US selection in HD. Why wait 2 days to watch something when it’s available to watch right now?
As yes, the different market conditions in the US mean their streaming offerings are far superior.
I’m not bashing the concept of streaming (it’s the future, after all), just its current implementation in the UK, which is light years away from realising its full potential.
XMBC
Before I clicked on the Oric link, I thought both Lovefilm and Netflix have APIs so should be simple enough to do, but then I clicked on the link, job has already been done.
May look into into writing something for the (Samsung) Smart TV platform to do the job though, purely because I have one and both the services
Will investigate tonight.
This is what annoys me about the ‘LEGAL’ streaming methods. If the industry was serious about cutting out piracy they would stop all this ‘exclusive’ nonsense, allow all streaming services access to their back catalogue (not just the usual crap) and count the money coming in. Hell, if they did that I would pay a lot each month for having access to everything, and get rid of sky.
Until that happens though, I won’t subscribe to any, and piracy will continue to distribute at little or no cost.
This! – one service, one fixed monthly cost, everything on it all US shows, all movies same time as DVD release, TV Shows on the same day (including US Shows).
That’s the ultimate, but the studios will never let it happen. It’s not in their interests for the customer to get everything they want, or else what would they have left to sell us?
One day!! Lovefilm and Netflix fight to the death!
LoveFilm’s library is impressive, their implementation leaves a lot to be desired though… It’s partially why I cancelled my subscription. OK the iPad app is nice but no Airplay support (don’t give me “blame the studios” Netflix has it), no iPhone support and no AppleTV.
Their PS3 implementation wasn’t too bad but whatever I watched (I think I used Source Code seeing as they were advertising it heavily) was pretty underwhelming in picture quality. (Note, this was before LoveFilm had HD but SD quality was still pretty meh)
Have they gotten around to organising their TV catalog properly yet? That annoyed me too.
Since this is the UK version I’ll say this:
If you want a decent streaming library you need both Netflix and Unblock US.
I hear ya, I dumped lovefilm this month if they don’t have the buying power it will never improve
I share my Netflix log in with a friend who in turn shares their Lovefilm log in. Between the three services (I’m counting the US Netflix as well) there’s a pretty good range of content. The biggest upset for our household is that only Netflix provides subtitles on their streaming content, and even then not everything has captions.
I know it doesn’t affect everybody so it’s hard to empathise, but it means that my wife often misses out on things she’d like to watch because she’s deaf. I’d really like to see Lovefilm (and Netflix to an extent) sort it out!