Lovefilm how does streaming work

This continues today, and in fact is available pretty cheaply in conjunction with Lovefilm Instant, the on-demand streaming service. Available is a mixture of movies and TV shows, with certain content — such as Tom Cruise film and new release Oblivion — only available for rental. Looking for something to watch?

The company also operates an Intellectual Property and Licensing business unit. For more information: www. For those on an Unlimited package the service comes at no extra cost. This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below. More From Video on Demand. Lovefilm in particular adopts Microsoft's own metro interface for closer integration with the 's front end, sharing a similar tile-based system that operates in the same way.

The menus on the PS3 and Wii U are slightly different, with the main categories listed at the top of the screen on Nintendo's console, but otherwise they are nicely laid out and work in a similar manner. Both services allow you to pause, fast-forward and rewind during playback, but in this respect Netflix is more user-friendly: screen caps are provided in ten-second intervals for the video stream, allowing you to find a specific scene with ease. In comparison, Lovefilm has the same basic options but the lack of any preview images means relying on timestamps to find your way around.

Regardless of platform, browsing and searching is much faster on Netflix with Lovefilm menus slow to respond. In terms of client functionality, Wii U owners get some mild touch-screen features using the GamePad: searching is more intuitive here, with the results nicely displayed on your HDTV. Another cool aspect of the tablet on both services is the ability to view videos on the GamePad's display with just a quick tap of the screen.

Image quality is rather good too: videos look softer due to the reduction in resolution, but compression artifacts are much harder to spot. You can also take advantage of the in-built speakers of the GamePad for playback without an HDTV, or alternatively hook up a pair of headphones if you want higher-quality sound and stereo separation. It's not up there with the iPad experience, but it's a cool bonus feature nonetheless. Another Wii U advantage is power consumption, or rather the lack of it - the console sips less than half the juice performing the same tasks as both the Xbox and PS3.

In terms of new movies and TV shows, both Netflix and Lovefilm are considerably behind traditional services like Sky and Virgin, but at the same time they do have a wide range of catalogue content on offer. Netflix appears to lead the way with a better selection of popular TV series, with multiple seasons of the likes of Breaking Bad, Dexter and Jericho - also joined by House of Cards, a US political drama series created exclusively for the service with an all-star cast and superb production values.

The situation with movies is less clear-cut. Lovefilm seems to have a bigger selection of more recent titles and there are also more "triple-A" titles in the back catalogue, but one of the key differences is that the same movies are not always available on both services. It's a constant battle for exclusives which could keep users switching between the two services.

That said, the selection of more recent movies isn't particularly amazing on either provider, owing to competing content deals with the likes of Sky and other large media outlets. Most films available are a couple of years old at least, and newer titles often debut months, if not years, later on Netflix and Lovefilm - if ever.

The option of actually hiring out physical discs gives Lovefilm a distinct advantage over Netflix in this regard, although it comes at the expense of convenience - you have access to all the latest releases, but have to wait around for a few days for them to arrive in the post.

Overall, both are great if you want to catch up on older films and shows that you might have missed out on, with Netflix having the edge in terms of TV content. However, those wanting the newest releases and key blockbuster hits - like The Avengers, Skyfall or The Dark Knight Rises - have to consider a traditional subscription-based service, or go with renting out discs via Lovefilm. This is perhaps less of an issue with TV shows, but when it comes to movies, both are limited with regards to content that is available for streaming.

The bottom line: both services are great for watching catalogue movies, with Lovefilm enjoying an edge in more recent content.

In terms of TV shows, Netflix has a better overall range and is starting to generate its own content, but Lovefilm has a few key exclusives. The outlook changes enormously in Netflix's favour if you access the international catalogue via "backdoor" means - at that point Netflix dominates completely.

Interestingly, picture quality varies from both providers. Across a range of content, compression appears to be better handled on Netflix with p material - it appears both cleaner and sharper, taking advantage of the additional bandwidth available. On p content Lovefilm has the edge, with more accurate gamma and better colour accuracy that is closer to the studio master.

Lovefilm sticks closer to the presentation of the Blu-ray encodes, while Netflix appears much brighter, changing the look of skin tones in the process - they appear less saturated and more washed out, and the overall image lacks depth at times. There's a real sense that Lovefilm offers up the closest vision to what the director intended in this regard and, on top of that, compression artifacts are also slightly diminished, hinting that the extra bandwidth allotted for full HD streams is being put to use - at the cost of a higher barrier to entry in terms of your internet connection.

Bar the gamma issue, quality looks to be very similar across PS3, and Wii U when it comes to Netflix playback - as you might expect assuming the same encoded video is being delivered.

The big difference here is that the Wii U's limited-range RGB output washes out images on displays that don't feature an adjustable black-level configuration option. While resolution is capped to p on the Xbox , the difference in quality isn't massive due to the compressed nature of the p video streams - images appear a tad softer particularly around text and finer details , but the console upscales the content well to full HD, showing that compressed p material still holds up quite nicely.

You can still play Super HD p streams on the Microsoft console - you get the advantages of super-sampling the image along with the extra detail inherent in the higher-bandwidth encodes - but obviously playing this material at the native full HD is preferable.

Lovefilm delivers p video on Wii U and PC, while also topping out at p on the though, again, we believe that downscaled p encodes are being processed.