It is always a blow when something you liked, that worked perfectly well for you, ceases to be an option. So it is that we are grappling with the imminent demise of Love Film, a disc rental service we've been using for years, that was acquired a few years ago by Amazon and set to close due to declining demand now that digital downloads are the thing.
LoveFilm was fantastic. It had a huge catalogue including some really obscure titles. I almost never read a review of any film, even when they were still at the film festival stage and before mainstream cinema release, that couldn't be rented from LoveFilm in due course. I think one comedy native American road movie that I wanted to see after watching a Rich Hall documentary about film portrayals of American Indians might have eluded me, but in general you could get anything. We had got into a routine of ordering something funny, something thrilling, something touching on a serious topic but in a heart-warming way, and one downright heavyweight that you had to be feeling strong to watch, so that we'd always have the genre in stock to fit the mood. Sometimes we'd get through two or three comedies and crime capers before steeling ourselves for an evening's gloomfest, but as a system it worked.
In order to use Amazon's streaming service the Systems Administrator has had to buy an Amazon firestick and an Amazon tablet. They were offering a special deal to ex LoveFilm customers, but even so that is a firestick and tablet which we did not otherwise want or need. We were not sure whether we would be allowed to download the film in advance so that the tablet could act as a buffer against our slow and slightly dodgy BT broadband connection, or if we would have to stream as we watched. The answer, it turns out after much digging about by the SA, is the latter. We will have to see whether our broadband can support a full length film without various judders and sticky patches when the connection drops out. If not, there is often spare capacity at the end of the month on the SA's backup 3 mobile dongle, so we could use that, or switch to it mid film if BT is having a bad week. And we will have ammunition to complain like mad to BT if we find we really can't watch streamed films without interruption. We are on a plateau only sixty miles from the centre of London, for goodness sake; it's not as though we were living in darkest rural Herefordshire or hidden deep in some valley or on the wrong side of a mountain.
Not everything is available to rent at the moment, even quite recent and quite mainstream movies like the 2015 comedy with Meryl Streep, Ricki and the Flash. There is also the option of buying second hand Blu Ray discs, though the market seems thinner than it is for used CDs, presumably because Blu Ray is a newer technology, so not everything is available on Blu Ray and if films have been issued on Blu Ray there aren't necessarily lots of used copies swashing around for sale. Buying may even work out as no more expensive, at £3.49 for Amazon video rental and £1.26 standard postage for a disc, and at least if you buy a film you've got it to lend to other people, or even watch again. The way to do it would be to set up a long wish list and check it periodically to see what's available, and what's cheap. There is also Sky, which does allow you to download films to watch when it suit you.
But altogether it is a nuisance and a disappointment. Instead of being able to browse one very comprehensive catalogue, choose what we would really like, and have it arrive on the doormat in an envelope, we are looking at having to keep tabs on a variety of sources and settle for what we can actually get. It doesn't feel like progress.
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