Love film

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Lovefilm International Ltd.

logo
legal form Limited
founding 2003
resolution August 31, 2017
Reason for dissolution Incorporated into Amazon Instant Video
Seat London , UK
Branch Online video library
Website www.lovefilm.de

Lovefilm International Ltd. ( Spelling LOVEFiLM ) was one of Europe's largest online rental of film DVDs and Blu-rays , and the Amazon company also offered video-on-demand . The head office of the company was in London , the German head office was at the Munich Amazon.de GmbH.

On February 26, 2014 Lovefilm was merged with the Amazon Prime offer to Amazon Instant Video ; On August 31, 2017, Lovefilm was completely shut down.

history

Lovefilm was founded in December 2003 by the London-based media company Arts Alliance Media . The company was created through the gradual acquisition and amalgamation of various companies, with the three main parties here being Online Rentals Limited (operating as DVDsOnTap ), ScreenSelect and Video Island . Online Rentals Limited was founded in May 2002 by Paul Gardner and Graham Bosher in Harlow, England. In September 2003, William Reeve and Alex Chesterman followed suit with ScreenSelect, and in the same month Saul Klein launched the Video Island service - both companies were founded in London. In October 2003 Online Rentals Limited was acquired by Arts Alliance Ventures, a family owned private equity firm . The following December, DVDsOnTap announced that it would operate under the Lovefilm brand in the future and also appointed Mark Livingstone as its new CEO .

ScreenSelect expanded its market position in the meantime by buying up its own companies. After the acquisition of In-Movies was announced in December 2003 , a merger with Video Island followed in September 2004, whereby the management and brand of ScreenSelect were retained and merged with the equity capital of Video Island. In June 2005, ScreenSelect acquired DVDs365 , owners of Mailbox Movies , MovieTrak and Qflicks . Lovefilm responded a few months later by acquiring Webflix . In addition, both companies endeavored to further expand their position on the Scandinavian market. ScreenSelect took over BraFilm in Sweden and Norway, while Lovefilm bought Boxman in Sweden and Denmark.

By 2006 ScreenSelect had clearly distanced its competitor Lovefilm. The 100,000 Lovefilm customers up until then were compared to 200,000 subscribers to the ScreenSelect service. In April 2006 the two companies merged, with the platform and management of ScreenSelect being retained. However, the new company was brought under the Lovefilm brand and has since operated from its headquarters in Acton, west London. At the end of 2008, Lovefilm had replaced the ScreenSelect, Brafifilm and Boxman brands across Europe.

Lovefilm has been offering its films in Germany since October 2006. The data carriers were dispatched for Germany through a dispatch center in Elmshorn near Hamburg. In February 2008, the company bought Amazon Germany's DVD rental business for the German and English markets. In return, Amazon became Lovefilm's largest shareholder with a 42 percent stake. In addition to Amazon and Art Alliance Ventures, other shareholders were the investment companies Balderton Capital , DFJ Esprit , Index Ventures and Octopus Ventures .

In May 2010, Lovefilm expanded its offering to include titles that were not approved for young people . However, these were only available to customers who had gone through the Postident process for secure personal identification after registration .

On January 20, 2011 it was announced that Lovefilm would be completely taken over by Amazon.com . According to media reports, the total amount of the takeover was just under 250 million euros. In January 2012, Lovefilm announced that it had exceeded two million customers across Europe.

From January 1, 2013, Christoph Schneider took over the position of managing director of Ernst Trapp for the German branch. Schneider joined the company in mid-2012 and was responsible for expanding and establishing the video-on-demand offering in the German market.

On February 26, 2014, Lovefilm was merged with the Amazon Prime offer to form Amazon Instant Video . The complete Lovefilm offer was implemented. Later, Lovefilm could be subscribed to or canceled independently of Amazon Prime. Billing was separated and the services were billed independently of each other. For Amazon Prime users, the costs for Lovefilm increased significantly.

In August 2017, Amazon finally announced that it would completely stop operating Lovefilm at the end of the month.

offer

Disc shipping

After registering for the service, customers could put the desired films as DVD , Blu-ray Disc or 3D-Blu-ray from the offer on their own rental list . As soon as the selected films were available, they were sent by post to the customer address provided. The system determines the shipping sequence based on the priorities set by the customer and the availability of the titles in the shipping center. The films were returned using a pre-paid envelope and were therefore free of charge for the sender. Further films were sent out as soon as Lovefilm received the loaned titles. Since during this process it was always normal letters from Deutsche Post , precise tracking was not available for either the sender or the recipient . However, information about the current processing and shipping status of the discs was provided within the customer account.

Video-on-demand service

As of December 2010, Lovefilm also offered a video-on-demand service in addition to disc mailing . This enabled a certain selection of titles to be played back directly via the PC or another compatible device. The video-on-demand service was available to customers from the Digital Flatrate package with unlimited time credit. At the end of 2011, Lovefilm announced the conversion of its streaming technology to Microsoft Silverlight . Until then, the service was based on Adobe Flash Player. This approach was criticized by some user groups, since computers with Linux or Unix systems were no longer supported since then . Likewise, users of an Apple PC with an operating system version of 10.5 or lower could no longer access the service.

From May 30, 2012, Lovefilm also offered some of its on-demand services in high definition. In the resolution for playback of content 720p has a data transfer rate of at least 6 Mbit / s is required. 1080p titles require a bandwidth of at least 12 Mbit / s. The video-on-demand system automatically selected the best possible quality in each case in order to guarantee uninterrupted playback and also adapted itself to the available internet speed during playback. The transmitted sound quality also depended on the available bandwidth and was between a minimum of 128 kbit / s and a maximum of 512 kbit / s.

structure

Packages

How many of the available titles could be rented monthly or viewed online depended on the rental package booked. These packages differed in the number of discs that could be borrowed per month, the number of discs a customer could borrow at the same time, and the availability of the video-on-demand service. While in the smallest package only two discs per month could be borrowed one after the other, in the largest package Flatrate 2, for example, two discs were available at the same time and an unlimited number per month. The video-on-demand service was available to customers in the Digital Flatrate package without limitation . The Ultimate , Flatrate 1 and Flatrate 2 packages also included an unlimited streaming flat rate in addition to DVD and Blu-ray rental. Currently Amazon only offers a Lovefilm tariff with an "unlimited" loan with 1 DVD / Bluray per loan for 7.99 euros / month. If the delivery time is very good and the DVD is returned on the same day, a maximum of three rentals per week are possible.

Supported devices

In addition to a playback on the PC the video on demand service was also on video game consoles such as the PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , Xbox 360 , Xbox One , Wii , all Internet-enabled Sony - BRAVIA -Fernsehern from the year 2010, Samsung Smart TVs of the 2012 and 2013 generations, LG televisions, Internet-enabled Sony Blu-ray players and the Apple iPad . Although Lovefilm also offered apps for the Apple iPhone and Android devices , there was only the option to manage your own customer account and the rental list. The service was also available on the Fire Tablets released in October 2012 . The playback of HD content was possible on all devices offered, with the exception of the Apple iPad. FSK-18 content could only be accessed via stream on PC, PlayStation 3 and iPad. The reason given was the lack of a PIN input option on the other devices.

Billing model

Lovefilm offered new customers the opportunity to initially use the service for a free trial period. During this period, the customer had the option of canceling his package at any time using the corresponding functionality in the customer account. If there was no cancellation within the test period, the monthly fee for the selected package was automatically collected after it had expired. Payment was made either by direct debit or credit card.

It was criticized that payment information such as bank details or credit card numbers had to be provided to open a trial subscription. The company wrote on the official website that valid payment information would be required from every participant regardless of the respective invoice status. This is done to check the identity of the customer and to protect against theft or fraud. This data was also used should the user decide to continue membership for a fee.

Advertising and marketing

Since 2010, Lovefilm has regularly switched to commercials on German television. The commercials were spoken by Manfred Lehmann , who is known to a wider audience as the voice actor for Bruce Willis and Gérard Depardieu .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ LOVEFILM - About us. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 17, 2013 ; accessed on January 24, 2013 (German). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lovefilm.de
  2. ↑ Achim Sawall: Amazon closes its video rental Lovefilm. Golem.de, August 11, 2017, accessed on August 12, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Starting Out . The Telegraph. Retrieved September 26, 2012.
  4. ↑ Video Iceland, ScreenSelect join forces . Screen Daily. Retrieved September 27, 2012.
  5. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Video Island continues growth with DVDs365 acquisition . PR Week. Retrieved on September 26, 2012. )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.prweek.com
  6. ↑ Money never sleeps: Lovefilm becomes the main attraction. Archived from the original on September 25, 2015 ; Retrieved September 24, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Brafilm purchase takes video Iceland into Europe . Marketing Week. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  8. ↑ Love Film and Screen Select merge. Archived from the original on January 10, 2013 ; Retrieved September 19, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Lovefilm takes over Amazon's DVD rental service. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015 ; Retrieved September 22, 2012 .
  10. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Consortium sells LOVEFiLM to Amazon . Unquote.com. Retrieved on September 22, 2012. )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.unquote.com
  11. ↑ Back to the video rental business - Amazon buys Lovefilm . N-TV. Retrieved September 20, 2012.
  12. ↑ Lovefilm with two million users . Focus Online. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  13. ↑ A breath of fresh air in the management ( Memento from November 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Online Videothekenvergleich.com. Retrieved on: November 21, 2012.
  14. ↑ "Amazon Prime Instant Video starts today in Germany with Amazon's in-house production Alpha House with John Goodman". Archived from the original on April 20, 2015 ; accessed on March 1, 2014 .
  15. ↑ “Lovefilm” now also streams films and series in HDTV . AreaDVD.de. Retrieved September 21, 2012.
  16. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lovefilm.de
  17. ↑ Lovefilm FAQ ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Lovefilm.de. Retrieved September 29, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lovefilm.de
  18. ↑ Lovefilm closes content deal with ZDF . Digitalfernsehen.de
  19. ↑ Lovefilm FAQ . Lovefilm.de. Retrieved September 24, 2012.