Sofa Cinema DVD Rental

Sofa Cinema was launched in spring 2005 by the Guardian, and is linked to their website. The rental service is powered by the large Lovefilm company, though the website design is worse for the presence of several animated banner ads when we reviewed it (one of which was even scrunched up and unreadable when we visited). The site is very simple (too little information in our opinion), though otherwise it's basically the Lovefilm site with a few minor differences.

The similarity in system begs the question--why go with the Sofa Cinema middleman at all, why not stick with the specialists at Lovefilm?

That said, we did raise Sofa Cinema's ranking in February 2008 due to some good comments and their generous terms.

 

Prices: The one thing that makes Sofa Cinema stand out is the free trial period; a rare full one month. You won't be able eligible for another free trial if you've already had one with any Lovefilm "powered-by." Their unlimited subscriptions are for 2 discs at £12.99 and 3 disc at an industry standard £15.99. They also offer an £7.99 limited service for four discs, which comes out to an industry standard two quid per rental as well as a 6 total disc package for £9.99.

Sofa DVD rental treats game rentals differently. Sofa's combination game/DVD rental packages start at a hefty £14.68 for 2 discs/games and 3 discs/games for £18.59. Based on these price increases, we'd advise gamers to see our sister site at Games-Rental-Guide.co.uk.

 

Featured Sofa Cinema Customer Review

Simon from Peterborough, June 6, 2007

it's simple really - anything connected with Lovefilm should be avoided like the plague. They are unreliable, slow and devious (saying a film hasn't been returned days after you posted it, just to avoid sending you another dvd). Since they merged with the equally useless Screenselect the service has, if anything got worse I never thought such a thing was possible!

Value: Design: Service:

 

Most Recent Sofa Cinema Customer Reviews

Sam from Leamington, 4 March, 2008

When my local Blockbuster store kept hiking up the price of DVD rentals, I thought I would try their postal system, it was okay, but I felt I wanted just that little bit more, I had given Blockbuster enough of my hard earnt cash. It was time to look else where.

In the end I went with Sofa Cinema. I had a good look around the internet, and at the deals that were tempting me. It certainly is worth doing before you sign up to a company. Sofa Cinema was offering a 30 day free home trial which was excellent, and if I signed up I recieved two cinema tickets, which was great as I took my mum to a posh cinema in Greenwich to watch March of the Penquins. (It is little things like this that can tempt new customers, so companies take note!!)

I went with Sofa Cinema,
1) It is powered by LoveFilm
2) Its part of the Guardian (A name you can trust?)
3) It has great value rental packages to suit everyone
4) The discs are very very quickly delivered to you
5) Regular emails to say what has been sent and how your
account / DVD list is
6) Chance to rate and comment on the films
7) A holiday option
8) Excellent Help centre

I have been with Sofa Cinema ever since and can not fault them.

When I had to ring customer services, every person I spoke to was polite and kind, and the problem was fixed immediately. It's just a pity a lot of companies use 0870 numbers instead of 0800 numbers.

The design of Sofa Cinema is simple, though could easily be updated every 2-4 weeks with the amount of films that are released to tempt new customers, and jog memories of desisting customers that these films are being released.

The search engine is good, though you really do have to put in exact words, for example Jamie Foxx's The Kingdom, did not come up when 'kingdom' is typed in. The fact that games rentals and the choice of Bluray discs are available to rent, is a step in the right direction. There is a coming soon, and new release section to look at as well as plenty of film themes to search. Renting series is also excellent the discs are sent in order. The back catalogue of films is also amazing.

All in all a recommended 21st Centuary company. I am not a web design expert, and only given them four stars as I feel the site could be a lot easier, and user friendly, but don't let that put you off.

The service is second to none.

Value: Design: Service:

 

Sam from Leamington, 4 March, 2008

I tried to cancel this account online. I was told it my account had been cancelled and that I had 7 days to return my last 2 dvds. I sent them in the post the next day. Four days later I had an email to inform me my next DVDs had been sent out upon receipt of my last ones. When I emailed to say I had closed my account I was informed that the cancellation process could not be completed until i returned the next dvds - the ones I did not request. So I had to pay for an extra month.

Value: Design: Service:

 

Skyline-pidgeon, 5 January, 2008

I was with these guys until recently but cancelled my membership because, as usual, the service got poorer and poorer as time went on. Must be fair though and say for the first 6 - 9 months the service was s**t hot.

I'm now with Tesco Rental who I think is actually serviced by Love or Sofa but I'm not sure, and they're pretty good with super fast turnaround. (No I don't work for, or represent 'em) Keep plenty of options in your list though. If you only want one or two of the latest games you could wait a while, but that's true of any rental firm.

Value: Design: Service:

 

See all Sofa Cinema Customer Reviews

4 discs total in the month: £7.99
6 discs total in the month: £9.99
2 discs unlimited: £12.99
3 discs unlimited: £15.99

Free Trial: 30 days

Titles: 60,500
Blu-ray: 1,700
Game Rentals: no
Adult Films: 1,300
Phone Contact: no