I love the idea of Netflix, because I hate having to buy DVDs that I only watch once and that also consume valuable space. However, the UK's catalogue of titles is pitiful. Does anyone know of some solid alternatives?

Sin't there Ilovefilms or something in the UK? ah its lovefilms

Lovefilm has a near identical catalogue of movies, but doesn't get any of the television series that Netflix gets. Most of its films, even those released recently, weren't even available to stream in HD when I last tried it. Netflix is definitely better, but still lacking. I suppose it's to do with obtaining the rights, you lucky Americans.

http://www.lovefilm.com/

http://www.blinkbox.com/

I personally stay away from these service myself, preferring research of interest and hard copies.

I quite like LoveFilm. The advertising alone doesn't make me grimace like Netflix. Not as many tv series' available as I'd perhaps like but there's still a nice enough range. Pretty good selection of foreign language films as well.

I was more referring to monthly subscriptions or ad-supported services, rather than rental systems.

I found Netflix better. Audio and picture quality seemed superior. The movies on offer were near identical, but I got all of the television series as well. It's not great, but better than Lovefilm I found.

Advertising? Netflix?

...must be different than in the US. I have yet to see any ads via Netflix.

As to alternatives ... there aren't many, at least not that are any better than Netflix, or aren't digital video rental store oriented. I don't think anything like Netflix is going to get a whole lot of "new film releases" in a timely manner, either, if that's one's concern, so the selection is always going to be a bit lacking in that area. That's reserved for the video-store-rental type sites, like Amazon or cable company streaming sites or heck, even YouTube does rental these days.

I still prefer Netflix. But I use it mostly for catching up on TV series or giggling at bad horror films...not mainstream film releases. Also, recently, their own original shows have been interesting. For new movies I use VoD from my cable TV provider.

Amazon has a streaming and pay-per-view service, though I'm not sure if it's available in the UK. Usually it will come with Amazon Prime membership, which is USD $80 a year ($40 if you're a student). The catalog is pretty decent but I have to purchase most of the shows I want to watch, and haven't had time to really research how it works since I was under the assumption it was free-streaming and do have a Prime membership.

Ah, I just looked it up finally and saw that they're distinct entities, Prime streaming and Instant Video, that meld together at times. Or that's how I frame it in my head to understand it.

The US Netflix has much, much better titles than that of the UK. Titles such as The Avengers, Super 8, Thor, etc never made it over here. We have a completely different library. The guy means the TV adverts for Netflix. There aren't ads in Netflix itself.

One man's trash is another man's treasure...

I could do without those movies easy enough.

As for alternatives... I thought Hulu was a thing.