Rental services rated

Overall, online DVD rental gets the thumbs up from our triallists – more than eight out of 10 would use either the same or a similar service again.

How we test

Our 63 testers signed up to eight sites between them and kept a diary for five weeks. We asked triallists to keep each DVD they received for three nights, excluding Sundays. Each was asked to add five films to their wishlists as top priorities - Miami Vice, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, The Maltese Falcoln, Monster House and Hidden.

Rental services were rated for ease of sign up, number of days to receive the first DVD, problem DVDs received, priority DVDs received and ease of cancellation. These were combined to give an overall score out of 100.

Of the eight companies, My Movie Stream scored highest. All companies did well for accuracy - everyone received only films on their wish list - but there were bigger differences in the other areas.

The good, the bad and the ugly

Most triallists only had to wait a day or two for their first DVD. But Lovefilm, the UK’s largest online DVD service, kept them waiting, on average, five days.

Several triallists of Tesco and WH Smith, which are powered by Lovefilm, had similar problems. A Lovefilm spokesman told us this was down to technical problems it was experiencing when we carried out the trial.

Lovefilm was on a par with most other companies for sending priority films – on average, three of the first four DVDs were among the top five on triallists’ wish lists. But those with Movieconnect received on average only one top-priority film among the first four DVDs.

Movieconnect, along with Lovefilm, Tesco and WH Smith, also did worse than the other companies for problem DVDs – on average between 10 and 20 per cent of discs received had problems playing, such as the DVD freezing or skipping frames.

As for cancellation, most triallists found it easy, although some were surprised that Lovefilm required a phone call to cancel. However, without advice from Which?, it may not have been so simple.