BT Tests New Service With Multipath Movies

British Telecom announced it will use Multipath Movies from Brilliant
Digital Entertainment to test market its VIEW (Video Information and
Entertainment on the Web) technology in west London.

The BT Interactive Network will provide selected customers with high-speed
audio and video Internet access, fifty times faster than the existing
service, so that they can view the 30-minute movie “webisodes.”

Brilliant’s Multipath Movies include licensed and original properties, including Popeye, the Choose Your Own Nightmare series, Cyberswine and Gravity Angels.

The movies are interactive, with branching story lines, characters, plot twists and turns. Accessing them, says the vendor, is as easy as purchasing a pay-per-view movie on television. The viewer opens an account, then uses a personal identification number (PIN) to gain access to all the webisodes.

“The high speed Internet access trial which BT is running this year will be one of the most exciting developments for the Internet in the UK, and we are delighted that Brilliant Digital Entertainment will be taking part, bringing their innovative new products to what will be a great new service,” said Joanna Bedward, acting head of Internet and Multimedia and Content Services, British Telecom.

VIEW users will need to download the free “Digital Projector” from Brilliant Digital Entertainment’s Web site. They will then be able to view such titles as “Fists of Fur,” “The Case of the Serial Shaver,” “The Bite of the Vampire,” and “The Curse of the Mummy,” the company said.

Brilliant Digital Entertainment is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has a UK office in Middlesex.