In its second significant partnership within a month, movie-on-demand
service provider CinemaNow inked a
pact with Universal Studios Pay-Per-View
for a four-month test of pay-per-view and library titles on-demand delivery.
CinemaNow, which faces what many analysts deem to be a tough task in competing
with the industry-led Movielink, will
offer such titles as the comedy “Big Fat Liar”, the action-packed “The
Scorpion King,” and the French art/horror film “Brotherhood of the Wolf.”
The service offers pay-for-view movies in Windows Media 9 Series
formats that can be downloaded and watched in Microsoft’s player, and may
also be viewed via television with pay-per-view satellite or cable. New
releases sell for $3.99 and older films for $2.99 for 24-hour access.
These films will appear on CinemaNow during their traditional pay-per-view
windows in November. While those are newer films, movie lovers may also
delve into Universal’s stockpile, where anything from the classic Hitchcock
thriller from “Psycho” to “Erin Brockovich’ may be piped to their TV.
CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis is confident about his firm’s ability to compete with Movielink, but acknowledged it’s tough to say until Movielink launches.
“We feel that their high profile presence will help create a lot of buzz and attention to our space which we see as beneficial,” Marvis told internetnews.com. “The studio deals that MovieLink has are all non-exclusive and we have either licensed films or are in talks with all of the studios involved in this project.
“We feel the combination of our 3 years experience and knowledge in having our business operational, along with our ability to offer streaming and downloading options, as well as a subscription service are some ways we can differentiate ourselves,” Marvis said.
Marina del Ray, Calif.’s CinemaNow, which inked a similar licensing deal with Warner
Home Video in September, will offer the Warner films in both streaming and download
formats.
CinemaNow’s proprietary content delivery technology, Patch Bay, facilitates all aspects of content distribution, including digital and
territorial rights protection, user profiling, pay-per-view services, and
detailed report generation.
Backed by Microsoft and Blockbuster, CinemaNow is majority owned by Lions Gate Entertainment.
