Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hi-Def movie downloads start Friday

This is topic Hi-Def movie downloads start Friday - in Japan in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 06-05-2008, 11:28 PM:

Saw this in today's JapanToday

quote:
Tsutaya offers high-definition movie downloads

Friday 06th June, 07:13 AM JST

TOKYO —

Film rental chain Tsutaya on Thursday unveiled a download-on-demand broadband service, letting customers rent titles from home without going to the store. The service by Tsutaya, which counts 27.2 million members at its 1,330 branches across Japan, is the latest sign of the growing market for high-definition television in Japan.

Tsutaya, part of the Culture Convenience Club (CCC) Group, starts the service Friday by allowing downloads of the first season of hit U.S. television series such as “Heroes,” “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives.”

A customer can download a title and watch it over a 48-hour period using Actvila, a portal set for interactive services launched by Japan’s major television makers.

Tsutaya plans to raise its catalogue of downloadable titles to 2,000 by the end of the year via agreements with four major Hollywood studios—Paramount, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney and NBC Universal.

Renting a full-length movie through the service will cost 735 yen, with a lesser price for shorter films.

Use of the service requires high-speed fiber-optic connections, which are gradually replacing ADSL lines. Nearly 12 million of Japan’s 48 million households have a fiber-optic Internet service.

Tsutaya hopes that the new service will pull in more customers with higher disposable incomes in the 40-50 age range.

Actvila was developed by Japan’s major television makers—Sharp, Sony, Matsushita, Toshiba and Hitachi—and is compatible with several dozen models of plasma or liquid crystal display sets.

Prices of such high-definition televisions have been on the decline, creating a larger market of viewers.

AFP

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-06-2008, 01:41 AM:

Wow. They're only 2 years behind!

Posted by Phil Blake (Member # 2012) on 06-06-2008, 09:18 AM:

I guess the success of this depends on the availability of broadband. alot of country's have online film libraries for downloading , but this is only worthwhile if we have high speed broadband.

From what i have seen there are still more people on dial up than broadband and in country australia this is unlikely to change for many years due to big distance and few people as it probably will in remote USA areas. and i still cannot see who could possibly enjoy watching and show on a pc screen .

Our new cellphone network in australia 3G now offering movie download direct to the cellphone watch it on a 2" screen and enjoy , cost of download for a 90 minute movie is $1200.00AUD.

I can really see people getting into this.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-06-2008, 09:27 AM:

Even in a small and highly developed country like Britain, broadband availability is a big problem. There are even some towns and villages only 10-15 miles from major cities which either have no ADSL availability at all, or only at 1 or 2mbps at most. Interestingly, it's starting to affect property prices as well. I know of two villages a little way north of York where there's about a 5% difference in typical house prices, which is accounted for by the fact that one village has broadband and the other doesn't. The same thing happened with mobile phone reception about 10 years ago.