Last week we brought you details of the quad play service that Vodafone was hatching at its German operation and this week it has come out with a piece of that strategy under the name Vodafone Videotheque.
The service is for film and TV series viewable on three screens ‘ the PC, the TV and the handset, all being served from the video IPTV architecture that it built around its Arco fixed line business.
The service has a rental rate of €0.99 for a TV series and €1.99 for movies, but phone connections costs are additional, so be sure you are on a flat rate. The service also has advertising-funded options which can be viewed online by all customers at no charge and there are also a series of ‘free ‘ documentaries
As we said last week Vodafone has come up with something we have been pushing for the past three years ‘ an EPG on the handset, which in this case is common with the other screen formats, so that video selections can be selected from the handset for later viewing or viewing can begin on a handset or PC and continue on a TV screen. How long before someone turns that handset EPG into the remote controller for the TV set too.
Vodafone said that the Videotheque will get films as soon as they go on DVD release. The advertising-funded options are available right out of the Vodafone portal whether you are a Vodafone customer or not, as long as you have broadband access. Films are viewable for 24 hours when they are rented and some videos are also available to purchase for download and store on a PC.
As we revealed last week the service is based on Microsoft Silverlight rather than the more common Adobe Flash video format, and on a PC the service requires 2 Mbps broadband and Windows Media Player 10.
The Vodafone IPTV service was launched in Germany in January this year and in August the price was squeezed down to a very affordable €9.95 entry point and we are expecting Vodafone to launch similar services all over Europe in the coming year, as we know that Vodafone has access to a broadband ISP, either through ownership, or through partnership in each of Italy, Spain and the UK. In the UK so far it has failed to acquire a major broadband presence, but is working with BT.
The launch strategy for IPTV in Germany has been to offer it free for a period and the company says that it has thousands of customers on free trial, but has yet to begin asking them for subscription payments.