High-def prime-time movies are coming to the Net, free to consumers who subscribe to a pay-TV service’s TV and broadband service. Called Epix, the service is in private beta tests with an official launch set for October. It’ll start with about 100 movies, some from the archives and some that have yet to be released on DVD or Blu-ray.
The TV networks in the US and UK seem to have their Internet video business model firmly in place, as evidenced by Hulu.com, TV.com, iPlayer, 4oD and ITV Player. The TV shows that they broadcast over-the-air are being made available for free viewing, simultaneously or even prior to their being broadcast.
Now it looks like the movie studios, at least some of them, are getting their ducks in a row as shown by the upcoming Epix, which News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, Sony-controlled MGM and Lionsgate are backing with $100 million.
The joint venture that’ll operate the service is called Studio 3 Partners.
The goal is to provide recent releases, library titles and original content to the three screens: TVs, PCs and mobile devices.
The business model is straightforward: Subscribers to a pay-TV company’s pay-TV and broadband will be able to watch for free. It’s actually a similar concept to what the TV networks have. If the consumer can watch at home without paying an additional pay-per-view fee, then they can watch Epix. Epix wants to get the pay-TV service to also provide the service as a channel.
The broadband requirement leaves out the satellite TV services but surely there’ll be some bending of the rules. After all, News Corp. also owns the UK satco BSkyB. Epix’s Web site is EpixHD. It’s hard in 2009 to figure out why a company that will depend on the Net for its success would select a name that it can’t get the Web domain name for. Oh well, maybe it’ll buy www.epix.com from The Clinton Street Theatre, which seems to specialize in electronic pictures of the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Epix will use Adobe Flash technology to stream in up to 720p, about as good as it gets short of a Blu-ray player. Six different streams will be available running the gamut from 500 Kbps that’s suitable for viewing over a mobile broadband network and a top speed that’s 720p full HD.
The six different encoding rates are automatically adjusted by Akamai to the viewer’s available bandwidth. That’s certain to increase consumer demand for faster broadband.
Pay-TV services won’t charge extra for the service but will bundle it into their existing packages. A social network feature is expected to allow several viewers to watch a film and simultaneously carry on an instant messaging session with each other. No deals with pay-TV companies have been announced.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer has said Epix deals with pay TV services will be announced in October. He said the launch was a certainty. “It’s kind of a rolling process for us. We are all very confident,” he said.
Recent releases are expected to include: the latest “Star Trek,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Cloverfield,” “Defiance,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “Iron Man.” It’ll also offer 17 remastered James Bond movies and the Indiana Jones flicks “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Temple of Doom” and “The Last Crusade.”
There’ll also be some “made for Epix” series. The first series pilot, from Lionsgate, is called “Tough Trade,” reportedly about three generations of an aberrant family in country music.
Emil Rensing, a co-founder of the online video studio Next New Networks, is Epix’s chief digital officer. “The Epix model of commercial-free, uninterrupted current Hollywood movies will set a new online content bar,” Rensing said.
“Akamai’s dynamic streaming solution enables us to be one of the first to provide the accessibility, quality and convenience which today’s digital consumers desire,” he said. When the viewer’s connection speeds up or slows, the Akamai server automatically changes the stream’s speed, always trying to send the highest bit-rate file possible.