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TiVo boosts movies on demand

TiVo will now offer more movies in a pay per view arrangement with Blockbuster.

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tivo-2TiVo is upping its movies on demand service offering new release pay per view titles.

It will launch the new initiative with over 100 films available via broadband following its four month trial of a free Blockbuster Movie.

TiVo says the movie service will provide ‘New Releases’ (in the video on demand new release window) charged at $5.95 per film plus other all time favourites charged at $3.95.

A small number of free films will continue via sponsorship, though it doesn’t indicate how this will be executed, but it does promise there will be no ads during the movie.

Robbee Minicola, CEO of Hybrid Television Services said, “The launch of the Blockbuster Movies on Demand service establishes a key milestone for us; the ability to enjoy DVD-quality movie content with true 5.1 channel surround sound downloaded straight into the living room with a TiVo media device.

“This service demonstrates you can have exactly what you want, when you want it…without any need for a monthly subscription fee. This broadband service launch is a fundamental milestone in TiVo’s evolution in Australia.”

This week Foxtel announced its first same-day release of a Warner Brothers title, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, to air the same day as its DVD release on June 3rd. Foxtel’s Box Office movies are $5.50 each for a 24 hour multiple screening.

11 Responses

  1. It’s a pity Tivo stupidly allowed Seven to have the Aus rights to their product and then have Seven release a watered down, overpriced, C grade version, as the
    far superior US version can delete ads altogether and is superior even to IQ.

  2. Tivo’s can be bought for $600 (and I saw one for $499). Shop around, you may be surprised.

    I am curious to see how this compares to iTunes via AppleTV, which I do use and think is excellent.

    Regards.

  3. This isn’t exactly groundbreaking

    AppleTV and itunes have had a much bigger movie & tv show library without subscriptions fees for ages.

  5. Am I the only person around who loves his Tivo? Everyone seems to bitch about it non-stop… oh well… The only thing I don’t like about this on demand movie is that you still have that huge download… if it had it’s own live scrambled broadcast channel that the machine would decode then that would be a much better option…

  6. @avoidz
    Yep still $699 what a rip off hey for not much more than the cost of tivo you can get a Panasonic 250gb HD DVD recorder and have the pleasure of being able to actually copy stuff to disc and have a heap of space on the hard drive

    Will stick with my good old add skipping capable foxtel IQ combined with my DVD recorder I can record to DVD and actually keep shows forever

  8. “This service demonstrates you can have exactly what you want, when you want it…without any need for a monthly subscription fee.”

    Doesn’t Tivo charge a fee for firmware updates and other enhancements.???

  11. Well this method of distribution does seem to be the future, however at the moment I don’t see it being too popular unless tivo offers unmetered broadband access (which i think one company is doing so far). $3.95 for all time favourite movies seems fairly fair, although will they offer viewing for up to a week or at least 3 days, like the weekly and 3 night movies at video shops?

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