More and more telcos are expanding the offerings on their IPTV platforms by launching deeper VOD services, and a few have been able to get some help from Hollywood studios with day-and-date concessions that bring newer, more appealing titles to their customers sooner. Count Hong Kong's PCCW among them. The telco has rolled out a new video on demand service on its IPTV platform, "now TV," called "now Video Express," that will offer titles in high-definition with Dolby 5.1 surround sound and in standard-definition. PCCW says some of the movies will be available on the same date as their DVD release in Hong Kong.
“With this new content enhancement, now TV offers the largest lineup of on-demand content available to pay television viewers in Hong Kong with over 1,500 hours of programming, including Hollywood movies, local movies, international and local TV series, and sports,” said Janice Lee, PCCW's Managing Director of TV & New Media.
PCCW said movies will be available from major Hollywood studios including Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution. HD titles will cost HKD 30 (about $3.84) and HKD 25 ($3.20) for SD releases and viewers will have a 48-hour window to watch them as often as they want. As with other on-demand service, viewers can pause, fast forward, rewind a movie, etc. Currently, movies such as A-Team, Predators, Knight and Day, Clash of the Titans and Sex and the City 2 are available, and more blockbusters including Inception and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps will be launched soon.
PCCW has a customer base of some 1.03 million customers.
PCCW, the holding company of HKT Group Holdings Limited (HKT), one of Hong Kong's largest telecommunications provider, has a customer base in Hong Kong of some 1.03 million, and offered Hong Kong's first quadruple-play experienc. Now TV is one of the world's largest commercial deployments of IPTV and Hong Kong's largest pay-TV provider, it delivers more than 180 channels of local, Asian and international programming, including premium content such as Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1, J-League, French Open, ATP World Tour, and World Snooker Tour.
For more:
- see this release
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