June 29, 2009

Universal movies coming to Virgin...in HD

Virgin has announced the launch of PictureBox, the leading movies-on-demand TV subscription service, on its TV platform. Here are the details from the press release:

From July, the PictureBox service will be available for £5 per month. Subscribers will be able to view films whenever they like from a selection of 28 films at any given time, with seven new titles being added to the line-up each Friday. Most of the PictureBox films will be available in HD and many will not yet have been seen on free-to-air television in the UK.

Highlights of films that will be featured on PictureBox in the coming months include such hits as Hot Fuzz, The Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Men and The Holiday, as well as classic blockbusters such as Scarface, Total Recall, The Nutty Professor and E.T – The Extra Terrestrial. PictureBox is wholly owned by Universal Pictures Ltd.

Not the latest movies by any stretch of the imagination, but a cheaper option that Filmflex for those who don't have Sky Movies. I've found a link to a site that has the service's current offering on BT Vision: Picturebox

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Do you think theres any chance of this being free to xl customers?? It wouldnt hurt them i bet they were paying setanta more than that

Unknown said...

Compared to Netflix in the US which offers a catalogue of tens of thousands all at once to stream to many different devices... and for a similar fee to this.

A choice of a whopping 25 films at once eh? I don't think I've ever heard of anything so ridiculous.

sammyjayuk said...

The problem is that Sky hold all the first run rights from the major Hollywood studios, and those include subscription VOD.

Ofcom might force Sky to wholesale their SVOD rights, but it looks like they'd prefer the studios to offer the rights separately.

Sam

bradmcr said...

Has anyone else noticed when you are on Virginmedia.com that the V+ service no longer lists the 1 BBC HD channel but instead is promoting BBCiHD and other OD HD.

I hope this isn't a sign that the promises of more HD linear channels is going to be broken again.