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Sunday, Sep 17, 2006
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Watch new movies on TV for a price

Special Correspondent

Tata Sky's DTH service is the new entrant

NOW ON DEMAND: Pay per view-movie services are now in India.

Bangalore: For subscribers of Tata Sky, the third Direct-to-Home satellite service to offer its services, some of the latest theatre movie releases are just a phone call away for home viewing: they can see DVD-quality films on their TV sets by checking on Sky's schedule and booking a film up to five minutes before its time slot — at Rs. 75 a movie.

Similar facility

Zee's Dish TV, which started its own DTH service earlier, has a similar movie-on-demand facility.

What lies ahead for Indian cinema-goers hoping to view comfortably at home?

TV shows

Something like Amazon's Unbox service, which was launched earlier this month in the U.S., enabling customers to download from a wide selection of TV shows and feature films — around $2 for an instalment of a TV serial and $8 for a feature film. The downloaded product can be burned into a DVD — but it will play only on a PC not on a DVD player — a ploy to prevent multiple copies from being taken for regular viewing.

Apple, too, is scheduled to launch its own move download service to PCs — or its own iPod— in early 2007.

CNN reported last week that Wal-Mart, the U.S. retail giant, is also planning to jump into the digitally downloaded movie business — leveraging its large presence across the nation. Kiosks in its stores might enable customers to `cut' their own disks from a large virtual repertory of movies and other edutainment material.

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