IceTV to offer Australian video on demand service - EXCLUSIVE

Adam Turner
Thursday, 12 April 2007 08:10

Your IT - Entertainment

Australian electronic program guide provider IceTV is in discussions with several movie houses to launch a video on demand service this year.

The service, scheduled begin around mid-year, will allow subscribers to IceTV's seven day television schedule to download movies and television shows to rent or own. It will initially work with Windows XP and Vista media centre PCs, but IceTV also plans to make the service compatible with internet-enabled Personal Video Recorders, says IceTV general manager Matt Kossatz. Digital Rights Management issues will delay Mac compatibility.

"We've been planning this for over a year and we're working with large content providers to offer our subscribers a variety of content," Kossatz told IT Wire.

"As IPTV grows and consumers watch more video online, we feel it's a natural progression to deliver such services to our subscribers."

Subscribers will access the video on demand service via IceTV's free remote scheduling service PIMP (Personal Interactive Media Planner). PIMP allows users to schedule recordings remotely using a web browser on a computer or mobile phone. PIMP only works on Windows XP/Vista media centre PCs and Macs running Elgato media centre software, but IceTV intends to expand PIMP to Personal Video Recorders with onboard Ethernet or wifi for accessing the internet. As such, IceTV has declared Topfield's newly released high definition TF7000HDPVRt Personal Video Recorder (see review) will be the last non-internet-enabled Personal Video Recorder that IceTV will support.

"We believe IceTV users already taking advantage of our PIMP service will also be early adopters of video on demand services. The real battle for us is consumer education - letting the consumers know that if there's nothing they like on the TV they have more to choose from through IceTV."

IceTV's plans to offer video on demand pose a challenge to Australia's free-to-air television broadcasters, who already see the IceTV electronic program guide as a threat because it encourages the use of Personal Video Recorders with ad-skipping features, such as those from Topfield. Australia's Nine Network has already taken IceTV to court, claiming the electronic program guide infringes Nine's copyright on its program schedule.

IceTV's video on demand plans also come amid a flurry of new such services from the likes of Amazon/TiVo, Wal-mart and BitTorrent. In Australia, Telstra's BigPond Movies lets user rent movies, television shows and music videos while ReelTime offers a download-to-own movie service. Apple has also recently launched its Apple TV media player, although it is hampered by a lack of video content available from the Apple's Australian iTunes store.

Similar to the Amazon/TiVo deal, IceTV's video on demand service has the advantage of tapping into subscribers' existing hardware rather than requiring them to buy a dedicated device just to watch computer files on their television.