Telstra launches BigPond movie downloads

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 22 February 2006 14:06

Your IT - Home IT

Telstra has launched its long awaited BigPond Movies Downloads service, and is soon to be followed by a similar serviced from Reeltime.

There are over 1000 titles currently available, including blockbusters, classics, foreign favourites, kids movies and Australian productions. There are also TV shows, sport, short films and music videos. In what BigPond says is a "major coup" episodes of current season television series, including The Shield, Rescue Me, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis will be available to download the day after they first screen on free-to-air television or on Foxtel.

The catalogue will be updated with new titles each month and will include a varied selection from more than 7,500 titles from Columbia, Tristar, Screen Gems, Sony Classics, MGM and UA films - all distributed in Australia by Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Prices range from $1.95 for short television shows to $5.95 for recent release feature films. BigPond members get a 20 percent discount on the standard prices. Once purchased content must be downloaded and viewed within 7-30 days depending on the content type. It can be viewed multiple times within this period. Music videos, which can be watched full screen with digital sound, can be purchased for $3.95, with no use-by date.

Unlike the BigPond DVDs by mail service there is no requirement to commit to a regular monthly spend.

BigPond Movies Downloads operates only on Windows XP Home and Windows XP Pro systems. All BigPond Movies and Movie Downloads content is unmetered for BigPond members. For others, where a single movie might represent a significant portion of their monthly download quota, there seems to be no indication of the file sizes. The website is http://downloads.bigpondmovies.com