Digital distribution taking giant strides in 2008
The race for digital distribution supremacy gathers pace as MusicGiants, an e-tailer of high-definition music, announced a high-definition video store cleverly titled VideoGiants (who'd have thought?).
In an interesting method of delivery, VideoGiants has teamed up with Seagate to serve out external hard drives pre-loaded with HD movies (albeit in DRM-ed WMV form). The loaded drives, priced from US$159, are plugged into a home network or media extender device through which the movies can be enjoyed. In addition, direct downloads will be available using MG MediaStore software.
Paramount studio is the first to come onboard and offer movies through the new service. And MusicGiants is expecting other studios to sign on later this year.
Scott Bahneman, CEO of MusicGiants said, "Over the past several years, high-end home audio consumers have come to rely on MusicGiants as the source for all of their favorite music. We are now pleased to announce that we are going to do the same thing for films and television shows through our VideoGiants service. Our company is uniquely positioned to sell the highest quality content into premium connected homes because our MG MediaStore software is being built into so many home theater devices."
This is a canny development but does, of course, depend on movie enthusiasts taking to the idea of buying hard drives pre-loaded with movies and adding further movies via download.
Official press release: MusicGiants Launches A First-Of-Its-Kind Service That Sells Films Directly Into High-End Home Theater Systems, Starting With Many Of Paramount Pictures' Titles
