MUMBAI: CinemaNow Inc., the online destination for downloadable
Beginning in late August, music fans can purchase and download music videos from artists such as EMI Music’s Lily Allen, David Bowie, Coldplay, The Decemberists, Fat Boy Slim, Gorillaz and Norah Jones as well as Sanctuary Records’ Morrissey and Dolores O’Riordan, and Drive-Thru Records’ Hellogoodbye.
With these agreements, CinemaNow and WatchMusicHere.com will offer more than 6,000 videos from Sony BMG, EMI Music, Sanctuary Records and Warner Music Group, making the site one of the largest distributors of downloadable music videos from major recording labels.
The selection will also include uncut European versions of select music videos as well as concert performances from around the world. Music videos will be available for purchase on a download-to-own basis for $1.99. Select live performances and long-form videos will be available for purchase on a download-to-own basis from $9.95 – $14.95 and on rental basis from $2.99 – $3.99, all in the WMV format.
“Now, music videos and concert performances from artists responsible for the majority of worldwide music sales will be available on WatchMusicHere and CinemaNow. Our music video catalog is growing rapidly, as we strive to offer our customers the widest selection available in today’s marketplace,” said CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis.
“We see CinemaNow as an important entertainment destination. As consumers increasingly rely on the Internet for easy access to high quality content, we think that the service will occupy an even more prominent place in the entertainment landscape. We are happy to be working with them to make our artists’ videos and concerts available alongside the movies, television programming and other types of entertainment content already on the site,” said Sony BMG Music Entertainment president, global digital business and US sales Thomas Hesse.
WatchMusicHere.com is the first video download service to offer videos in a convenient 1500K single-file format. This eliminates the need to download two files – one for a PC and another for a portable media player (PMP).
CinemaNow is integrating its service capabilities with more devices than any other online video provider to ensure that videos can be easily accessed via PCs, set top boxes (STBs), game consoles, and portable media players (PMPs), all with the ability to connect to TVs. The site is compatible with the latest WiFi PMPs from ARCHOS, which enable users to wirelessly download CinemaNow videos directly to their PMPs and stream them to their TVs.
CinemaNow is also integrated with HP’s upcoming line of MediaSmart LCD TVs, which enable users to rent or purchase CinemaNow movies from their couch. The MediaSmart TV connects to a customer’s home network either wired or wirelessly, so that a user can use their remote to purchase or rent a movie from CinemaNow, download the file to a designated hard-drive within their home network, and watch the video directly on their MediaSmart TV.
“A key part of EMI’s strategy is to put our music where our fans are, and CinemaNow is a great partner and a terrific new platform that is helping us reach that goal. CinemaNow is an exciting new business model that we are embracing to help us give fans the easy ability to access and buy our artists’ content, and a new revenue stream for our artists,” said EMI Music North America senior vice president of digital Lauren Berkowitz.
