Panasonic and Acetrax to launch innovative movie service
Panasonic and digital movie retailer Acetrax have announced the launch of Europe’s first connected TV service – an innovative premium movie store for owners of Panasonic’s VIERA CAST TV models – which promises to shake up the industry.
The pioneering solution puts consumers a remote control click away from renting or owning a catalogue of over 2,000 titles including Hollywood blockbusters such as Paramount Pictures’ Star Trek, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Up In The Air – without the need for monthly subscription charges - directly from their TVs. Uniquely, users can also store and access their purchases from any combination of four registered devices such as TVs, Blu-ray players, home audio systems, laptops and Macs. The independent service requires just a broadband connection, removing the need for pre-provisioned movie bundles such as Sky, BT or Virgin in the UK - opening the doors to on-demand movies from the likes of Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros, Universal and Momentum.
“Connected TVs such as VIERA CAST enabled Panasonic VIERA TVs will change the way in which customers will buy and consume movies in much the same way as we saw with music downloads. Acetrax has dedicated itself to providing the latest in Hollywood and local content to meet this demand,” said Leslie Golding, CMO Acetrax. “What sets Acetrax apart is its ability to offer Hollywood movies as well as content from local partners across Europe that is tailored and specific to them.”
From their Panasonic TVs, consumers can access the Acetrax movie store and are automatically given a unique product code to register on acetrax.com where the TV is already registered. A unique PIN code is created and credit is added to the account using a preferred payment method and then movies can be instantly streamed on demand directly to the living room. Customers will be able to choose from a constantly updated catalogue of new releases as well as classic titles such as The Godfather for 24-hour rental.
“VIERA CAST offers users the unique possibility to access online contents such as premium movies from the comfort of their living rooms whenever they want and as often as they want,” commented Fabien Roth, General Manager Panasonic Consumer TV. “We envisage that the service will be rolled out to over two million TVs across Europe by the end of 2011.”
VIERA CAST was launched in Europe in May 2009 and is available on Panasonic’s VT20, V20, G20, D28 and D25 VIERA TVs, as well as Panasonic’s 2010 line-up of Blu-ray Disc players. This innovative feature allows users to access online content directly from the living room via an Internet connection without using a computer. VIERA CAST currently offers contents from YouTube, Germany’s largest news and entertainment portal, BILD.de, Dailymotion, QTom, Picasa, Bloomberg, Eurosport, ZDF (Germany), NOVA (Czech), RTVE (Spain) and the German news broadcast format ARD-Tagesschau. In addition to that, VIERA CAST offers free video and voice calls with Skype. To make a Skype video call on a VIERA CAST HDTV, a specially-designed high-performance Panasonic camera, sold separately as an accessory, is simply plugged into the television. The camera includes a special microphone system that can easily pick up sound from couch-distance.