VCinema Enters Video Over Broadband Market with Converged Home Entertainment Service
New Offering will Provide Consumers with Multi-Functional Service and Greater Control Over Their Personalized Digital Entertainment Experience
LONG ISLAND, N.Y., Dec. 8 -- VCinema, Inc., formed in early 2004, today announced its plans to bring a broadband-enabled home entertainment service to the market in mid-2005. The subscriber-based service will allow consumers to legally download and create their own virtual video libraries from a vast array of content -- including feature films, TV shows, children's programming, and a large variety of other video entertainment.
The service will be delivered through VCinema's Digital Theater, a next- generation, multifunctional set-top box that integrates a high speed broadband connection, a DVD/CD player, a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), and the ability to download digital video content to rent or own. As a result, VCinema's service seamlessly marries the functions that American's most want in their television entertainment experience -- the ability to sit in their living room and with a single remote, access the high-quality movies, TV shows, children's programs and other content they love -- and watch it whenever they want. This removes the hassle of looking for discs, downloading videos to a PC located in another room from the TV, tuning in to a program after it has already begun, running out to the video store, or waiting days for online rentals to show up in the mail.
"The demand for immediate access to high-quality, main stream content is at the heart of the rapid evolution of the digital home entertainment experience. As this market continues to emerge, it is clear that consumers are challenging service providers to deliver on three key premises -- greater convenience, choice and control," said Adam Zeitsiff, President & CEO, VCinema. "By converging core digital functionality with a secure video download service into a single solution, VCinema has answered this challenge and is prepared to emerge as a leader in the video over broadband home entertainment market."
Based on a recent whitepaper published by Parks Associates in July of 2004, slightly more then 15% of all U.S. households will purchase on-demand movies and other video content via the internet by 2008. This represents a huge opportunity for companies like VCinema to lead the emerging digital home entertainment market.
New Distribution Channel for Digital Content
In addition to directly benefiting consumers, VCinema's solution will also provide a new and secure distribution channel for content providers of all sizes, providing inherent security and digital rights management for their intellectual property, as well as the ability to help them augment their existing home entertainment revenue opportunities. With a significant increase in the industry's concern over the amount of illegal movie distribution and internet downloads, VCinema's service gives content providers the ability to combat this illegal distribution and build a growing base of legal online customers.
As a core part of VCinema's unique customer experience, the company will encode all content using an industry-standard Advanced Video Compression algorithm (AVC), which provides significantly higher video quality (full D-1, 720 x 480 resolution or better) compared to other service offerings in the market today. This, in conjunction with VCinema's progressive play technology, will allow a customer with an average broadband connection to begin watching a full-length feature film less then one minute after choosing to download the program. VCinema will also encrypt video content with its patent-pending Digital Rights Management and revolving licensing technology, as well as provide a secure, conditional-access communications path from its storage servers to its Digital Theater set-top box.
The company is in the final stages of developing its products and licensing a large variety of content from major U.S. film studios, television and cable networks, children's content providers, major sports leagues, and various other content providers around the world. VCinema will be launching its service on a limited test basis in the early summer of 2005, with a full- scale national launch currently planned for September of 2005.
About VCinema
VCinema, Inc., is a broadband-enabled home entertainment service that will allow consumers to legally download and create their own virtual video libraries from a vast array of content -- including feature films, TV shows, children's programming, and a large variety of other video entertainment. The service will be delivered through VCinema's Digital Theater, a next-generation set-top box that integrates a high speed broadband connection, a DVD/CD player, a Digital Video Recorder (DVR), and the ability to download digital video content to rent or own. VCinema is a privately held company with headquarters in Long Island, NY and offices in Austin, TX and Los Angeles, CA. For more information, please visit us at http://www.vcinema.com or email us at info@vcinema.com .
