BigPond Movies makes on-demand video a reality

Telstra today launched Australia's first online movie download service, aptly named "BigPond Movies Downloads". The service went live at around 10am this morning and, despite its name, in addition to downloading movies users can also choose from a selection of TV shows, sport, short films, and music videos.

The telecommunications giant has selected Sony Pictures Television (SPT) to be its launch partner, and SPT currently provides the entire content catalogue. At present, this consists of just over 1000 titles from the labels that SPT distributes, namely Columbia, Tristar, Screen Gems, Sony Classics, MGM and UA.

Some of the titles highlighted by Telstra include blockbusters like Spider-Man and Bewitched, classics such as Midnight Cowboy, foreign favourites like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, kids' hit Stuart Little and even Australian features such as Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

Telstra promises that the catalogue will be updated with new content each month, and says that it will eventually have "more than 7500 titles" available for purchase.

This film will self destruct in 24 hours...
Rather than "buying to keep", users of the service will be able to rent content on either an overnight or weekly basis (much like a bricks and mortar rental store). The timer counts down from when playback first begins, and users have a maximum of 30 days to watch all TV content and some older movies, while new release movies must be watched within seven days. The only exceptions to the aforementioned rules are music videos, which can be kept indefinitely by the user and have no expiry period.

Full pricing details can be found below:

Users can view content as many times as they want during the rental period, after which it will automatically be deleted from their PC. When asked why the service doesn't currently allow users to pay an additional amount to keep content indefinitely, Lindsay Arnold, Product Manager for Bigpond Movies told CNET.com.au that "we're supporting how the industry works at the moment…which is downloading for a period of time [as opposed to buying to keep]."

He didn't, however, rule out a buying to keep structure altogether, adding that in future "[there] could be rental price and purchase price side-by-side."

While the service is currently limited to titles that fall under the Sony Pictures Television masthead, Arnold ensured CNET.com.au that Telstra was actively seeking to bring new content providers onboard, citing security and piracy concerns as an initial stumbling block.

"It's early days with downloads…It's a matter of the content providers being comfortable that this is a good legal way for their content to be made available," he said.

To aid in building the confidence of said content providers, Telstra encrypts all of its content with Windows Media 10 Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. This, Telstra says, "prevents [the] copying and transfer of movies and television to other devices and controls the period over which the content can be viewed."

Jack Ford (MD, Sony Pictures Television), Toni Collette (actress) and Justin Milne (BigPond Group MD) at the launch in Sydney

How it works
Downloading content is a simple four-step process. Users must first download the BigPond Media Manager -- which only supports Windows XP -- to their PC, after which they're able to login to the BigPond Movies website to "select, rent, download and watch" the titles of their choosing.

Rather than forcing users to wait for their entire video to finish downloading before watching, the BigPond Media Manager can stream much of the desired content in the background during playback.

According to Justin Milne, BigPond Group Managing Director, a full length feature film can be primed and ready to watch within six minutes. Of course, this depends on one's Internet connection, with Milne's claims being made under the assumption that users were on BigPond's 17Mbps "Cable Extreme" service.

All content uses the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, and is encoded at a rate of 1.2Mbps using the Windows Media Player 9 format. In addition, BigPond has adopted a 100:1 compression ratio, which means that feature length films weigh in at anywhere between 500MB and 1GB.

Milne is supremely confident in the quality of the encoding method adopted by BigPond. He even went as far as saying that BigPond Movies offers the "best quality resolution that you can get for a movie download."

Milne also said that, in the near future, users will be able to schedule downloads remotely from a PDA or mobile phone, and have them "ready to watch when you walk in the door at home."

TV shows still marred by scheduling issues
For many, a major benefit of online content delivery will be the ability to download their favourite TV shows to watch on their own schedule. Unfortunately, the service is fairly limited in this regard as the only current season television series available are The Shield, Rescue Me, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Curiously absent are hit shows such as 24, Lost and The O.C. There are, however, archives of older series available for download, and these include the hit sitcom Mad About You and teen drama Dawsons Creek.

All current season content served by BigPond Movies will be made available the day after they first screen on free-to-air television or Foxtel. As such, Australians are still forced to endure the long time lag between when the shows air in the US and when they're broadcast here, much like the current situation with local free-to-air TV networks. This lag is often greater than six months, and many have speculated that this is the reason why a throng of Australians have turned to illegal BitTorrent networks for their TV fix.

Arnold was quick to pass the blame for BigPond Movies not obtaining TV content in a timelier manner off to content providers.

"Whether we can source stuff as early as the US depends on the content providers…[but] we're certainly interested in making content available as soon as we can," he told CNET.com.au.

Jack Ford, Managing Director of Sony Pictures Television -- currently the only content provider for BigPond Movies -- responded to this by citing seasonal issues as the cause of the delays.

"The US season finishes in May, while Australia's finishes in November," Ford told CNET.com.au. He added that outside ratings season "the ad revenue capabilities are simply not as great," as "people go on holidays in December/January."

As a result, content providers tend to hold off on beginning new seasons of TV shows until the next ratings season begins. "They [content providers] want to be able to run 22 episodes in sequence but you can't do that if you start in late September (to coincide with the new US season)," he said.

Arnold was optimistic that users would choose BigPond Movies over an illegal BitTorrent network, despite the scheduling issues and limiting DRM present in the former.

"Most people want to do the right thing," he told CNET.com.au, adding that "they [the public] are aware that BitTorrent isn't providing payment to the content producers…[and] now that we're providing a legal alternative, people will come to us."