Japanese Movie Companies Stream Classic Films to TVs

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Mar 27, 2009 21:25 Yukiko Kanoh, Nikkei Electronics

Five Japanese movie companies started "Maru Maru Eiga," a service to deliver Japanese classic films through Actvila Corp's "acTVila Video" video delivery service for TVs, March 26, 2009.

The films are also delivered through "acTVila Video Full," which supports HDTV video.

The five companies are Kadokawa Pictures Inc, Shochiku Co Ltd, Toei Co Ltd, Toho Co Ltd and Nikkatsu Corp. They will select classic and hit films from a total of about 12,000 movies that they own and deliver six of them every month. Each film is available for purchase for six months.

Films are offered as pay per view content and viewable for 48 hours after purchase. The pricing (including tax) is ¥630 (approx US$6.45) for an HDTV film and ¥420 for an SDTV film. But the prices may change due to factors such as a change of the delivery method, the companies said.

Films are streamed using the H.264 format. Data encoding speeds of HDTV and SDTV content are 6Mbps and 3Mbps, respectively.

The films that will be available for the service in April 2009 are "The Inugami Family," "Yogoreta Eiyu (Dirty Hero)," "Casshern," "Battle Royale," "Daigaku no Wakadaisho (Bull of the Campus)" and "Eagle and Hawk." In May, "Gamera," "Giant Space Monster Girara," "The Yakuza Wives," "Message from Space," "Giant Sky Monster Radon" and "Gappa, the Triphibian Monster" will be delivered.

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