Reliance's BigFlicks.com Offers Movies For Streaming, Purchase, Rent
Reliance Entertainment’s video content site BigFlicks.com is live, albeit in alpha. After we’d broken the story in March about Reliance entering the home video business, I thought BigFlicks was going to be the online front end for Reliance’s home video business in India…far from it. It appears to be operating on the same model as model as Rajshri.com – intending to offer movies, TV serials and music videos for for online streaming (for free) and for download on rent or to own. It also caters to the same market – Indians in North America, UK, Canada, Middle East, South East Asia, Europe and Australia. Movie purchases are priced between $4.49 and $19.99.
Interestingly, they also have regional language content – here‘s a Telugu movie. There’s DRM, apparently provided by Microsoft. BigFlicks also has a proprietary download manager. Licences are different for different movies: some are not available for viewing in India, others not in India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. There’s an Adult movie section too, not available in India. The site is still in alpha, and perhaps all the content listed hasn’t been uploaded yet – I wasn’t able to access a few of the movies online. Apart from Rajshri.com, the site also competes with Indyaondemand.com from STAR India, and innumerable sites with “unlicensed” content.
Interesting, will it also be getting into business of shipping DVD's for rent like Netflix and other Indian based sites.
The price of 5 – 20 $ seems a a little steep for Indian audiences.
I guess the success of Netflix has given a viability to this business model worldwide.
Cheers
Tarun
I am surprised that a reputed company ike Reliance Entertainment would make a mistake like ''not in India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan''
Sikkim, not a part of India?? Ahem!!
"There’s an Adult movie section too, not available in India"
Indian soft porn not legally NOT available to people of India? They're missing out on big share of the pie. I guess we still have to be content with those masala forums :)