Ireland based ITV technology company, DigiSoft.tv issued a press release at the NAB show in Las Vegas saying that Video Ezy had selected its IPTV delivery platform and set top box middleware to support the service which would be rolled out into 1000 Video Ezy and Blockbuster stores in Australia and New Zealand. (Video Ezy acquired Blockbuster in 2007).

According to DigiSoft, the service uses an in-store kiosk with stored movies. The consumer simply plugs the USB storage device or iPod into the kiosk to select and download movies for later playback on via the set top box.

It quoted Paul Uniacke MD of Video Ezy as saying: "The set top box solution from DigiSoft provides our customers with a range of feature rich applications combined with support for the latest high definition technology TV viewing and gives us the flexibility to adopt new advanced online delivery models in the future."

Uniacke was not immediately available for comment and DigiSoft gave few details of the service. However Video Ezy has been developing it for several years, initially with an Australian listed company Mobilesoft (ASX: MSO). Mobilesoft has been trading under a scheme of arrangement since being placed into administration in August 2007. Only a month earlier it had announced a $4.5 million order from Video Ezy for 10,000 of the set top boxes it had developed for the service, but Uniacke told iTWire at the time that the order had not been placed.

Video Ezy had been trialling the service using the Mobilesoft set top boxes a year earlier and Uniacke explained at the time that the customer would be able to upload as many as 30 movies depending on the capacity of their portable storage device. They would not pay for these until the chose to view them after which time they would be available via the set top box for a 24 hour period. CONTINUED

---

Charging and usage would be managed by the set top box communicating to Video Ezy via either dialup, ADSL or its inbuilt GSM phone to apply the rental charge and 'release' the movie.

AUniacke also described other features of the device saying that only half the 160 Gbytes on the hard disc in the device would be reserved for Video Ezy usage. "The customer can put photos, home movies and record free to air programmes on the rest if they want," he said.

That unit also provided other options: "We can put previews of 200 movies on the storage device and you can watch these and choose the ones you want. When you come back into the store with your storage device these will be automatically downloaded onto it," Uniacke said. Another option under investigation was for customers to be able to load movies onto the set top box in advance of their release to the rental market, and then be able to watch them immediately they are released.

One feature of the DigiSoft box not likely to have been part of the Mobilesoft product is its support for high definition video, which is rapidly increasing in popularity.

Mobilesoft issued a statement to the ASX in November 2006 saying it had secured "an exclusive contract is with Australia's largest movie rental franchise, Video Ezy which intends to launch an electronic rental service for movies at home...The contract is for the supply of up to 390,000 of a unique Home Media Centre (HMC) running the next generation ADAPT TV product developed by Mobilesoft...Revenues for this contract over its four year life are projected to be in the range of $45 million for a base case, to more than $150 million in a high case depending on consumer acceptance. The contract is conditional on field trials which started on 31st October and will progressively take place in 40 homes throughout the Sydney Metropolitan are. They will be extended to regional Australia from early 2007."