MONTREAL – Bell Canada will launch an online movie and TV downloading store on Wednesday, cartt.ca has learned.
Customers will be able to download video, including full-length movies, TV shows, music videos and concerts, to their computers or Archos Media Portable player. The shop will be open to all Canadians with a broadband connection, and won’t be restricted to Sympatico subscribers.
Bell is apparently attempting to tap into the trend toward more and more online video downloading with its online Bell Video store.
Once the content is downloaded, it can be watched without an Internet connection on laptops, in the car, on television at the cottage, etc. But the videos will not play on most portable video players and are not iPod compatible.
Customers can download to own the content starting at $4.99 per title, or can download to rent starting at 99 cents.
Among the new movie releases that will be available when the shop opens are Cloverfield, and Beowulf. The English TV section mainly features children’s programming like Rolie Polie Olie and Little Bear.
The French TV section only has two titles, which are not children’s programming – Phylactère Cola and La minute blonde. The latter is free because it’s a Bell/MSN free webisode.
Along with the video, the Bell Video store will contain actor information as well as social networking tools where users can rate, review and chat about the shows and films.
