Video Ezy selects DigiSoft to deliver electronic video rental platform

April 15, 2008 – Irish firm DigiSoft has announced at the NAB show in Las Vegas that it has been selected by Video Ezy, Australia’s largest movie rental franchise, to deliver a platform for the Video Ezy Electronic Video Rental service, to be rolled out in Video Ezy and Blockbuster stores across Australia and New Zealand.

The main components of the new platform will be an in-store kiosk with movie library, branded USB or iPod-type storage system and in-home Java set-top box, containing middleware developed by DigiSoft.  The consumer plugs their USB or iPod-type storage device into the kiosk to select films to rent for later playback on the Java set-top box.

“The Electronic Video Rental service provides our customers with a new compelling and dynamic content delivery platform that offers them a truly flexible rental model,” said Paul Uniacke, MD of Video Ezy.  “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.”

A spokesman for DigiSoft named the advantages of the Electronic Video Rental platform as guaranteed availability of content offered (no out of stock issues), no deterioration of stock through scratching etc, and no fees for late returns.  Furthermore, once the storage device is plugged into the DigiSoft-powered set-top box and the consumer requests to watch the film, the set-top box requests a key and only then is the consumer charged for viewing the film.  The set-top boxes for the project were supplied by Taiwanese firm Mototech.

Video Ezy has over 1,000 stores and serves more than 8mn customers, following the acquisition last year of master rights for Blockbuster stores in Australia.