Posted on
August 09, 2011 by
Jennib And Friends
You Tube began adding some 3,000 films from major studios for rental in the U.S. on Monday, for users to rent starting on Monday, along with the millions of free user-created videos the popular website is best known for.
The movie streaming market has been primarily dominated by Netflix and now You Tube wants a piece of that action. On Monday, Google announced that You Tube will begin to stream new movies such as The King’s Speech, Despicable Me, and The Green Hornet.
A statement by the company said that You Tube will begin to bring the new movies from Sony, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, and Lionsgate. The rental rate for most new movies will start at .99.
Google Inc-owned You Tube is offering a mix of recent Hollywood blockbusters, independent and foreign movies for 99 cents up to .99 each. These include last year’s Oscar winners “The King’s Speech” and “Inception” alongside classics including “Scarface” and “Taxi Driver.” Most of the movies on the site are priced around .99.
In addition, hundreds of new movies, including some offered before the latest releases are available for free viewing as with other clips watch here.
You Tube says that it is increasing investment in the development of original content through the You Tube Next program and initiatives such as the Creator Institute and the NextUp development program. In the coming year, YouTube says that it will help its 20,000+ partners to create even more content.
YouTube signed an agreement with major studios including Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros, Sony Corp’sJ Sony Pictures, Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures and Lions Gate Entertainment.
Once users have upgraded their YouTube accounts they can pay to watch a movie, which they have 30 days to begin viewing. Once users begin watching the movie, they typically have 24 hours to finish.
Many of the new movies, which will be streamed, will be available at the same time as DVD releases.
Hollywood studios are slowly warming up to the idea of using social media not just for marketing but as a potential new distribution outlet like cable and theaters.
Warner Bros recently started experimenting with some of its popular movies on Facebook for a rental fee which could be paid with Facebook credits.
YouTube will allow users of movie rentals to share the movies on social networking site like Facebook and Twitter but if the recipient clicks on the link they will see a trailer unless they have also rented the movie.
Another feature is YouTube Movie Extras, similar to DVD extras with behind-the-scenes videos, cast interviews, parodies and remixes made by YouTube users.
The new service is available only in the United States.
YouTube has spent the last couple of years redeveloping the popular site, to tweak its image as a site for grainy 2-minute clips of users’ pets and kids.
The goal for YouTube is to drive more views of its videos which, in a fast-evolving Web content sector, need to offer better production values to compete against paid professional offerings from the likes of Hulu, Netflix Inc and websites CBS, Walt Disney Co’s ABC and other broadcasters.
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