The joint venture between three major Hollywood studios is now available for some cable subscribers

Oct 30, 2009 14:31 GMT  ·  By
Epix, the joint venture between three major Hollywood studios is now available for some cable subscribers
   Epix, the joint venture between three major Hollywood studios is now available for some cable subscribers

A joint venture between three major Hollywood studios, Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount, Epix is an online video site focused on movies and concerts and will allow users to choose from a gallery of 150 titles at launch. It has been dubbed the Hulu of movies and in sore respect that is accurate but for one crucial difference. Epix is tied to the Epix TV channel available only to Verzion FIOS subscribers in the US.

This significantly restricts its audience and the fact that it is tied to a cable channel subscription means that it's not exactly an online video site in the truest sense. Still, EpixHD.com is open to all users for the first 72 hours and if you really want to check it out you're going to have to get your hands on one of the invite codes. There is still some time left as the site doesn't properly launch until later today.

When it does launch though users will have a choice of 150 movies or shows for a start and the catalogue will significantly increase over time, reaching 3,000 titles in the next year. Eventually though, the site will host some 15,000 movies, and concerts from the three studios. What's more, users will have access to new releases just nine months from their debut, three months earlier than what other cable networks can get, thanks to the direct involvement of the movie studios.

This is all pointless if you can't actually access the service but Epix says that deals with other cable providers are in the making and the site will eventually be available to a much greater potential audience, though the company isn't making any announcements yet. The site is similar in look and feel to Hulu and is completely Flash-based. The video quality scales depending on what your connection can handle and on a good broadband connection it goes all the way up to 720p. The site does have potential but it will have to open up to a much greater number of users if it is to have any chance to compete with the larger players in online video.