indya.com launches Downloadable Video Service

New Delhi, Jan 18: Targeting broadband-enabled South Asianaudiences in the U.S., England, Canada and South East Asia, indya.com,the internet portal owned by the STAR Group, today announced the launchof its digital entertainment store, which makes available for downloadsome of India's most popular entertainment contents.

Contents from across the STAR network, including popular'K-Serial' (Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki), The Great Indian Laughter Challengeand Koffee With Karan, will be made available for download.

indya.com is also working with other content providers to bring the best of Indian documentaries, films and music online.

The service is available worldwide and is targeted atbroadband-enabled South Asian audiences in the U.S., England, Canadaand South East Asia.

Users can access the service at http://broadband.indya.com/,which is powered by Direct2Drive. Direct2Drive, Fox Interactive Media'sdigital retail store, already offers an array of downloadable film andtelevision contents from leading providers, such as 20th Century Fox,Lionsgate Films and Starz Entertainment.

The new service is offered via a 'download-to-own' model, in which content is downloaded to the end-user's personal computer.

Purchased content is then playable on up to two Windows® Mediacompatible devices, including portable players, allowing consumers toview their content on the go.

''This is the first time an Asian internet portal has made thiskind of scale of entertainment content available online,'' said AjayVidyasagar, Executive Vice President and Head, Interactive Media, STARIndia.

''We are very pleased to be able to launch the service with anumber of STAR's popular properties and look forward to working withother content providers in order to offer broadband enabled SouthAsians the world over the best entertainment content for download.''Single episodes are already available for free on a trial basis inorder to allow users to sample the quality of the content and service.

Additional episodes are priced starting from 0.99 US dollar though special discounts are available for bundle purchases.

Additionally, indya.com exclusive recap episodes will be availablefor top serials, chronicling an entire week of events in a 45-minutespecially created recap.

Recap episodes for popular serial -- Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki -- areavailable now in the same week as aired on TV, with other shows to beadded to the mix in the near future.

In addition to top TV entertainment downloads, consumers willshortly have access to current affairs updates, as well as top Indianfilms and music.

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