EpixHD a Hulu-esque Movie Service

I recently explored the Epix HD movies on demand online service.  It is a joint venture between Viacom, MGM and Lionsgate.  They are offering limited 72 hour previews to people who sign up at expixhd.com.  It appears that their business model is to monetize this service by selling content to cable providers.  When a user signs up, the user must enter their cable provider. After the 72 hour preview ends, users are urged to call their cable companies to request the Epix channel in order to maintain access.

Although I did not really kick the tires, I can offer some opinions on the service and an assessment of its prospects.  The interface was very good.  The controls were easy to use and unobtrusive.  Movies streamed very well but that is expected because this debuted somewhat under the radar.  The picture was as good as Hulu and was appropriate on a 17″ laptop display.

My only gripe is that content was severely limited.  It was like being stuck in a Blockbuster circa 1990 (Indiana Jones, Godfather Trilogy and the best of the 1980s teen movies).  Many of the other movies were not even memorable titles.  I would expect that their library will grow over time and this is an invitation-only project.  For this project to succeed, I suspect that they will need to make the library more current and larger.  Maybe they have done their market research but I believe the Hulu crowd is much younger than the crowd that would enjoy their current content.  If they can stream more recent movies, then this system could work wonders.

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