Samsung announces movies to mobiles service

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 20 Mar 2009 at 09:25

Samsung has announced a new service allowing its customers to buy or rent films and television series to download to their mobile phones.

The Korean company has signed content deals with Warner Brothers, Paramount and Universal allowing it to offer over 500 titles, including the The Dark Knight and television series such as E.R. and Friends.

The scope of its offering should make it competitive with Apple's competing iTunes services.

The shop will launch initially in Britain and Germany and be open to Samsung customers who own one of its internet-enabled smartphones such as its Tocco Ultra Edition.

Samsung says it eventually plans to expand the service to laptops, MP3 and MP4 portable music players and Samsung TVs.

Samsung Movies will use technology from Acetrax, meaning the content will be locked to the device its downloaded to, though users will be able to nominate other devices, such as mobile phones.

Prices start at £2.49 for a 24-hour rental or £4.99 to buy a film.

Samsung says it will double its titles to 1,000 by the end of the first quarter and again to 2,000 film and television shows by the end of June.