BREAKING. After less than a year, MultiChoice's DStv Box Office already cited as impacting South Africa's movie attendance figures.

Eight months after MultiChoice launched its DStv Box Office digital movie rental service, the in-home, on-demand rental service is already being cited by some of South Africa's cinema chains as a contributing factor to growing pressure on movie attendance figures in the country.

Nu Metro is closing its second movie cinema within a year - the Sunny Park cinema in Pretoria - citing poor foot traffic. Fay Amaral, the managing director of Nu Metro told Business Day that South African movie cinemas remain viable entertainment destinations. She however specifically highlighted MultiChoice's DStv Box Office digital movie rentals as one of the contributing factors now playing a definite role in adding competition to cinema attendance figures in South Africa which remain under pressure.

Bruce Mubayiwa, social media coach at Chess Plains Media talked to Destiny Man about it. "The question I would have for Nu Metro is: to what extent have they embraced the new technology? If they were losing market share to the digital movie rental business, how flexible was their business model for tweaking? Are they flexible enough to consider making investments in the booming digital movie rental business?"

In a new attempt to lure more South African moviegoers, Ster-Kinekor Theatres which no longer wants to advertise its movie listings in daily and weekly newspapers, is launching Ster-Kinekor Cine Prestige in Johannesburg, which it describes as a "business class experience" cinema offering. The cinema boasts large leather recliner seats at R85 per ticket.

"With Cine Prestige, we are now able to reach an even wider market and are able to offer something unique and more sophisticated, loosely modelled on similar concepts seen in the UK and Australia," says Fiaz Mahomed, the CEO of Ster-Kinekor Theatres.

REVIEW. DStv BoxOffice is an enjoyable extension service, easy to navigate and understand, quick to access, with a simplistic design.

This independent review of DStv BoxOffice, MultiChoice's new video-on-demand (VOD) service, is based on a viewing done on a Pace 4P HD PVR decoder with a Sony Bravia Full HD TV set. This review solely focuses on the functionality, design, and use, of the service in a fully functional environment, excluding possible operator technical difficulties or service interruptions that might have an impact on the service, options and selections and speed DStv BoxOffice is accessible by pressing the green button on the DStv remote control.


If you're familiar with DStv's existing interface design and menu selection, DStv BoxOffice is incredibly easy to use and navigate through. The exact same functionality and video manipulation is possible as with anything else recorded on the PVR (for instance pause and rewind, fast forward, or leaving the movie and returning with the option to either Resume Play or Restart Play).

To choose a movie and do payment authorization required an SMS to be sent to a shortcode. It took 2 minutes for the decoder to change the movie title from ''Rent now'' to ''View Now'' which means the movie can now be clicked and watched. All movies have free trailers. Movies will play in standard definition (SD) or high definition (HD) depending on your PVR and TV set.

Before you select a movie, the green playlist page give all the relevant movie details like actors, director, theme, runtime, PG rating, price (they're all R25 VAT inclusive) and the time available to view after buying (48 hours). The last column indicates the date (day/month) the movie is going to disappear as a potential movie that can be ordered and watched - when the date comes close it starts to turn red just like on the Catch-Up service. The playist can be sorted (white button) and a full rental history is also available (blue button).

A movie starts immediately without any adverts and is preceded by a visual as well as an audio age restriction announcement, for instance ''This programme is rated 13. Viewer discretion is advised.''

The i-Plate is available by pressing ''i'' on the DStv remote control. It contains the same information as might be available on a normal show listing on the DStv EPG. The banners are green to distinguish it as DStv BoxOffice. At the bottom it indicated until when the movie can be viewed, for instance: ''View until Mon, 14:51.'' At the end of a movie, at the end of the credit roll the decoder automatically returns to the green BoxOffice playlist page of available movies.

Press the green button while you're watching a movie and you'll be returned to the BoxOffice playlist page of available movies (while the movie keeps playing). Press the red button while you're watching a movie and you'll suddenly go to your own playlist page of recorded shows (while the movie keeps playing).

The green interface design is clean and looks very nice. The top right hand corner displays key art of the movie you're highlighting that's big enough so you can get a better sense of what it's about (like a DVD cover).

Accessing the system was quick, easy, and very simple. From the first screen, to getting a movie to play on DStv BoxOffice took me 3 minutes. Two minutes of this was the final verification after having chosen a specific title (I watched I am Number Four) and waiting for the decoder to change the movie title from Rent Now to View Now. There's also a separate SMS message that gets sent to your phone to say you've rented it, what the title is, and that ''its due within 5 mins.'' although I immediately clicked it on screen and it started playing.

BREAKING. MultiChoice now plans to launch DStv BoxOffice in July; two months before SouthTel's VOD:TV video-on-demand service starts.

MultiChoice will launch its commercially extended video-on-demand (VOD) service called DStv BoxOffice in July.

MultiChoice has been testing DStv BoxOffice since last year and wants to use DStv BoxOffice to retain subscribers as well as boost revenue growth.

MultiChoice plans to download some of the latest blockbuster movies to PVR's through the existing satellite network to home decoders instead of using a broadband service in exactly the same way as the new video-on-demand operator SouthTel plans to do when it launches its new VOD service offering called VOD:TV in September.

ALSO READ: SouthTel to launch it's VOD:TV video-on-demand service in September in South Africa.
ALSO READ: MultiChoice grows its DStv subscriber base in Africa to 4,9 million by end of March 2011; margins under pressure due to competition; rights.

DStv BoxOffice will make a rolling, updated selection of movie titles available for immediate watching. Registered DStv BoxOffice users will be able to watch a movie for a window period of 48 hours, as many times over as they want. DStv BoxOffice is similar in design and function to FOXTEL Box Office and Sky Movies Box Office.

BREAKING. MultiChoice testing and planning to launch DStv Box Office as part of DStv on Demand; will offer pay per view movies to subscribers.

Since it's becoming too hard to keep under wraps, I'm spilling that according to what sources are telling me, MultiChoice is currently testing under a selection of its employees (and planning to roll out) an extension of its DStv on Demand service. This for-now-called DStv Box Office enhancement will allow DStv premium subscribers the first full pay per view functionality in high definition (HD) in South Africa.

I was told that MultiChoice plans to unveil Box Office as part of the upgraded DStv on Demand feature launched earlier this year in May in which subscribers would be able to ''order'' and watch movies - similar to BSkyB's Sky Box Office - available at the same time as the DVD release and before the pay television window. Similar to the current DStv on Demand TV shows that viewers can access for a number of days, a rotating number of movies will be available in high definition (HD) for DStv premium subscribers.

MultiChoice dabbled with pay per view movies on demand in the past but the service was stunted. However the new DStv on Demand functionality (coupled with internet broadband penetration levels in South Africa), advances in digital personal video recorders (PVR's) and a renewed sense of urgency around the growth in the ways that consumers and pay TV subscribers have access to digital content, have put new impetus behind MultiChoice's decision to explore the possibility of this service. It's something that the pay TV platform wants to roll out as soon as possible, I'm told.

ALSO READ: MultiChoice will possibly roll out something in the line of DStv movies on demand very soon.
ALSO READ: MultiChoice officially launches its DStv on Demand service.