Digital Garage will begin the experimental service in cooperation with NTT East Japan's "B Flet's" DSL.

Digital Garage presented o­n the 18th that they will begin a trial period of their o­nline video rental service, from February 1st to April 30th. B Flet's users in the Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Chiba areas will be able to apply for a monitor starting December 19th. The trial is in cooperation with NTT East Japan.

The name of the service is "'B Flet's' Support Super Video." A free monitor unit will be borrowed to the (winning) households. The unit, designed by Digital Network Appliance Corporation, is a set-top box called the "i-DVP Internet Digital Video Player." The i-DVP is equipped with an internal 40GB hard drive, and can store 40 hours of video. Simply connect the unit to any standard home television, and every feature can be accessed by the remote. Verification and charge control is handled via IC Card, with each title having a 50-200 yen "rental charge," which allows for downloaded movies to be played for a fixed period of time. When the rental period is over, the data will automatically be deleted. The contents are o­nly playable o­n a home television - so there is copy protection against digital reproduction and dubbing to a video deck via the standard video output.

Titles to be accessible during the trial period will be movies, drama, anime, music, and sports. For now, 3 companies including Warner Entertainment Japan have decided to have titles such as "Goonies," "Matrix Reloaded," "South Park," and "Reasonless Hostility." Using the MPEG-2/MPEG-4 formats, the image quality will be a maximum of 6Mbps.

The video forwarding service the i-DVP accesses is nothing more than a conventional web server with video files o­n it; this means that servers can be constructed for a low price. This time around, NTT East Japan will be using the "Flet's o­n Demand" content forwarding network, but this is the first time contents intended for television use are being distributed large-scale.

Original Article:
http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/news/2003/12/18/1562.html

Monitor Application Information:
http://www.dnainc.co.jp/service/trial.html

Digital Garage News Release:
http://www.garage.co.jp/news/dg_news/dgn031218.html

NTT East Japan News Release:
http://www.ntt-east.co.jp/release/0312/031218b.html