New Digital Company Digiboo Launches Entertainment Download Kiosks; Announces Pilot Program with Movie Gallery, Inc.

Innovative Touch Screen Kiosks Enable Lightning-Quick Downloads of Movies and TV Shows onto USB Flash Cards

Business Wire

posted: 82 DAYS 18 HOURS AGO

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With the objective of providing consumers access to faster, higher quality digital downloading, Digiboo LLC, a new digital media company, and Movie Gallery, Inc., parent company of Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery, today jointly announce a pilot program for placement of up to 100 of Digiboo’s digital movie kiosks in select Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery retail stores nationwide.

Digiboo Market Opportunity

The proposed service leverages recent advancements in USB technology and capabilities. USB is particularly attractive and relevant to most consumers, as it is a standard used on virtually all PC’s and on many other media devices, with an installed base of hundreds of millions of devices. The latest version, USB 3.0, is more than 10X faster than USB 2.0 and is “backward compatible” with existing USB enabled devices.

“The flash card and rapid download components allow consumers to watch the movies they want and where they want – offering a much better experience than they have had previously,” stated home entertainment industry veteran Richard Cohen, Digiboo chief executive officer. “With Digiboo, you can download your movies in less than 30 seconds, there’s no subscription, no out-of-stock movies, and no returns. Plus, Digiboo’s technology enables films and other media to be played on so many different kinds of devices.”

Digiboo’s touch-screen kiosks will allow consumers to plug in a small, portable flash drive and download from a choice of more than 1,000 movies and TV shows for rental or purchase in under 30 seconds. The “movies in your pocket” can then be played on a variety of devices: netbooks and other laptops, PCs, mobile devices, and televisions. Content will be protected by digital rights management technology.

Pilot Program

The pilot will begin in January 2010 and will test both rental and sales, and explore various pricing scenarios. Customers will have access to movies and tv shows, and eventually books, music, and games.

“Innovation is critical to our strategy as people are constantly evolving in the way they want to acquire and consume entertainment and other media. Digiboo’s technology platform will allow us provide content to our customers in a new way that’s both more convenient and cost-effective,” said Clifford Torng, Chief Marketing Officer of Movie Gallery, Inc. “This new alliance enables us to provide our customers with significant flexibility in terms of where, how and when they acquire and view content as the kiosks can be placed in a number of different environments, and USB flash drives can be easily made to work with virtually any video playback device.”

Cohen noted that the Digiboo product should significantly broaden consumer interest in the home entertainment market since the technology is so consumer focused and makes downloading of movie content even more accessible.

“Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery not only offer convenient, high-traffic retail locations, but their consumer profile and proven expertise in merchandising to those consumers makes them an ideal partner for Digiboo’s pilot program,” he added.

About Movie Gallery/Hollywood Video

Based in Wilsonville, Ore., Movie Gallery, Inc. is the second largest North American video and game rental company. The company operates more than 3,000 stores under the Movie Gallery, Hollywood Video and Game Crazy brands in all 50 U.S. states and Canada. Movie Gallery, Inc. recently introduced an innovative discount program in Movie Gallery and Hollywood Video stores called the PowerPlay™ Discount Program, which offers customers the least expensive rentals in the industry, with no due dates or late fees on any movie rental.

About Digiboo

Digiboo has aggressive expansion plans for next year, with the objective of penetrating additional retail locations such as airports, book stores, coffee stores, colleges and others. The Company was formed last year by Cohen and other home entertainment industry executives Jeff Karbowiak, Blake Thomas and Eric Villette.

Cohen was President of MGM Home Entertainment and Consumer Products, and also served as Chief Executive Officer of TNR Entertainment, a DVD kiosk company, and served as EVP of the home entertainment division of the Walt Disney Co. Karbowiak, Thomas and Villette were also senior MGM Home Entertainment Group executives, and all subsequently held executive positions with other home entertainment organizations. Digiboo is based in Los Angeles, California.