CinemaNow scores on-demand goal

Susan Rush
From the October 23th edition of CED Broadband Direct

Attention hockey fans, NHL.com has teamed with CinemaNow Inc. to deliver on-demand hockey highlights.

The on-demand service gives hockey fans access to streaming video highlights from almost every NHL game, classic NHL moments, previews of titles from the NHL Home Video library and a behind-the-scenes look at NHL teams and players.

The NHL Highlight Machine gives subscribers various highlight options, including building a play list and watching highlights in that order, comparing specific players vs. specific goalies; comparing team vs. team, watching archived game highlights; and seeing individual player information and stats.

The video-on-demand distributor's proprietary PatchBay VOD technology will handle the content distribution, including digital and territorial rights protection, user profiling, pay-per-view and subscription services and detailed report generation. PatchBay uses Microsoft's Digital Rights Management solution and is integrated with Windows Media 9 Series.

The puck dropped last week to start. Content is available on a pay-per-view basis, or as part of a season-long subscription. The NHL Highlight Machine, for example, is priced at $4.95 a month, or $29.95 for the season.