Optical storage maker Moser Baer India has launched its national home video business with 101 Hindi titles. The titles are priced at Rs 28 for VCDs and Rs 34 for DVDs. The company had earlier launched titles in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada. Moser Baer has also formally unveiled the website (www.moserbaerhomevideo.com) for e-tailing these videos. One can pay online and pick the titles listed on the site. (Isn’t the name a bit too long for a B2C site?).
The company has appointed some 450 distributors across the country, who will in turn distribute to 100,000 outlets like stationery shops, telecom shops and regular audio and video outlets. It has also announced the pilot projects of two Hindi films in an effort to own content. But Moser Baer plans to acquire copyrights / exclusive license for more than 7,000 titles in all major Indian languages. This will be a third of all movies produced till date in India, a release said.
It remains to be seen if people will really pick up DVDs off the shelf, or will they rely on the neighbourhood DVD/VCD rental stores?

Nikhil adds:
Something has to be said about the usability of the Moser Baer site: navigation is a pain, and categories take up half the page. Take a look at this page for Classical Music. Also, not all movie titles are priced at Rs. 28 and Rs. 34 for the DVD and VCD respectively - the non film selections are priced higher. For the VCD, some are priced at Rs. 49, while others Rs. 89. The site seems to be very slow now - maybe they weren’t expecting much traffic…
Related:
Moser Baer Launches Hindi Movie DVDs At Rs 38; Plans To Acquire 40% Of Indian Movie Content Rights
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