Reliance Entertainment’s video content site BigFlicks.com is live, albeit in alpha. After we’d broken the story in March about Reliance entering the home video business, I thought BigFlicks was going to be the online front end for Reliance’s home video business in India…far from it. It appears to be operating on the same model as model as Rajshri.com - intending to offer movies, TV serials and music videos for for online streaming (for free) and for download on rent or to own. It also caters to the same market - Indians in North America, UK, Canada, Middle East, South East Asia, Europe and Australia. Movie purchases are priced between $4.49 and $19.99.

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Interestingly, they also have regional language content - here‘s a Telugu movie. There’s DRM, apparently provided by Microsoft. BigFlicks also has a proprietary download manager. Licences are different for different movies: some are not available for viewing in India, others not in India, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. There’s an Adult movie section too, not available in India. The site is still in alpha, and perhaps all the content listed hasn’t been uploaded yet - I wasn’t able to access a few of the movies online. Apart from Rajshri.com, the site also competes with Indyaondemand.com from STAR India, and innumerable sites with “unlicensed” content.