Sonic Solutions Delivers Video-on-Demand for Sears, Kmart
Posted by Jesse Ward on Thursday, July 1, 2010 · 
·
· 
Sears and Kmart are preparing to enter the crowded video on demand (VoD) marketplace. Sonic Solutions announced that it will team with the retailers to deliver movies and TV episodes for rent or purchase, including new releases often on the same day as the DVDs become available. The VoD service will be available on Internet-connected devices including TVs, Blu-ray players and mobile phones.
As part of the multi-year agreement, Sears has licensed Sonic Solutions’ RoxioNow platform. Service is expected to launch later this year and be broadly promoted at retail stores nationwide.
Mark Ely, Sonic Solutions’ EVP of strategy, spoke to FierceIPTV about the new offerings. “This is a feather in our cap. Sears and Kmart combined have more store fronts out there than Walmart (the No. 1 TV retailer in the world),” said Ely. “Getting retailers involved is the next step in this transition to over-the-top delivery, it really requires the participation of the retailers to get consumers educated and get them aboard and understanding what’s possible.”
It’s interesting that Ely mentioned Walmart considering that they too have their own VoD offering. We’ve also reported on the likes of Netflix, Blockbuster and Google who are vying for their own slice of the VoD pie.
Ely discussed the popularity of over-the-top (OTT) services with consumers, and how retailers and manufacturers are racing to launch their own Internet video services. “There really is a land rush to add OTT services to consumer devices and more and more manufacturers are adding those services,” he said.
Sonic Solutions is capitalizing on the trend, looking to embed its product in as many devices and platforms as possible. The company has been a busy bee in the last few months, assisting BestBuy with it’s VoD service, working on the to-be-released Boxee set-top box, and partnering with MOD systems on a video kiosk/online service.
The company already has its software on Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players, LG Blu-ray players and TVs, on Vizio with the Blockbuster service, TiVo, and phones from HTC and Motorola.
For more, see this release and this FierceIPTV article.
Related posts: