CinemaNow was an international over-the-top (OTT) provider of on-demand Internet streaming media available to viewers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The company was founded in 1999 and was headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
Video CinemaNow
Products and services
The CinemaNow platform was available on the web, on mobile devices running iOS and Android, the Xbox and PlayStation game consoles and CE devices including Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Toshiba. Videos from CinemaNow are available for electronic sell-through via Download To Own, in the home video release window, DVD burning, as well as rental time-limited viewing in the pay-per-view window. As of 2016, the company had 55,000 movies and TV episodes in its library.
Maps CinemaNow
History
CinemaNow was founded in 1999 as one of the first on-demand Internet streaming media platforms. The Company was backed by Menlo Ventures, Index Holdings, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Lionsgate and EchoStar.
In November 2008, Sonic Solutions acquired CinemaNow. In January 2009, Sonic and Blockbuster, Inc. announced a strategic alliance to provide digital content delivery under the Blockbuster brand, essentially merging the digital storefronts of CinemaNow and its erstwhile competitor in 2007.
In 2010, Sonic Solutions and Best Buy announced a strategic alliance which resulted in Best Buy acquiring the CinemaNow brand. Sonic Solutions rebranded the CinemaNow movie technology as RoxioNow which became a white label movie store business.
Sonic Solutions was acquired by Rovi Corporation for $775 million in December 2010 and continued to operate the white label movie store business which was renamed the Rovi Entertainment Store.
In July 2013, Rovi announced that the Rovi Entertainment Store was acquired by Reliance Majestic Holdings LLC a new media company backed by Proveho Capital, a private equity firm based in Austin, Texas. In July 2014, Best Buy sold the CinemaNow business to the private equity firm Regent Equity Partners.
By January 2016, Regent Equity Partners had sold CinemaNow to the UK-based company FilmOn.
As of July 2017, CinemaNow is no longer available in Canada. The official website, https://ca.cinemanow.com, displays an error message. The CinemaNow.com website, accessed on Aug. 8, 2017, now redirects to http://cinemanowfree.com -- a live TV and Premium TV streaming service with content from around the world and in different languages. Many of the channels/networks carry the FilmOn brand. The previous digital movie service was available until at least July 7, 2017.
August 2017 - CinemaNow is no longer listed with the UltraViolet page: https://www.myuv.com/where-to-watch
See also
- Comparison of digital distribution platforms for mobile devices
References
External links
- CinemaNow.com
- Market Wire (August 18, 2008). "'CinemaNow Selects Widevine to Enable Multiplatform Content Distribution to Consumer Electronics Devices and PCs', and 'Widevine's Open DRM and Digital Copy Protection Solution Enables CinemaNow Users to Download Digital Content Regardless of Computing Platform or Browser'". DigitalTVnews. Seattle, Washington.
- "Best Buy press release announcing the re-launch of CinemaNow (Best Buy is now the owner of Cinema Now)". BBY.com. May 18, 2010.
Source of article : Wikipedia