Entertainment over broadband is slowly picking up in India. The broadband growth in India has been slow compared to many other countries. Off late, we are seeing some growth in this area. The recent announcement by BSNL about the increase in speed to 2 MBps for the same cost of 256 KBps is a good sign. The expectations are high for a surge in the growth of broadband in the next 2 years. Such optimistic projections have led to new Indian entertainment portals offering high bandwidth video contents to the public. The role played by Indya On Demand and Rajshri.com in this regard is truly phenomenal. Both these portals are offering wide range of contents including movies, TV shows, Events, Concerts, etc.
Indya On Demand offers free short clips to viewers and an option to buy the full episode at a reasonable price. Some of the contents offered by them includes Star Screen Awards 2007, The great Indian Laughter Challenge, episodes of Khichdi, etc.
The other entertainment portal Rajshri.com offers more than 3000 hours of video content. In fact, Sooraj R Barjatya’s movie Vivah became the first Indian movie to premier on the internet. They have recently added the episodes of Malgudi Days and Fauji. Their offerings also includes Mahabharat, Movie Songs, Movie Scenes, Full Movies, Short Films, Documentaries, Concerts, etc. Their business model includes a free streaming option and a very affordable download option. You can view most of their contents for free from their site. The quality of streaming video is pretty amazing too. You can download a full movie starting from $4.99. They have a wide ranging selection of movies from Chitchor and Amar Akbar Anthony to Phir Hera Pheri. They even have some amazing documentaries like Jawarharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny”, a documentary on Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, etc.
I am pretty convinced that these portals have disruptive potential and it may end up killing DVDs, VCDs and Video Cassettes (are they still being sold?) and go directly into the living room of the “Digital Homes”. These kinda business models may even wipe out the video piracy. We just have to wait and see how it plays out.
