The Sears service enables consumers to download movies the same day they go on sale as DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, says Sonic Solutions, the owner of the RoxioNow platform. This gives the Sears service nearly a month’s lead on Netflix Inc., No. 14 in The Top 500 Guide and the market leader for digital entertainment streaming. Netflix must wait 28 days from a film’s release on DVD before it can make content available, according to its agreements with such movie studios as Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios set the time frame for when videos are available for rent or download, but so far have set different rules for a la carte rental services like Alphaline Evertainment and CinemaNow from subscription-based plans like Netflix, says Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates, a market research firm that covers digital technologies. Scherf says all the a la carte services play by the same rules, so it's unlikely that Alphaline will have a movie available before other single-rental services.

Those in-store demonstrations and special promotions may help Sears establish the service and stir up overall electronic sales at Sears, Scherf says. "I think that there’s longer-term benefit of matching the consumer electronics sold at retail with a specific service. We know that the availability of online video content is a driver for consumers in purchasing Internet-connectable products."

From the article, "Sears launches a digital video service" by Allison Enright

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