(17 August 2005 8:30 pm)

MUMBAI: Chennai-based GV Films Ltd will soon offer web streaming of 6000 movies, aimed at overseas markets.

The company has signed an MoU with I-Net Singapore, a leading infocomm technology solutions provider, for this purpose. I-Net Singapore will provide the backend mechanism and act as a hub hub for GV Films to stream movie content from its portals.

"We plan to go commercial within two months. We have a revenue share arrangement with I-Net Singapore," says a source in the company.

GV Films has acquired Internet rights to 6000 movies for Rs 900 million, the source adds. These include around 4000 Hindi films and 2000 movies in Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada languages, a deal it had struck four years back.

GV Films has two Portals - gvtamilfilms.com and telugupictures.com - which will be hosted by 1-Net Singapore, who have invested huge resources for content distribution. This is in line with Singapore's digital exchange strategy to encourage more digital content to be hubbed, processed, managed and distributed from Singapore.

"We will be offering five portals for web streaming. The aim of the MoU is to stream and distribute films to the Indian community worldwide," says the source.

GV Films is currently working on the subscription and pay-per-view prices. The company also plans to acquire more Internet rights for the latest films.

1-Net is a wholly owned subsidiary of MediaCorp, Singapore which has a complete range of media businesses spanning TV, radio, movie Productions, newspapers, magazines, electronic media and other broadcasting services.

GV Films, a listed company,burst into the Indian film market in the year 1989. The main object of the company was production and distribution of feature films in various languages.