Youtube’s getting set to show live sport and already has full TV shows. But now it’s dabbling with a movie rental service. The small scale experiment teams Youtube with the Sundance Film Festival but could be the beginning of a much bigger move…
Youtube’s tie-up with the Sundance Film Festival makes five movies from the festival available to rent. Users can snaffle them up using their Google Checkout accounts but it appears to a US only deal at the moment.
Youtube says a small collection of rental videos from other US partners will trickle out over the next few weeks. The video site was reported to be in talks with movie studios last year and the deal with Sundance looks like it could be the first step towards a full-scale movie rental service.
Youtube has been working hard on pushing HD and making its videos more big screen friendly. However, with talk of “US partners” we fear its movie rentals plans could be America-only for the time being. We’ll have to settle for watching some Channel 4 shows on Youtube.
Out now | £TBA | Youtube (via Mashable)
