The Hindu Business Line : Now, watch Indian movies on DVDs, VCDs for a song

Moser Baer, best known as manufacturer of compact discs, is planning to enter into the home video segment by offering its products at a cost that might make piracy unviable.

The company on Thursday said it would soon offer DVDs and VCDs of Indian movies at Rs 34 and Rs 28 each, respectively.

Piracy would call for at least two blank CDs to be bought; this would cost Rs 18. Stack up the distribution costs, and a pirated CD could cost close to Rs 28; and a DVD even more, said a spokesperson for Moser Baer. Even with new titles (for which copyright would be more expensive) the home videos would not cost much more, he said.

Several industry experts expressed surprise at the pricing proposed by Moser Baer for its home videos, but the company attributed the low pricing to a patented technology that uses alternative materials for structuring optical disks. "We have added certain substances to the polycarbonate substrate (used in manufacturing of optical disks) that asks for less of the substrate to be used. This has brought down the cost of manufacture," a company spokesperson said.

Additionally, the company has converted some of the CD lines of its optical disk business to produce home videos, thereby, reducing its capital expenditure.

The company expects to cater to the "volume explosion" that it anticipates, through 300 owned and branded outlets that it intends to set up. Moser Baer will invest Rs 400-450 crore within the next two years to acquire and create content for the home video market. "We are in advanced negotiations to acquire copyrights to more than 7,000 titles in all the major Indian languages by March 2007, which comprises one-third of all movies produced till date in India," said Mr Harish Dayani, Chief Executive — Entertainment.

The first phase of the DVD/VCD roll out will be completed by end of January 2007. "Our goal is to own copyright/exclusive license of 40 per cent of all mainstream movies produced in India," said Mr Rajat Puri, Executive Director.

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