Through Zediva, you can pick the DVD you want to rent when you want and watch it on any device you want, anywhere you are. Zediva lets you watch top just-released DVDs over the Internet for as little as $1 each.
The company, Zediva Inc., buys DVDs when they are first released to the home movie market, pops them into a bank of rack-mounted, Web-connected DVD players in Santa Clara and streams the video on demand online.
And unlike other streaming services from Netflix Inc. and others, Zediva lets viewers access special DVD features like the director’s commentary and a variety of subtitles.
“Our goal is to have the top 100 movies of the last 12 months at any time,” said Venky Srinivasan, co-founder and CEO.
It costs $1.99 per movie, or 10 rentals for $10, which includes unlimited playback for up to 14 days. Essentially, members get a long remote control for up to four hours at a time to a DVD player stocked with selected film.
Although copyright experts say Hollywood studios may have grounds to haul the 3-year-old startup into court, Zediva executives say a federal court ruling gives the company a legal green light.
“We believe there is precedent for what we are doing and that we are fully compliant with the law,” Vivek Gupta, co-founder and chief technical officer, said in an interview before Zediva’s official launch last week.
