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Studios launch Epix high-def, on-demand movies site (and we have invites)

// October 29th, 2009 // Tech News

Epix, the new HD television channel and on-demand Internet service, is going live this weekend on its first network: Verizon’s FiOS. If you’re not a subscriber, though, Ars has 200 30-day epixhd.com passes to give away—the perfect way to test the service’s 720p streaming on new films like Cloverfield , I ndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull , and Iron Man . Epix has an unusual business model. When we first described it , the idea was that Hollywood studios MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate would join forces and put their not-yet-on-DVD movies onto a new TV channel called Epix. In addition, people who subscribed to both a TV service and an Internet service from a partner (like Verizon) could then access epixhd.com for on-demand 720p streaming to their computers at any time. Epix hoped to set itself apart from the pay-TV pack by convincing operators to roll its offering into their standard channel lineups rather than breaking it out as a separate fee.