Barnes and Noble to break into digital video scene

B&N will be offering its own branded Nook video service in the fall

Move over, Amazon, Apple, Wal-Mart, Netflix, and every other company with an established digital video service.  There’s a new sheriff in town.  Well, not really.  But the Internet will have a new digital video service to contend with the likes of Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, and all the others.  Barnes & Noble announced Tuesday that it will be launching its very own branded Nook video service this fall.

The details are still somewhat nebulous, but Barnes & Noble has brought on some major content partners and says that the offering will allow users to purchase movies for download or stream them as rentals. 

All video purchases, whether they’re streamed or downloaded, will be stored to the Nook Cloud, which can be synced and accessed from Nooks and other devices via a soon-to-launch Nook video app.   So if a user starts watching a movie on his connected TV and his water heater explodes, forcing everyone in the house to grab what they can and evacuate, he can finish watching his movie from his smartphone or tablet.

Customers will also be able to link their UltraViolet accounts to the Nook Cloud so that they can get all of their video purchases in one spot.

Barnes & Noble was not immediately available to comment, but it looks like this is not going to be a subscription service, so it won’t really compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Rather, it will likely pose more of a threat to Wal-Mart’s digital video service Vudu, and Apple’s iTunes.

The non-subscription offering would explain why B&N was able to snag content from studios like HBO and Starz, which Netflix has had problems with in the past.  Some of the titles that will appear in the Nook video roster include Disney-Pixar’s Brave and Toy Story 3, Marvel’s The Avengers, 21 Jump Street, Awkward, The Artist, Breaking Bad, Dora the Explorer, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Spartacus, Magic City, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Harry Potter movies, The Dark Knight, The Hangover and many more.  

“The launch of our new digital video service with our long-time studio partners allows us to bring award-winning current and classic movies, TV shows, documentaries and more to millions of customers’ screens, coming soon,” said B&N CEO William Lynch, in a statement.

Barnes & Noble hasn’t given any official date when the service will go live, other than to say it will be available in the fall.  Nor has the company offered up any information in the way of pricing.  If it wants to be competitive, it will have to keep prices in the Amazon Instant Video range of $2.99-$3.99 per 24-hour streaming.

Image source: barnesandnoble.com