As I mentioned yesterday, internet movie channel Epix launched this weekend. The TV channel is available to Verizon FiOS customers, who can also login to the EpixHD web site to watch dozens of movies including new releases such as Iron Man and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as well as older, more obscure titles including Bubba Ho Tep and Son of Rambow.

If you don't have Verizon FiOS you can request a 3-day weekend trial of the service, but I'm not entirely sure what the point is, since Epix doesn't plan to launch a web-only version anytime soon. Perhaps they're hoping you'll contact your local cable, satellite, or other TV provider and request they add Epix to the lineup.

If your invitation hasn't come through yet, you can take solace in the fact that I did score an invite. OK, that may not be much comfort, but I did manage to grab a bunch of screenshots of the user interface. It's kind of a mixed bag right now. The search function works quite nicely and you can click the watch button from the drop-down menu that appears when you're searching for a movie -- if the movie is available. Unfortunately, there are a ton of listings for movies that you can't actually watch yet, including Star Trek, GI Joe, and The Godfather I, II, and III.

You can also browser for movies by most watched, newest, genre, or other collections. You can also see all the movies from A to Z.

Browsing is sort of a cumbersome task though, since you have to scroll through thumbnails of movie posters. If it's not clear what movie you're looking at, you can mouse over the cover to see the title, but it may take a moment for the title to show up. And in the genre section, many movies are listed more than once (for example, the same title might show up in comedy, award winners, and action). And it's clear the web site wasn't really designed for geeks, because the sci fi category is dead last, which means you have to do a lot of scrolling before you get to it.

On the bright side, video quality was pretty good and you can even click a button to check your bitrate and other settings, which are automatically adjusted based on your internet connection settings.

If you're not a FiOS customer, you can still request an invite to check out the service. Just sign up at EpixHD.com/invite and you'll register for a 3-day weekend trial of the internet-only service. The invites are being given out on a first come first, served basis, so you might not get one right away. But Epix plans to offer invitations between now and Thanksgiving.

Epix is run by Viacom, Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM, so the company has access to a decent collection of movies, although it looks like most of the titles available at launch are older movies.

[via NewTeeVee]

Epix is a new premium TV channel that's a partnership between Viacom, Paramount, MGM, and Lionsgate. Today the company is announcing that Verizon is the first distributor to sign the channel, which means that Verizon customers will be able to watch thousands of movies in the channel's library. Now here's where it gets interesting: Epix isn't just a TV channel. As part of its offering, the group is also beta testing a web-based video service where users can stream thousands of titles. And today Epix announced it would be adding 3,000 HD videos to the lineup.

The problem is that Epix Megaplex (the web component) won't be open to the general public. It'll only be available to payng subscribers of the TV channel. And in fact Verizon hasn't even committed to making Megaplex available to FiOS TV customers yet, which means that not a single TV distributor is currently promising to make use of the Epix web video offering.

There are two problems with Epix Megaplex as a I see it. First, the company is using old paradigm thinking and making the web component available as a value added feature for TV subscribers when Epix could probably convince a fair number of domestic and international users to sign up as web-only subscribers or pay-per-view users.

Second, as TechCrunch's MG Siegler points out, why is it that you can walk into a video store and grab virtually any new release the day it's available, but you might have to visit a dozen web sites to find the same content available for download or streaming online -- if it's available at all? Wouldn't it be nice if Viacom, Paramount, MGM, Lionsgate, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and all the other companies offering online video would come to some sort of agreement that would let you find all of the videos you want in one place while making sure that the appropriate rights holders get paid?

Three movie studios have banded together to launch a new premium movie channel called Epix. The project was first announced in January. Eventually the network will be available from cable and satellite providers, but today Epix launched in private beta as a web site. Which makes sense, because the idea behind Epix has always been to offer HD video content both through the TV channel and over the web, Hulu-style.

Epix is a partnership between Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. The goal is to offer the network for a low fee to cable and satellite providers so that Epix can be included in your basic programming package at no extra charge. Subscribers will then also have access to the movies online. In 720 resolution. Ad-free.

NewTeeVee reports that there are about 100 films available to private beta users today, including Iron Man. The video player is based on Flash and streams content at up to 3Mbps. There's also a social element to the video player that lets you schedule simultaneous viewings with up to four friends over the internet.

Incidentally, Epix never got around to purchasing the Epix.com domain name from its current owners. Instead, the site is hosted at EpixHD.com.

MGM, Paramount, and Lionsgate are banding together to form a new TV channel called epix that will show films from each studio as soon as 9 months after the theatrical release. There's just one catch: No cable or satellite companies have agreed to carry the channel just yet.

But here's where things get interesting. The three studios, which are working together under the name Studio 3 Networks, plan to launch a subscription based web site that will stream on-demand movies starting in May. At launch, movies including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Iron Man, Pink Panther 2, The Spiderwick Chronicles, and Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail will be available.

In other words, the new epix web site will be a lot like Hulu, except the films will be more current and viewers will have to pay to watch them. So umm, it won't be that much like Hulu at all. But it does raise an interesting question - if Studio 3 Networks doesn't manage to sign a broadcast carriage, could the group still make money on a subscription based web site? Sure, people are used to getting online video for free, but personally I'd rather pay a nominal monthly fee to watch on-demand movies from a site like epix than pay an arm and a leg to subscribe to a cable channel on top of a monthly cable bill. Or at least, I would if epix had films from more than three studios.

In related news, while looking for any sort of publicity photos of epix, I discovered that epix.com, epix.net, and epix.tv among other web domains are already registered. So it's not clear exactly what the URL of the new page will be.