Oceanic unveils nation's first interactive TV
Pacific Business News (Honolulu) - by John Duchemin PBN Staff Reporter
Oceanic Cable in December will launch America's first movies-on-demand TV system, part of a package of interactive services that will put Hawaii ahead of the entire nation in terms of TV capability.
Along with a library of movies, Oceanic soon will offer its customers services including hundreds of new channels, karaoke and on-screen ordering of pizza. Eventually e-mail, online banking and other e-commerce services will be available, say Oceanic programmers, who crafted the system independently -- though with corporate approval -- of parent company Time Warner.
If Oceanic's new service catches on, it could become a model for the rest of the nation's cable networks, the programmers say.
Time Warner has long experimented with interactive TV. But Oceanic's rollout will be the first since Time Warner offered experimental interactive services to 4,000 homes in Orlando in 1994. Oceanic will beat to market other Time Warner interactive rollouts in Tampa, Fla., and Austin, Texas.
"This will be a whole new way of watching TV, something people have never experienced before," says Norman Santos, Oceanic's vice president of operations.
With a few clicks of the remote, Oceanic customers soon will be able to:
Watch movies on demand.Using an interactive on-screen menu, TV users would choose from several hundred movies -- and watch any of them any time.
Viewers will pay several dollars per movie, but Santos likens the experience more to renting a movie than to traditional pay-per-view. Not only will Oceanic's video-on-demand service have a broader selection than call-and-order movie channels, but viewers can also pause, fast-forward or rewind movies.
Viewers will also get extra time -- up to 50 percent of the movie time, Santos says -- to allow for pauses. And they can start the movie whenever they like.
The library may eventually have 500 movies, and this number could increase, depending on viewer demand, Santos says.
Order pizza on the screen. Customers will be able to choose from the full Pizza Hut menu (see sidebar on pages 1 and 57).
Call up karaoke on demand. Several hundred songs will be available, and like the video-on-demand service, can be paused, fast-forwarded and rewound at will.
The program -- brainchild of Oceanic marketing director Alan Akamine -- is tailored to karaoke-crazed Hawaii viewers. Akamine says it could become popular in other markets, where customers might be less willing to spend money on karaoke machines or trips to karaoke bars.
Use an on-screen interactive channel guide. Vastly enhanced from today's slow-scrolling channel guide, the menu will let viewers click through hundreds of channels at will, and view the complete TV schedule up to seven days in advance.
Viewers can also use the guide to pre-program their VCRs to record movies or shows.
These services will come on line by the end of January 2000, Santos and Akamine say. Oceanic's 500 employees already have been testing video on demand and other services on their home TVs, Santos says.
Video-on-demand, the first of the new services, will launch in Mililani in mid-December, Santos says.
Such features -- while groundbreaking -- could be just the start of a new wave of products, Santos and Akamine say. Within several months, Oceanic wants to offer:
TV e-mail. Using a cordless keyboard, customers could use their TV to send and receive electronic messages. Eventually, Oceanic customers will be able to get on the Internet with a simple Web browser.
"This will be very simple, very TV-centric. It will appeal to people who want the simplicity of pressing a button and getting something done," Akamine says. "The power user will always go over to the PC. But for the couch potato, you now have the ability to communicate using your TV."
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