Danish cablenet YouSee is giving subscribers the ability to return to the start of a programme should they join it late or simply enjoy it so much they want to watch it all over again.
Trials of the locally branded StartForfra have been running to selected customers for the past year, using English language channels as the guinea pigs, before recent agreements with copyright clearing houses CopyDan, KODA, NCB and UBOD made it possible for local channels to be added.
Startover is being made available at no extra charge to subscribers that have the cablenet’s Samsung-branded HD receiver. The formula has been popularised in the United States by operators including Comcast and Time Warner. YouSee will include a Startover icon on the Now and Next bar on the EPG.
It will initially be available on DR1, DR2, TV 2, TV 2 Charlie, TV 2 Zulu, TV3, 3+, Kanal 4, Kanal 5 and Discovery. A further five to ten channels will be added later in the year. Although YouSee is claiming the service as a first, a similar service has been up and running on TeliaSonera-owned Stofa since the beginning of the month.
Separately, YouSee has also introduced HD movies to its on demand service. An initial six films are being made available at a cost of DKK49 for a 24 hour rental period with further titles being added, possibly as early as this week.
