Hot on the heels of the launch of two new video-on-demand (VOD) services in South Africa, MultiChoice has announced that it is expanding its transactional VOD platform, BoxOffice, to subscribers of its lower-cost DStv Compact bouquet.

Previously, BoxOffice was available only to DStv Premium and Extra subscribers. Compact, which costs R295/month for a base subscription, is priced at less than half the Premium bouquet, which fetches R665/month. DStv Extra costs R399/month.

The move by MultiChoice comes just a week after technology group Altech unveiled the Node, a VOD and home automation platform that costs R299/month. The Node provides access to a range of movies and television series, while subscribers can also use it to rent the latest movies at a cost of R25 each.

A week earlier, Times Media Group launched a service called Vidi, offering both transactional and subscription-based VOD. The latest movies can be rented for R27 a piece, with older movies costing R15.

BoxOffice has now been made available to Compact customers, provided they have a high-definition personal video recorder (PVR) decoder or the new Explora model. An online version of BoxOffice is already available to everyone. Movies cost R27 each to rent.

To access the service, DStv Compact customers must have an active subscription and must pay a R75/month PVR “access fee”. They must also request the service by sending an SMS to MultiChoice. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media