Meanwhile, Vudu blows away the smattering of flicks available on most cable on-demand services.
And News Corporation also controls the Fox film studios and its library of films, which cable companies want to sell to their customers as video-on-demand services over digital cable, one of the high-tech features the companies hope will keep their customers from switching to DirecTV.
Television has always sought security in imitation; in this relentlessly competitive market of infinite digital cable and on-demand viewing, executives are as panicked as teenage campers in "Friday the 13th": at the first sight of salvation, they run for the escape hatch in terrorized droves.
The sale has generated increasing interest over the last year as cable stocks have begun to rebound, thanks in large part to such new services as cable telephony, digital cable and on-demand television.
And in digital television, Britain, with digital satellite and terrestrial platforms up and running, and digital cable and video-on-demand services over telephone lines coming in now, is the furthest ahead in Europe.
Overall, 52% of digital cable subscribers used on-Demand in the past month.
"Rent new releases instantly -- on cable, on demand," a deep voice intones.
New digital cable services like video-on-demand and high-speed Internet are catching on.
In addition to the image tactic, the technology actually provides users with a cheap alternative to digital cable services, one that may even deliver movies-on-demand the broadband killer app–before the end of the year.
In addition to an on-screen interactive program guide, the Microsoft technology includes behind-the-scenes software that cable companies can use to deliver digital cable services, such as video-on-demand and digital video recording.
Such films would be available through the Smithsonian on Demand cable channel to the small fraction of viewers with digital cable -- about 25 million homes.
