MUMBAI: UTV has announced that it is launching titles from its World Movies catalogue on home video in May.

UTV Motion Pictures says that it has got a varied catalogue of titles whose telecast rights have been acquired directly from the sole distributors of the films. The company says that its home distribution network in the metros, mini metros and class-1 towns in India reaches close to one million towns across the country.

The UTV Home Video division distributes its own movies - big Bollywood blockbusters, as well as Hollywood content.

UTV Entertainment Television CEO Shantonu Aditya says, "As a strong company philosophy, we have always believed in retaining our intellectual property rights as this makes us valued content custodians. We are very positive on the tremendous scope and growth prospects of this business and we know that this business model would drive our revenues significantly. We are going to provide value for money to Indian viewers as they get to see original versions of some of the most entertaining and recent box-office hits from around the world."

World Movies has a library of over 500 titles including blockbuster hits and award winners across film festivals from around the world including the Oscars. Almost 50 per cent of these titles are available on DVD. Some of these titles include the Spanish film Buenos Aires 1977 that was nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes in 2006; the new Carlos Saura musical Fados, La Zona - award winner at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival; and Pierre Salvadori's comedy Priceless, a movie that ably demonstrates that if money cannot buy love, it sure can purchase lots of obsequious service from four-star hotel staffers and costly goodies from laughably pricey boutiques!

UTV adds that with several players in the market fighting for larger mind share of audiences, home video is at a significant stage in India with a lot of scope for penetration. Products are being offered at much lower costs to beat competition and exploitation is rampant after each theatrical release. The hardware costs of the DVDs are also getting lower.