About Us

Social networking

The Video Store has a social networking component, partnered with Broadband Mechanics to deliver a series of "widgets" that allowed users to interact with content on the site. Examples of this included 5-star ratings, reviews, comments, adding friends, sending messages and more.

Video quality

The content delivered by Video Store was "DVD and above quality". Bit rates ranged from 1.5 to 2.5. The encoding rate used created a file size which made one hour of programming roughly equal to one gigabyte (1 GB) of file space in a computer. In comparison, a typical DVD makes a 2-hour movie about 4.7 GB.
Due to the large size of the files being downloaded, the service required a broadband internet connection capable of sustaining transfer speeds of 800 kbit/s. A 2-hour filme might have taken 7 hours and 20 minutes to download using a 750 kbit/s DSL/cable connection or 1 hour and 50 minutes with a 3.0 Mbit/s DSL/cable connection.
For Bell Video Store users with a high speed connection, the service delivered a progressive download feature which aimed to have any Bell Video Store files playing within 5 minutes.

Requirements

For display on a computer or transfer to portable device, the service required the installation of a client application (Media Player) which managed playback and the transfer of video to devices.

Criticism

Video Store videos would only play in desktop applications that supported Windows Media DRM, of which none exist for Mac OS X and Linux.
When portable capability was launched in May 2008, the Bell Video Store only supported portable devices that supported the Microsoft PlaysForSureformat, thereby excluding popular devices such as the Apple iPod.
Bell launched this service shortly after beginning to throttle the popular bit torrent protocol. Similar services such as Azureus's Vuze & BitTorrent Inc's DNA Platform have been effectively stopped from entering this market in Canada.