Fastfilmz app launched to stream regional movies on slow net connections:

"Fastfilmz"app launched to stream regional movies on slow net connections:

CHENNAI: Amid a group of rabid Rajinikanth fans are seated two-ex McKinsey partners, Karam Malhotra and Dominic Charles. Not just this one but other fan clubs across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have also hosted the duo over the last several months, aiding them to build the foundation for Bengaluru-based fastfilmz, an app to stream regional movies.

The startup is backed by more than a few million dollars in angel funding from multiple investors in the US and Europe.

Perplexed by the low penetration of mobile or OTP (on the phone) video in India especially for regional content, Malhotra and Charles have launched a 'super app for the super fan,' which will stream high quality regional movies at low speeds, to satiate the hunger of diehard movie fans.

Their journey through the southern towns of Tamil Nadu gave them perspective on the phone habits of their target segment.

"We noticed that small town, regional consumers didn't have access to fast networks and affordable data to watch movies on their smartphones at ease," said Malhotra.

While the urban population have access to Wi-Fi and 3G and multiple phones, the rural population is yet to see these luxuries. To tap into fanatical crowds in tier-2 and tier-3 cities in India, fastfilmz has aligned their technology and payment options to suit the available infrastructure.

It has partnered with London-headquartered software company V-Nova to use their video compression technology which will enable streaming of movies optimising bandwidth usage, including 2G networks.

"With V-Nova's technology, movies can be streamed on the fastfilmz app at as low as 150MB of data per movie," added Charles. And what's going to really click with their target market is that the movies can be streamed on a 2G connection and viewed offline, he adds.

Starting off with 150 Tamil movies, the startup intends to roll out Telugu and other languages in the next few months. The app is available on Android and will be available on the Apple store in a couple of months.