In competition with Google and following the announcement of YouTube’s Box Office, Yahoo! India announced a new service called MoviePlex earlier this week. MoviePlex lets you enjoy full-length licensed Bollywood movies anytime, anywhere.

Currently Movieplex is showcasing the following movies – Rock On, Rann, Dil to Baccha Hai Ji, Aakrosh, Lamhaa, Crook, Rakta Charitra and Rakta Charitra 2. Unlike the Box Office, which has a huge a library of Hindi and regional films, MoviePlex has a limited collection, and is looking forward to acquire more licensed movies.

Arun Tadanki, MD, Yahoo! India stated, “With the increasing demand for online video, both consumers and content providers are looking for a trusted destination where quality content can be consumed in a piracy-free environment at their leisure,”.

The movie experience on MoviePlex wasn’t that great when compared to Box Office. Box Office streamed faster when I ran movies on both channels simultaneously, and the clarity was pretty low. Both channels have their main sponsor’s advertisement running for 20 seconds at the beginning of the movie. I hope that they don’t introduce any commercials in between while watching a movie. That will be quite annoying though.

Most of the movies featured on Yahoo have been rated ‘A’ or Adult by the Indian censor board. Any videos streaming on YouTube will require viewers to either register or login and confirm that they are over 18 years of age, and have access to watch ‘A’ rated video/movies. However, Yahoo! just gives a warning message, but does not require any registration or confirmation. Probably, these ‘A’ rated movies have been edited to suit a universal audience, just like the edited versions that are aired on televisions.

Nonetheless, it all depends on who acquires more licenses and offers great movies to watch for free. YouTube certainly is the first choice of users, and with the success of IPL’s live streaming of cricket matches, I’m sure it has greater chances to attract more viewers.

However, Yahoo! India is very well known in the Bollywood world, and is an official partner for several Bollywood productions, which is a plus point. Both Google and Yahoo have their own pros, and I’m sure they will have a tough competition.