Barnes & Noble to launch video service for Nook

Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. bookstore chain, said its Nook Video service will allow shoppers to buy movies and television shows from HBO, owned by Time Warner Inc, Viacom Inc, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Walt Disney Studios.

Barnes & Noble's Nook tablet and e-reader devices have found favor with shoppers, allowing the bookseller to win as much as 30 percent of the ebooks market, according to its own estimates.

But the company faces intense competition from Amazon.com Inc, which already offers the Prime Instant Video service and makes the Kindle Fire tablet.

Earlier this month, Amazon signed a three-year deal with Hollywood studio Epix that will add thousands of movies to Amazon's video streaming library.

The Nook Video service will launch in the United States this autumn, and in time for the holiday season in the United Kingdom, where Barnes & Noble will start selling Nook devices, also this autumn.

Videos that are streamed and downloaded from Barnes & Noble's Nook store will be stored in Nook Cloud.

Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012