Play Entertainment

Play Entertainment, which rents DVDs through automated dispensers, has obtained a licence from the Media Development Authority to distribute restricted DVDs. Play! Entertainment network of automated DVD movie vending kiosks around Singapore. The rental charge is deducted from the membership card, which comes with a $2 value. The stored value in the card can be topped up using Nets or CashCard. Each DVD movie is charged at $4.50 for the first 24 hours and at five cents for every additional hour he retains the movie.

All four Play! kiosks renting DVD movies now use a fingerprint-based re-gistration system. The kiosks are also equipped with picture scanners with optical character recognition (OCR) and biometric fingerprint scanners. Each Play! Entertainment kiosk also has two Pentium 4 computers using the Windows XP Professional operating system. One system takes care of Play Entertainment customer registrations, while the other one maintains the Play Entertainment Rental System. There is also an uninterruptible power supply to ensure that a power failure does not bring the system down. Attempts to tamper with the kiosk triggers an automated call to Play! technicians via the ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) phone line, which is also used to send registration information every night to update Play!'s customer database.

The scanner scans both sides of your identity card (IC) and your right thumb three times. To borrow a DVD movie, the customer inserts his membership card, scans his thumbprint and enters his PIN. If he is allowed to rent NC16 or MA18 movies, the selection menu will auto-matically display the relevant movie titles available at the kiosk. Underage patrons will only see the G or PG movie list. Each kiosk stocks about 120 titles.

Play! Entertainment Pte Ltd
3A Angus Street
Singapore 058276

Play! kiosks renting DVD movies are at Caltex House in the Central Business District near Raffles Place MRT station, West Mall in Bukit Batok, Parkway Parade in Marine Parade and North Point in Yishun. Play! Entertainment plans to add another two kiosks sometime in 2005.

Updated On: 15.02.10