Following on from their music download service, Virgin Media will launch PictureBox – a movie on demand service from July this year, in collation with Universal Pictures with many films available in high definition.

To view the vast selection of recent and library films, virgin subscribers will only need to pay an additional £5 a month, and according to Virgin many of the films to choose from have not yet been seen on free-to-air television.

Although PictureBox has been available through BT Vision for some time, this will mark the first time for the PictureBox service being offered in HD format in the UK.

Katherine Burns, the executive director of content acquisition at Virgin Media said “Our customers love movies on demand and they’re watching millions of films every year. The addition of PictureBox means Virgin Media is the perfect choice for film fans, with a fantastic HD line-up and even more films to choose from, all at great value for money.”

The movies available at launch will include Hot Fuzz, Children of Men, The Holiday, Bourne Ultimatum with classics like The Nutty Professor, Total Recall and Scarface thrown into the HD mix. 28 movies should be available to access at any one time with 7 new films to be added each Friday.