PoweredCom Inc., Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Toshiba Corp. said Tuesday they will begin on Dec. 1 a new DVD content distribution service via a fiber-optic network, which they say is the world's first, on a trial basis for 1,000 monitors in eastern Japan.

The service, Hikari de DVD, will offer about 300 programs, mainly movies and Japanese animated videos, from 19 content providers in Japan and overseas, using Tepco's high-speed broadband fiber-optic network.