Thursday onwards, pay-TV bigwig HBO will officially debut its video-streaming service – ‘HBO GO’ - on the Verizon FIOS infrastructure. The new service, which will provide Web access to the movies that HBO screens on cable TV, will be available, at no extra cost, to the nearly 38 million cable subscribers of the HBO and sister service Cinemax.

The HBO GO essentially marks the HBO parent Time Warner’s endeavors to retain subscribers during a down economy; especially when Netflix and other Web video services are attracting an increasing number of consumers.

According to HBO, its GO service – which will archive 600 hours of content, including extras and commentaries - will offer its customers the access to comparatively newer titles than Netflix; along with allowing them to create a watchlist to bookmark content or plan a season pass.

To be available on PCs and Macs, the service will make the content viewable via a Web application; thereby protecting it from being copied.

In a statement about the new HBO service, Shawn Strickland, Verizon’s VP of consumer strategy and planning, said: “HBO GO adds more value to FiOS TV customers' HBO subscriptions with the convenience of accessing their programming in more ways and in more places. We're excited to add this deeper, richer experience to our already extensive HBO offerings, further enhancing the TV and Internet experience that only FiOS delivers.”