Sony will launch a new video-sharing site in Japan tomorrow as the group seeks to stregthen its hand in the distribution of digital content.

The eyeVio site will take on YouTube, the market leader that was bought by Google last year for $1.65 billion and has since forged distribution deals with a string of movie studios.

The new service will also look to tie-in the Japanese group’s hardware, by allowing users to download video clips onto Sony Walkman media players and the group’s handheld PSP games console.

The move follows a public-relations drive by Sony to prove it is as much about blockbuster content – the $3.5 billion Spider-Man 3 franchise, for instance – as electronic devices. Amid fierce competition from a new generation of web-based competitors, the company is investing heavily in several means of delivering its films to gadgets such as its successful Bravia range of TVs.

The group has been an important force behind Blu-ray, the next generation DVD format that is going head-to-head with the HD DVD system championed by Toshiba, the rival Japanese group.

Last year, Sony signaled its digital ambitions when it bought Grouper - a video download site that has since been widely perceived as failing to live up to its early potential - for $65 million.

The new video-sharing venture also comes as media groups rush to create alternatives to upstart distribution companies, such as Google, Apple and Amazon, all of which offer online video downloads.

Last month, NBC Universal and News Corporation unveiled a new internet video service that clearly had YouTube in its sights.

From this summer, the venture will provide access to content owned by NBC and News Corp, including clips and full episodes of TV shows, including The Simpsons, 24 and House, and films such as Borat and Little Miss Sunshine.

The two companies said that a string of distribution deals with groups including Microsoft and Yahoo!, Google's biggest rivals on the web, would bring the new service to 96 per cent of the US internet audience.

News Corp is owned by News Corporation, the parent company of Times Online.

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