AOL plans to announce on Monday it will test launch a new Internet video service in an attempt to demonstrate how much it has learned from mistakes that cost the once reigning king of the online world its leading position.

The new service, AOL Video, aims to be the one-stop shop for online videos and will let users search for videos across the Web, upload their own, or buy or watch for free thousands of TV shows from any one of 45 video-on-demand channels on nearly any device.

Users will also be able to subscribe and rent videos later this year, executives said.

These channels will include shows licensed from Viacom Inc.'s MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central networks, A&E Television Networks, and corporate sibling Warner Bros.

The launch comes at a critical moment at the online division of Time Warner Inc. and precedes a presentation by AOL on Wednesday, when it will lay out a new strategic plan widely believed to involve giving away its e-mail and Web services away for free to boost online advertising sales.

Getting AOL right could significantly boost the share price of the world's largest media company, which touched a two-year low in July and trades at a relative discount to its big media peers, investors have said.

Experts said AOL's service could face a tough time as it has lost its cachet among young male audience, considered the most voracious consumers of online videos, according to Jupiter Research analyst Joseph Laszlo.

But AOL sees the growing popularity of viewing TV shows -- not just among young guys but across other age and gender categories as ample opportunity. "What we've really seen in the market for online video consumption ... (is that) it is moving quickly from early adopter to early majority," Kevin Conroy, executive vice president of AOL, said in an interview last week.

"We're in a really good place to help fuel this and bring this together, Conroy said.

AOL's new video portal plays a significant role in the company's transformation from a business that relied on subscriptions for 80 percent of its sales to one driven primarily by online advertising sales, executives said.