Movie Studios OK Download-to-Burn DVDs

fistfullast33l writes "The Associated Press is reporting that today movie studios have approved Sonic Solutions' technology Qflix, which allows people to download movies and burn them to DVDs that include CSS, the method of encryption that protects all pre-recorded DVDs sold today. According to a press release issued by Sonic Solutions, they will be demoing the technology by appointment at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 8th. Apparently the DVDs will also be subject to DRM restrictions placed by download services such as limiting the times a movie can be played back and how many times the movie can be burned. Is this the death of NetFlix as we know it? Interestingly enough, the AP article mentions burning kiosks in the future and the Sonic release mentions Walgreen's as a partner, so maybe DVD burning is coming to a drug store near you. Sonic Solutions is the owner of Roxio, which produces a well-known CD and DVD burning software suite."

Comments

DRM=WTF

[JoshJ]

A limit to the number of viewings? What the hell? Limiting the number of burns is reasonable (as far as DRM goes) if the number's around 3 or 5, but limiting the number of viewings is outright inane. If you pay for a movie, you should be able to view it as many times as you want.

Never ever going to work

[kentrel]

This might fool the media, but it can't fool us. Nobody is going to adopt any technology that requires you to buy a special DVD burner and discs. It's crazy. We live in a more or less free economy where the consumer has so many different choices. They are NOT going to pick something restricts their choice, particularly something as stupid as this.

I want downloadable movies, but not like this. It's still not an excuse for piracy (in case anyone gets funny ideas) but there are so many better solutions to this.

Re:Never ever going to work

[Spritzer]

"They are NOT going to pick something restricts their choice,"

You mean like an iPod?

Netflix will live on

[D4rk Fx]

Death of Netflix? Unfortunately for some of us, (me included), The USPS has greater throughput than the only reasonably priced internet connection. So... Netflix will live on. At least for a while.

The end of Netflix my ass

[photomonkey]

There is no way this will beat Netflix. People like my mother use Netflix simply because she doesn't like buying movies. It costs her a few dollars to see a movie through Netflix, where I doubt that these 'download' movies will be less than $12.99USD.

Riddle me this: Do you really think there are more people out there willing/able to download and burn a full-length DVD (including those who know what DRM is) than willing to hop on a website and order movies to their homes? Hell, for as fast as Netflix is in getting movies out, you could likely order one and have it delivered before your download of the same movie would be completed.

Somebody wake me when I can go online or on my TV and order any movie I want on-demand.

Oh, and the DRM scheme of limiting the number of times you can watch the movie on your computer is about the most fucking stupid thing I've heard today. This is another industry trying to ensure that you will NEVER own anything.

But Ballbusters already eliminated late fees...

[Cordath]

If you're late, they just sell you the DVD and bill your credit-card. While this DVD-kiosk idea would certainly help them cut back on retail space, staff, stocking costs, etc. it would also completely eliminate their "sales" division.

Besides, this kiosk idea is so far removed from the traditional experience of "roaming the racks" that it would leave absolutely nothing to distinguish between downloading a movie and going to the store to rent it, except that you have to leave your comfy couch to do it and, most likely, pay a bit more. Really, only the technophobes are going to be going to rental stores in the near future, so why alienate them? Of course, the shift away from brick and mortar rental stores is definitely coming. Blockbuster et al. are most likely going to find some way to carve themselves a slice of the pie, but one can't help but wonder how long there will be actual Blockbuster corner video stores in operation.

Reality check

[jmorris42]

Listen up folks, the limited viewings are not for DVD, read carefully because two seperate concepts got mangled in the summary.

What is interesting about this is that Hollywood is close to giving up on CSS. They are about to permit hardware makers to market a drive capable of writing the CSS blocks and writable media to leave a factory without the CSS blocks preburned to zeros. While I suspect they have a DRM trick up their sleeve we know it won't work in this case, as there really isn't a way to retrofit around the flaws in CSS and remian compatible with the installed base of DVD players.

Ding dong the witch is dead, but of course it has already been dead and the body is pretty smelly, enough that Hollywood couldn't ignore it anymore. I think this is a good idea actually. Not for everything and everybody, but I can imagine cases where I might actually use it.

Scenario 1: Downloads. I could see paying to download and burn vs paying to have physical media shipped. If there was a big enough price gap to make the slightly faster delivery enough better to offset the loss of the professional screen printed artwork and such. Or if it were used for obscure titles that wouldn't rate a production run and the choice is between a DVD-R and nothing.

Or try Scenario 2: Go to a website, pick the titles you want to purchase and pick up the media (which could even be dye sub printed and cased) at your friendly neighborhood retailer (the article mentions a deal in the works with Wallgreens) later the same day. Note that this scenario would even allow Hollywood to tightly control distribution of totally blank burnable media.