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.

Re:DRM=WTF

[Chyeld]

If it's a DVD that you've burnt, exactly how do they think they are going to limit the number of times you've viewed it.

It's not as if your DVD player has a built-in shredder. And most DVD players I know of don't have any ability to write to DVD's, so it's not as if the DVD itself will keep track of the number of time.

So what gives?

Re:DRM=WTF

[EvanED]

I don't see anywhere in either article that says they are limiting the number of times it's viewed. Can anyone clarify?

Re:DRM=WTF

[Propaganda13]

Yeah, it's Slashdot. They didn't RTFA. They mentioned limited number of burns, not views. This would be similar to some DRM that's been used by certain online music stores already.

Re:DRM=WTF

[JoshJ]

Hrm, good catch- the summary says "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."

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

[dgatwood]

It won't really require a special DVD burner. Your DVD burner already burns zeroes over the CSS area if that area isn't pre-burned on the media. As best I can tell from a Google search, this is done for both DVD authoring media and DVD+R media. Thus, it would require nothing more than a firmware change with existing media to enable writing of CSS data.

Of course, they will tell you that it requires a special drive because they will want to keep the cost extremely high (so that it is only affordable by people running kiosks) to prevent people from buying the drives, installing them on their PCs, and doing byte-for-byte copies of movies including the CSS region....

My guess is that before this becomes available to your average consumers, they'll come up with some cryptographic handshake that only authorized software can perform, and will use this to prevent unauthorized software from writing to the region. That aspect of it might require updated burner hardware, but not because of any hardware changes needed to support the burning process itself.... That said, maybe they'll just relent, realize that CSS isn't stopping piracy in any useful way, and simply allow all the DVD burners' firmware to be updated to support burning CSS (and maybe pigs will fly, and...).

Re:Never ever going to work

[Spritzer]

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

You mean like an iPod?

Re:Never ever going to work

[Danga]

It won't really require a special DVD burner. Your DVD burner already burns zeroes over the CSS area if that area isn't pre-burned on the media. As best I can tell from a Google search, this is done for both DVD authoring media and DVD+R media. Thus, it would require nothing more than a firmware change with existing media to enable writing of CSS data.

I write cd/dvd burning, data recovery, and forensic software for a living so I can try to clear this up a bit.

You are correct in a way but from what I understand what is really going on is the "CSS area" or Control Data Zone (CDZ) is pre-recorded at the factory on DVD-R (general) and DVD-RW media and with DVD-R (Authoring), DVD-R (version 1.0), DVD+R(W) media the drive firmware does not allow writing to the CDZ and overwrites it with dummy data as well as portions of the sector headers (which I think is used by CPPM). So like you said theoretically the manufacturers could release a firmware upgrade to allow writing to the CDZ on DVD-R (Authoring), DVD-R (version 1.0), DVD+R(W) media and possible do the same with DVD-R (general) and DVD-RW media although all of your old DVD-R (general) and DVD-RW media would be useless and you would have to purchase the new DVD-R(W) media that does not have that portion of the disc pre-recorded.

My guess is that they will release new DVD-R's (general) discs that do not have the CDZ pre-written and only allow the drive manufacturers to release firmware to write the CDZ on those discs. This way they can charge extra money for the discs and not just be able to use old DVD+R(W)'s. The drive manufacturers could make some extra money too by not releasing firmware that allows this on older drives and marketing "new" drives that have this ability.

Downsized Blockbuster...

[John3]

Instead of a 5,000 square foot store Blockbuster and Netflix can work out deals with Walgreens, Wal*Mart, and other retail storefronts to place a DVD-burning kiosk in their stores. All they need is power and a high speed net connection and they'll be good to go. Blockbuster could also eliminate in-store inventory altogether....bring the empty DVD case to the checkout and the clerk burns you a DVD to take home in a paper sleeve. When you're through watching the movie you toss the DVD. No shortages of the top hits, and the customer never needs to come back to return the DVD and pay a late fee.

Please include CSS, oh please

[Gothmolly]

Because we all know how well that works.
/surfing from Myth which plays DVDs, thanks Jon

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.

Glad they've finally OK'ed it.

[NineNine]

I know people who have been downloading full DVD's for several years, now. They'll be glad to know that the RIAA has OK'ed it.

Re:Not a DVD-Video.

[EvanED]

The first limitation is not possible, unless DIVX really won against DVD.

I don't see anything in either article that says they limit playback.

The second limitation is also not part of the DVD-Video standard, and it means that you probably need some windows program that downloads the video in Arbitrariy-proprietary-DRM-format-173, then converts they to a a non-standard DVD you can only play on windows or off-standard DVD players.

You're half right I think. My reading is that what you download isn't DVD-Video, but can then be burned to DVD, at which point it is converted to DVD-Video and will playback on any DVD player. But the number of times you can do that burn from the original file (as opposed to copying the resulting DVD) is limited. Just like the way that iTunes will let you burn AAC-encoded files to CD some limited number of times.

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.

Re:not a chance

[EvanED]

This technology is a few years too early to have a serious impact on Netflix. ... Who in their right mind is going to feel good about waiting 5 hours for a movie download?

The same people who have to wait at least a day for Netflix to mail you a movie you want?

Now, this is before we even get started on the addition DRM crap they want to subject their customers to.

Which for practical purposes is no more DRM than Netflix gives you. Once you take a file you download and burn it, you have what Netflix would have sent you except on a DVD-R instead of a pressed disc. (I think the bit of the summary about limiting playback is FUD; I don't see anything in either article mentioning it, and two other posters as-of now concur. I think it's just an iTunes-like thing: you download a DRM'd file, then can burn it.)

In fact, in some sense, you can do MORE with this file because you can gave it on your computer hard drive without running the DVD through DeCSS first.

Already cracked -- it's just CSS

[whoever57]

This article has more information and clearly lays out that it is disks, burners, etc. "upgraded" to burn CSS

Voluntarily paying more for "music" CD-Rs.

[dpbsmith]

Actually, for many years I did own a home audio CD recorder which did require "music" CD-R's. They cost negligibly more than "data" CD-R's.

What absolutely totally pissed me off beyond belief was the day I brought a CD home and it wouldn't copy, because it had some damned kind of copy protection built in that triggered the SCCS lockout in my recorder.

I kept MY end of the bargain, God damn it. I paid for every copy I made. And I was totally entitled to make those copies under the Audio Home Recording Act. And both the publishers and artists were paid for every copy.

But, noooooo, that's not good enough for the music industry. They set up a one-sided bargain and then won't even keep their side of it.

Movie Time

[mattwarden]

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

We're sorry. Viewing restrictions on this DVD are such that you may only watch Star Whores Episode II - Attack of the Bones between 2pm and 5pm, when your wife is at work.

I agree

[novus ordo]

Take a look at this sonic shill. What you will notice is that they include Qflix certified equipment and DVDs. So essentially it's going to be that you need a special Qflix box to download and (20 min to) burn to a special disc that you can play on a *different* device. How stupid does this sound? Also notice that their "market requirements" include:

• Able to support multiple content protection solutions
  CSS, Macrovision RipGuard, SecureBurn, X-Protect, CPRM, AACS, ACP
  
• Forensic watermarking
  
• Multiple DRMs & encryption
  WMDRM, mpDRM, Helix, Coral, DiVX, AES, Verimatrix
  

In other words, all the beautiful technologies we have grown to love! If you think all they are going to do is put CSS on disks you are greatly mistaken. They do seem to care about quality of disks but not your ability to archive or back them up. On a side note, this might not be that bad for kiosks, but I would rather buy a *real* DVD than wait 20 min for this thing to come out. Like I don't have better things to do.