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Download And Burn Movies Available Soon

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article from PC World, a source close to the CSS Managed Recording forum said that technology which allows movies to be downloaded and burned to blank DVDs, using the same content-protection system as commercial discs, received official approval on Thursday. 'The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today. The burned discs will be compatible with the vast majority of consumer DVD players ... Despite Thursday's approval, services that allow consumers to legally download and burn movies in their own homes are unlikely to appear quickly. The DVD CCA said it will be initially restricted to professional uses. These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.'"

9 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. huh? by tomblag · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So, I go to a retail store to buy/download a dvd online - buy a special disk and burn it there ... instead of going to the dvd aisle? yea.....

  2. Legal in own home? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    who the hell do they think they are? I SAY WHAT IS LEGAL IN MY OWN HOME.

    so yes, music and video piracy is legal, so is smoking pot.

    The corporates can just get fucked.

  3. CSS?? by DigitAl56K · · Score: 2, Interesting

    using the same content-protection system as commercial discs

    So why bother? It's been broken for over 7 years. Unless...

    The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today ... ahhh, this will maybe prevent ripping? Or will there be media taxes imposed? Will I need to install special drivers to burn to or read from the discs? Would such drivers, if required, govern my PC playback and 'secure' access to the discs?

    1. Re:CSS?? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Pretty ironic isn't it? They went to a great deal of trouble forking the DVD-R from DVD so CSS keys couldn't be written. Now they'll need to go to even more trouble hacking it to put them back in.

      And all to support a protection mechanism which can be broken trivially with DVD Decrypter.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  4. Re:I don't get it by little4ce · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I think that this will reduce considerably the costs for the distribution of a movie: think shrinkwrapping, copies of the movie that sit on shelves with years, shelve real estate, etc. I believe that they want to decrease their costs, not to improve anything major for the consumer. The only benefit I would see is that when you go to such a facility you can get any movie available from those retailers, no more "DVD not in stock" etc.

    So I am going to walk into Best Buy, walk up to a kiosk, pick the movie I want to watch, wait 5-10 minutes for it to download and burn on this special DVD, pay for it, and walk out? As opposed to me just grabbing the movie off the shelf and skipping the burning-downloading part?
  5. Need more imagination. by vhold · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Perhaps the advantage is that you'll be able to gain access to a giant catalog of movies as opposed to simply what is in stock? Furthermore, locations could offer this huge selection of movies without even having stock?

    A good example would be a kiosk at a supermarket. You could come in, choose a movie, swipe your credit card, start the burn process, when it's done, it could set it aside until you swipe your credit card again, after you are done shopping. It could use DVD-RW and predict demand for popular movies and keep recycling disks, so that if you pick a popular movie it doesn't even have to burn it. It could do this all through the night and at 10 minutes a disk (conservative estimate) could produce 144 DVDs a day. More likely it'd be closer to double that.

    Even more obvious is that it could be integrated into an online service that would let you choose movies and guarantee their availability when you go to the store. Browse online then simply pick it up when you go for groceries. Convenience and instant gratification.

  6. Waste of money. by Purity+Of+Essence · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Pressing real discs is much cheaper than burning DVD recordables. If you are dealing in quantities over just a few hundred, real replication is the faster, more reliable, and more economical solution. This idea makes no sense for the consumer or the business owner and there is nothing convenient about it. The only possible good that can come out of it is the increased availability of obscure DVD titles that there is currently no retail shelf space for. But it's never going to happen because this business model doesn't make sense for any business that is interested in volume: a requirement in the retail media channel. Too much overhead in terms of time, equipment, and pissed off customers stuck with useless or failing DVD recordable discs. The concept will fail before obscure titles ever are considered for this kind of duplication.

    --
    +0 Meh
  7. Re:I don't get it by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2, Interesting
    So I am going to walk into Best Buy, walk up to a kiosk, pick the movie I want to watch, wait 5-10 minutes for it to download and burn on this special DVD, pay for it, and walk out? As opposed to me just grabbing the movie off the shelf and skipping the burning-downloading part?

    Obviously if you're looking for some popular movie it will be available "Pre-burned." But with this system you can order anything you like. If you're at a mall you could continue shopping and pick it up at the end. And presumably it wouldn't be long before you could order it from home and have it waiting for you when you arrive.

    But the biggest bonus will be that because the producers don't have to produce and deliver so much inventory, which is just a back-breaking cost in retail, that the final cost to the consumer will be significantly less than current DVDs. Hahaha ignore that last part. Sometimes I just crack myself up.

  8. Re:Soon? by garcia · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or I'm to materialistic and prefer the tangible product in my hand compared to some stuff on a harddrive somewhere which is (imho) prone to higher levels of control or loss due to failure..

    People think it's better until 52GB of their music collection vanishes from their system because they forgot to de-authorize their computers, their music player HD crashes, and they don't have any other backup medium.

    People think it's better because EVERYONE else tells them it is. Yay, having an iPod is cool. Ooh, shiny store that, for most of the general public, requires you to use iTunes or an iPod to listen to their wares!

    I'm all for downloadable content. The stuff that's free and lets me redownload it when I need to. Not something that ties me to one player, one piece of hardware, and links me to a group of people I can't stand while paying an arm and a leg for it while being told it's inexpensive.