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DVD Forum's latest standard, DVD-Download for DL revealed in licensing specs
It's been months since the DVD Download DL logo surfaced, offering little info for anyone trying to figure out how this might play into Toshiba's post-HD DVD anything-but-Blu-ray plans, but now that it's available to licensees we got a peek at the details behind the spec. Approved by the DVD Forum, it's a standard for content providers to send deliver movies as a disk image that can be burned onto a DVD complete with CSS encryption, Qflix-style. That includes print to order service providers like CustomFlix CreateSpace or even home users downloading a legitimate flick over the Internet. The net benefit? It's guaranteed to play on any standard DVD player, although given the ease with which nearly anyone can download and burn less-legitimate copies nowadays, the biggest potential plus we see would be an in store kiosk that burns discs while you wait, saving SKUs and packaging costs for suckers who bought the special edition. Check out the conformance guideline PDF straight from the Forum for more details, we'll let the BDA know they can stop holding their breath, if they ever were.[Via Format War Central]
Walgreens aiming to get DVD-burning kiosks in stores soon
We've seen this one coming for quite awhile, but now that the DVD CCA has approved its restrictive download-to-burn scheme, Walgreens is diving in head first to the movie-burning kiosk arena. Reportedly, the company is hoping to "launch DVD-burning kiosks in the next few months," and it's said that the firm is already "working with Hollywood studios" to get the technology in stores on the double. According to reports, consumers would be able to create a DVD "in about 15 minutes," and while no pricing specifics were doled out just yet, Polar Frog [a licensing outfit] Chief Executive Todd Rosenbaum suggested that studios weren't likely "to discount the DVDs." Oh, and just in case you were wondering where Blockbuster stood on the matter, spokesman Randy Hargrove stated that the firm "would examine" the situation, and if it "made sense to get into kiosks, it's clearly something [it] would do."
Qflix brings CSS to download-to-burn DVDs: a new day has dawned
It's been a long time coming, but the major Hollywood studios have finally agreed to amend the CSS (content scrambling system, found on store-bought DVDs) licensing restrictions to include support for both commercial and private download-to-burn options. First mentioned last summer, this new agreement uses technology from Sonic Solutions called Qflix (initially adopted by Movielink) to slap that good ol' digital lock on discs that consumers burn either on their PCs or at in-store kiosks like the ones Wal-Mart and other big box retailers have been planning for some time now. Of course you can already burn downloaded flicks to DVD through CinemaNow's aptly-titled "Burn to DVD" service, but compatibility issues have relegated this option to merely a stopgap solution. While Qflix burns should be readable by any old player that supports CSS, the downside is that new media and -- in some cases -- new drives will be required to perform this neat little trick (some current burners can apparently be made Qflix-compatible through firmware upgrades). Besides the studios, other companies that are down with Qflix include disc manufacturer Verbatim, video-on-demand provider Akimbo, your friendly neighborhood Walgreens, and of course, Movielink. It's not clear when consumers will start seeing this these new devices and kiosks in the wild, but rest assured that you'll soon have a way to spend those 10 to 15 minutes waiting for your prescription that doesn't involve sitting next to a bunch of sick people in a germ-ridden pleather chair.
Time Warner expects download-to-burn movies to hit in '07
Good news, folks: Time Warner (disclosure: our parent company's parent company is owned by Time Warner) is facing a future of "download-to-burn" DVD movies with grim determination, and expects said apocalypse to occur sometime in 2007. Sure, a few services have started offering a some movies here and there, most of which have been late, overpriced and plagued with problems, but it sounds like Time Warner is getting ready to do this thing for reals next year, with that fancy new Wal-Mart download service as a potential partner in such doings. Of course, pioneers like Movielink and CinemaNow can't be really blamed for their failures: most of the problems arose from studios like Time Warner practically forbidding them to provide a decent user experience to those potential criminals customers of theirs. The new word is from none other than Richard Parsons, the chief exec and chairman of Time Warner, who says "I expect we will be in a download-to-burn mode in 2007 -- It will be a part of next year's offerings." We'll be waiting to see how well Time Warner fulfills that promise.
