Movie Studios OK Download-to-Burn DVDs 175
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."
Downsized Blockbuster... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:DRM=WTF (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:0, Interesting)
Re:DRM=WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool concept, if the price is right. (Score:2, Interesting)
Simplicity is always the key to mass market.
Re:not a chance (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Voluntarily paying more for "music" CD-Rs. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
New Era (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily... Whenever I burn a DVD, it takes forever, sometimes doesn't work quite right and just isn't quite the same as a nice and polished commercial DVD. Sure, if I really knew what I was doing and had awesome equipment maybe things would be different. For the average Joe downloading a movie and burning it to a DVD to watch, in most cases, once is too much of a pain in the ass. Most people would rather just pick the movies they want in a list and have the real deal sent to them.
Now video on demand however, is a spin of the downloadable content and could put NetFlix down. If these movie download websites integrate with other equipment (think TiVo or some type of set top box) that can be rented or purchased, then we might have a winner. Sitting in front of the TV and clicking "Play" with a remote and having the content stream in is pretty cool. I loved having this on my old cable network and if a third party offered something similar, it would be healthy competition, especially if the service offered popular TV show archives as well.
I agree (Score:4, Interesting)
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.