“Hollywood studios have approved a new technology and licensing arrangement that should remove a major obstacle consumers now face with burning movies they buy digitally over the Internet onto a DVD that will play everywhere,” The Associated Press reports.
AP reports, “Sonic Solutions Inc. is introducing on Thursday the Qflix system for adding a standard digital lock to DVDs burned in a computer or a retail kiosk.”
AP reports, “The lock, known as ‘content scrambling system,’ or CSS, is backed by the studios, TV networks and other content creators and comes standard on prerecorded DVDs today. All DVD players come equipped with a key that fits the lock and allows for playback.”
“With Qflix — and its studio-backed copy-protection system — consumers should have more options. But they’ll need new blank DVDs and compatible DVD burners to use it,” AP reports. “Consumers still would be subject to restrictions placed by the movie service and studios. For instance, using the copy-protection technology in Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media system, a service could specify that a given title can be burned no more than two times.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Winston” for the heads up.]
No mention of Apple in the story, but the importance is that the studios have agreed on the concept. Stay tuned.
Related article:
Apple’s ITunes Movie Store to offer feature film downloads that can be burned to DVD? – July 19, 2006