Download-and-burn cleared for takeoff
Movielink plans summer test with new CSS-enabled discs
By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 2/8/2007
FEB. 8 | The DVD industry has cleared the way for retailers and consumers to burn movie downloads to DVD for set-top playback.
DVD Forum's new DVD Download logo.
The steering committee of the DVD Forum on Jan. 31 formally approved technical specifications for a new type of recordable disc for use with in-home and in-store burning of CSS-protected movies, removing the last remaining administrative hurdle to commercial deployment of download-and-burn services.
The group also approved a name and logo design for the new discs, which will be called DVD Download discs.
Online download services have been waiting for the approval to give consumers the option of burning movies they can now only play on their PC or portable device.
Studio-owned download service Movielink plans to begin testing burn-to-DVD downloads this summer and offer it to all consumers by the fall, chief marketing officer Mary Coller Albert said. The company began working with Sonic Solutions last year on an upgrade to Movielink’s service to allow burning and is now in negotiations with studios to extend licensing deals.
Coller Albert hinted that the bonus features won’t be the same as they are on store-bought DVDs.
Rival CinemaNow, which began offering download-to-burn movies from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Lionsgate and MGM Home Entertainment using its proprietary FluxDVD technology last year, said it also plans to add a CSS-burning option.
“We were never anti-CSS in any way, shape or form,” said CEO Curt Marvis. “What we were looking to do was give our customers what they were asking for.”
Films available as a burn-to-DVD on the service have been few and far between, with studios using the offering as a way to prod the industry to pass CSS-encryption for burning. Marvis said CinemaNow is in talks to get more movies added for both burning on FluxDVD and eventually using CSS encryption.
Wal-Mart also is said to be considering adding download-to-burn for its just-launched service.
“We expect that to improve over the course of the year, and we’ll continue to aggressively explore/evaluate opportunities and models for this option over the next year,” Wal-Mart said in an e-mailed statement.
An Apple spokesman declined to say whether iTunes would eventually offer burnable downloads.
An Amazon Unbox spokesman said the company is “continually looking for ways to enhance the customer experience, and there are a number of things we’re looking at to do just that.”
With the final specs approved, disc makers can now begin manufacturing DVD Download blanks for sale to consumers and in bulk for enterprise applications such as in-store burning kiosks.
The discs are similar to standard DVD-Rs but are “pre-keyed” with CSS decryption codes so they can accept encrypted data.
The use of CSS—the same copy-protection system used on commercially pressed discs—is considered critical to ensuring that discs burned from downloaded movie files will be compatible with all set-top DVD players.
Although other copy-protection systems can be used for download-and-burn services, using anything other than CSS increases the risk of compatibility problems with some set-top players.
The vote to approve the specs, conducted by letter ballot, capped a long process that began under the auspices of the DVD Copy Control Assn., the licensing agency that oversees CSS.
Negotiations among the studios, technology companies and hardware makers over how to apply CSS to downloaded files dragged on for more than a year. More than once, the talks came close to breaking down over both technical and business issues.
Because the method used involved changing the physical configuration of recordable discs, the multi-industry agreement reached late last year had to go before the DVD Forum, which oversees the physical specifications of DVD discs.
Initially, download-and-burn may be a bigger opportunity for bricks-and-mortar retailers that bring in DVD burning kiosks than for online download companies. Consumers will have to update their DVD burner on their PC for the new discs and by the time most home PCs are upgraded, some other technology bridging the PC to TV gap may have already taken hold, said Yankee Group analyst Mike Goodman.
“In theory, it can be a very nice revenue generator [for retailers], without having to give up any kind of significant footprint,” Goodman said.
Even Movielink’s Coller Albert doesn’t believe the CSS approval necessarily ushers in a new download era just yet.
“My guess is it doesn’t change overnight,” she said.
