Dell offers first download-and-burn DVD drive

Qflix technology will offer CinemaNow downloads with CSS

By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 9/15/2008

SEPT. 15 | After years of industry wrangling, the first DVD drives that allow consumers to burn movie downloads to discs playable on any DVD player went on sale to consumers today.

Dell Inc. is expected to announce it will begin selling the first download-and-burn DVD drives with CSS copy protection, the same copy protection used on studio DVDs sold at retail.

The new DVD drives use Sonic Solutions’ Qflix technology with CSS. Dell will sell the Qflix drive for $120 as an add-on for most of its Inspiron, Studio and XPS laptops and desktops and through its online Electronics, Software and Accessories store.

Dell will offer movie downloads from CinemaNow, which partnered with Sonic last November to use Sonic’s Roxio Venue application for burning with CSS.

CinemaNow will initially offer 100 new releases and library titles for CSS burning from Warner Home Video, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Paramount Home Entertainment and Lionsgate, said David Cook, CinemaNow president and chief operating officer. He said he expects studios to offer additional new releases as they debut on DVD and more library titles over time. The company also is in talks to offer CSS burning from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment; the site already offers downloads from those studios.

The Dell Qflix drives will have software for the CinemaNow store already loaded. Consumers who buy the drives will be able to download a movie from CinemaNow, watch it on their PC, transfer it to a portable device and/or burn it to disc to watch on any DVD player.

To promote its service to buyers of those new drives, CinemaNow will offer all movies available for CSS burning for less than $10. Cook said CinemaNow will experiment with pricing on the burnable downloads.

“We’re definitely very excited about it,” he said. “We feel like it starts to add to the ecosystem. The DVD player is the widest deployed device in the living room.”

CinemaNow has offered burn-to-DVD before for select movies from Disney, Sony, Universal, Lionsgate and MGM using Flux DVD copyright technology. Unlike discs burned with CSS, Flux isn’t compatible with all DVD players, and some studios have been reluctant to license content for burning without CSS. Cook said CinemaNow plans to begin phasing out that technology in favor of CSS burning.

Dell is the first company to sell drives that can burn using CSS. The DVD Copy Control Assn., a consortium of studios and consumer electronics manufacturers that acts as administrator of CSS, approved burning with the copyright protection technology last year. However, it requires new disc drives and new recordable blank discs.

Sonic hopes to get other PC makers and consumer electronics companies on board to make the new drives capable of burning with CSS, executive VP of strategy Mark Ely said.

Having major PC maker Dell as the first company to sell the drives is key to raising its profile, Ely said.

“What it really means is we’ve got a mainstream consumer PC manufacturer behind promoting Qflix as a feature,” Ely said.

Sonic also is reaching out to other download services that want to add burning. Ely said. In surveys done by a number of download services, one of the top things consumers say they want to do with their download is burn it to disc.

“Today, CinemaNow has options to output [downloads] to mobile devices and view on the PC,” Ely said. “The missing piece has been this permanent DVD. That’s the missing piece that Qflix is bringing to CinemaNow.”