DVD burning kiosks planned for the holidays
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Follows Copy Control Assn. approval of CSS use
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 7/5/2007
JULY 5 | Movie download kiosks are likely to start rolling out on a trial basis at stores this holiday season now that disc burning using copy-protection technology CSS has gotten the go-ahead.
Disc-burning kiosk companies and movie download services are still waiting for a formal announcement from the DVD Copy Control Assn. and an effective date (expected any day now), which will allow them to move forward with content licensing deals to make on-demand burning a reality.
Walgreens, which has said it plans to launch movie kiosks in its stores but hasn’t said when, is expected to be among the first retailers to bring in kiosks.
TitleMatch, which offers on-demand sales of DVDs through Overstock.com, has a deal with a retailer for a pilot test of its DVD kiosks later this year, said Mary Litchhult, VP of business development. Litchhult wouldn’t name the retailer but said it isn’t currently in the DVD business.
The company is in talks with other retailers to test kiosks in stores this year. TitleMatch already operates kiosks that burn computer software to CD-ROM for CompUSA, TigerDirect and other retailers.
TitleMatch announced a distribution deal with Bollywood film company Eros Entertainment earlier this week for its on-demand service and is in talks with other suppliers. It also has deals with indies Troma and Monarch.
“CSS has been the biggest hurdle for the last 18 months we’ve been working on pulling this together,” Litchhult said.
MOD Systems chair Anthony Bay said studios have required CSS approval before signing licensing deals.
CSS is the copy-protection system used on commercially manufactured DVDs and its use on on-demand burning would ensure compatibility between burned discs and set-top DVD players.
With the new license, retailers, kiosk companies and others will be able to go through companies such as Sonic Solutions for software that provides CSS-encrypted burning.
“Getting CSS approved opens the floodgates,” Sonic Solution senior VP Jim Taylor said.
Taylor said he expects companies that offer on-demand burning from a single warehouse, such as Amazon’s CustomFlix or Hewlett-Packard’s planned manufacture-on-demand service, will be the first to launch using the new license.
H-P, which launched its manufacture-on-demand business with Trans World two weeks ago, plans to offer burning with CSS protection, when it is finalized, through the service for those content providers that choose it, said Doug Warner, VP of business development and planning for H-P digital entertainment services division.
H-P currently offers burning with anti-rip protection and without content protection. Warner said most independent suppliers aren't requiring CSS protection but most studios are.
Taylor said kiosk companies that Sonic is working with hope to launch on a trial basis this fall.
He and others expect that a range of content from independent suppliers and back catalog releases from the major studios will be available at launch.
Although the industry held off launching DVD burning until it could be done with CSS, it’s widely acknowledged that CSS doesn’t offer much protection. For that reason, some content holders also will require anti-ripping protection such as Macrovision’s RipGuard on discs burned through kiosks, Taylor said. RipGuard is already used by some major studios on commercially produced discs, and Sonic has an agreement to include it as part of its copy-protection solution.
Macrovision and Chicago Digital Post/Great Lakes Digital Media announced this week that they’ve reconfigured the technology as RipGuard-MOD to target the on-demand replication business and smaller producers.
“I wouldn’t call it an alternative to CSS—it’s a capital improvement over,” Chicago Digital president Tim Montague said. “CSS is all but ineffectual.”
MOD System’s Bay said studios are requiring kiosk makers to go through a technical review and security review before signing deals to ensure their content is protected. Bay said even after the deals are signed, it will take time to get content ready for kiosks.
“Even if a studio said yes tomorrow, they don’t have digital archives set up so that they could hand it over tomorrow,” he said.
Bay said MOD is continuing talks with retailers to bring its music-burning kiosks to market, to which it will add movie content when deals are signed. Business models for burning movies at retail are still being discussed, he said.
TitleMatch plans to operate its movie kiosks similar to photo departments. Shoppers would pick out the movie they want on the kiosk. The order would be sent to the “factory” area of the store (such as a customer service department) where the DVD is burned and packaged by the retailer. The customer would then pick up the order.
TitleMatch handles licensing and backend operation of the kiosks for retailers. Retailers pay for the kiosk.
