Sonic takes on Apple with CinemaNow purchase
Video Business
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 11/19/2008 10:12:00 AM
Sonic plans to aggressively expand the number of devices that CinemaNow’s service is embedded in, envisioning a movie service available on everything from PCs to Blu-ray Disc players to mobile phones to virtually any other device that plays video, all using Sonic software and technology for seamless playback.
“There’s an opportunity there to be a real viable alternative to Apple in the download space,” Sonic executive VP of strategy Mark Ely said. “If you want to download movies or download TV shows, Apple has a whole soup to nuts solution. The only problem is you have to have Apple software to make it all work.”
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
CinemaNow was one of the first Internet movie services to launch, originally formed by Trimark in 1999, before the film company was acquired by Lions Gate. As well as the studio, Cisco, Menlo Ventures, Echostar and Index Holdings own investment stakes in CinemaNow.
Sonic will create a Premium Content Group with CinemaNow headed by Ely. CinemaNow president David Cook will stay on, as will other key members.
CinemaNow had already been repositioning itself from being a pure Web site service into a movie service embedded on a number of devices, including Archos digital devices and TiVo digital video recorders.
Sonic partnered with CinemaNow earlier this year to include CinemaNow movies as an embedded service with Dell’s Qflix DVD burning drives. Sonic is trying to make its Qflix technology, which burns movies with CSS copy protection, the standard DVD burning format.
Sonic had been considering starting its own movie service to feed its Qflix technology but started eyeing CinemaNow after partnering with the download service for the Dell drives, said Jim Taylor, senior VP and general manager of Sonic’s advanced technology group.
Going forward, the company plans to integrate CinemaNow into Qflix even more so that it’s offered as one-click shopping, Ely said.
Taylor said Sonic is still open to working with Blockbuster for download-and-burn offerings on its Movielink service, which it had partnered with more than a year ago, but he acknowledged that Blockbuster might not be interested in continuing given Sonic’s ownership of CinemaNow.
Ely said he hoped Sonic’s ownership of CinemaNow wouldn’t prevent it from continuing to work with companies in the digital movie space.
Paul Sweeting contributed
