RealNetworks plans Q4 release of DVD recorder
PHYSICAL: Facet player will store content of consumers' DVDs
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 5/7/2009
MAY 7 | PHYSICAL: Even as RealNetworks and the major studios square off in court over the legality of DVD-ripping software RealDVD, the company is moving forward with plans to introduce a DVD player by the holiday season that lets consumers save their DVD library to the player’s hard drive.
CEO Rob Glaser said during a Thursday earnings call that RealNetworks is positioning the player, dubbed Facet, as the “successor to the current DVD player.”
A spokesman said it could be available within months.
Meanwhile, the company is still hiring engineers to develop the Linux-based system. Yesterday, RealNetworks posted a job ad on Craigslist for Facet, which it called “a game-changing home entertainment system.” Real said in the ad that the Facet executive team includes executives from Amazon.com, Microsoft, Disney and Intel.
But before RealNetworks can sell the players, Facet will have to be ruled legal by the judge presiding over the RealDVD case. RealNetworks spokesman Bill Hankes said Facet is “entirely dependent upon the judge’s ruling. I don’t know the specifics of what else our Facet team is working on, but you should not infer from any open positions anything more than that we are hiring.”
RealNetworks and the major studios returned to a San Francisco district court Thursday to give closing statements in a hearing on RealDVD.
RealNetworks and the major Hollywood studios sued each other in September over the legality of RealDVD, which RealNetworks sold for a week before a judge imposed a temporary restraining order pending a hearing.
In late October, RealNetworks disclosed its plans for Facet to the major studios, according to court documents. In December, the judge agreed to rule on the legality of Facet along with RealDVD at the request of RealNetworks, which argued the two operate similarly and were developed together.
In court documents, the company likens Facet to Kaleidescape, the high-end home theater system that allows users to backup their DVD collections to a server for playback without the actual disc. A California court ruled Kaleidescape was legal, though the DVD Copy Control Assn. is appealing.
At the RealDVD hearing last week, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser demonstrated a prototype Facet player.
"Kaleidescapes are like Porsches," CNET quoted Glaser as saying during testimony. "They're very expensive. We thought we could develop Chevys, a $300 product that could replace a person’s DVD player."
RealNetworks claims in court documents that Facet, also referred to as the “New Platform,” includes CSS and other added copy protections to prevent illegal copying, like RealDVD.
“The New Platform therefore protects users from, among other things, damage or loss of a DVD, while ensuring that the encryption protection in the original DVD is not only maintained, but heightened,” RealNetworks states in its filing.
The RealDVD hearing is expected to conclude this week. An immediate decision isn’t expected.
On Tuesday, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel placed monetary sanctions on RealNetworks for destroying evidence in the case.
In granting part of the motion filed by the major studios, Patel ordered RealNetworks to pay studio legal fees related to studios' claims that RealNetworks destroyed the notebooks of one of its former program managers. The notebooks contain a timeline and details of RealNetworks' plans for the DVD-ripping software and Facet.
RealNetworks reported a $12 million loss in the first quarter, partly blaming $6 million it spent on RealDVD litigation in the period for the loss.
Patel ordered both parties to come up with a policy for preserving evidence going forward. Patel dismissed a studio request to impose monetary sanctions on RealNetworks for circumventing ARccOS and Ripguard DVD copy protections in addition to CSS copy protection.
