Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

Qflix becoming industry standard?
November 6, 2007

Add one more customer to sign onto Sonic Solutions' wildly popular  Qflix encryption service.

Online movie service, CinemaNow has licensed Sonic's anti-piracy encryption service, which provides the same Content Scramble System as commercially mass-produced DVDs and can play in any set-top DVD player.

Until recently, CinemaNow had been using its own proprietary encryption, but this latest move signals the company's need to expand its title offerings.

With the agreement, CinemaNow's video library will be available within Sonic's movie download computer software application, Roxio Venue, that users can use to manage their video files and burn movies with Qflix-enabled DVD burners.

Whether studios allow companies like CinemaNow to pedal their movies to customers who legally burn them onto recordable DVDs remains to be seen. What is clear however, is that Sonic Solutions has the technology that everybody wants.

Sonic has been rolling out licensing deals for Qflix to companies not only in the download retail space, but those involved in commercial fulfillment, like TitleMatch Entertainment Group, kiosk operators, like Polar Frog Digital, and computer makers like Dell Computer.

"This initiative for us started three years ago," said company spokesman Chris Taylor. "As of a year ago, when the DVD-CCA first defined specifications for recording with CSS, our technology was in the works -- our technology was going through testing by that body to ensure the highest level of compatibility possible with that format. Final approval hadn't been given, but we were going through the process with them."

By the time the final vote took place just weeks ago, the technology was ready, he said.

"Essentially, a whole bunch of people were waiting at that starting gate," he said.

In addition to CinemaNow, Sonic has licensed Qflix deals to other download providers, Akimbo and Blockbuster-owned Movielink, which will share space with CinemaNow in Sonic's Roxio Venue software bundled with new computers.

The final details are yet to be decided, but essentially users will have a single interface to choose from among an array of titles by various providers. Space could get tight among providers trying to differentiate themselves.

But for Sonic, more is merrier.

Posted by Ned Randolph on November 6, 2007 | Comments (0)