CinemaNow, Sonic offer CSS-enabled burning

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 11/5/2007

NOV. 6 | Video download service CinemaNow and Sonic Solutions on Tuesday will announce a deal to bundle access to CinemaNow’s library of movie and TV content with Sonic’s Roxio Venue download management software.

As part of the deal, owners of Qflix-enabled PCs and DVD drives will be able to burn content downloaded from CinemaNow to a DVD for playback in any set-top DVD player.

Qflix is the brand name Sonic uses for its in-home DVD burning application using the Content Scrambling System, the same copy-protection system used on commercially manufactured DVDs. Use of CSS for in-home burning, approved by the DVD Copy Control Assn. earlier this year, ensures the burned discs’ compatibility with all DVD players.

CinemaNow already offers a burning option with some of the titles on its service using the Flux DVD copy-protection system. Not all DVD players are able to read Flux-protected discs, however, which has prevented its broad adoption by content owners.

The deal between CinemaNow and Sonic will mark the first major consumer application of CSS-enabled burning.

“The online video distribution industry will get a massive shot in the arm with the ability to burn downloaded video to DVD with the same protection and ubiquitous playability of packaged DVDs,” Sonic Solutions senior VP Jim Taylor said. “We are confident that our partnership with CinemaNow will fuel the burn-to-DVD business and provide content owners with a new, valuable distribution platform.”

It could still be several months before consumers are actually able to start burning movies and TV shows, CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis told VB sister publication Content Agenda.

“Right now, zero PCs have shipped that are capable of CSS burning, so it will take some time to make this happen,” Marvis said. “This is really a mid-’08 and beyond solution.”

Now that CinemaNow has incorporated Sonic’s Qflix technology, the next step will be to get PC original equipment manufacturers to begin bundling the software with new DVD drives.

“We’ll be going into the OEMs with Sonic to explain to them how everything will work,” Marvis said.

The final piece of the puzzle will be to secure the rights from the studios to enable CSS burning.

“I haven’t actually completed negotiations with the studios,” Marvis admitted. “I’m assuming that since they were part of the approval process that I’ll be able to get the content. But we probably won’t really roll this out until the second quarter of ’08.”

The Sonic deal caps a busy several months for CinemaNow, which also has unveiled deals recently to bundle its service with portable devices from Samsung, Archos and others, as well as with Hewlett-Packard’s upcoming MediaSmart home server.

“Our strategy over the past year has been to stop beating our heads against the wall on delivering content to the PC and to concentrate on embedding CinemaNow into as many devices and platforms as possible,” Marvis said. “We’re trying to build an ingredient brand, where CinemaNow is an embedded ingredient to how people access entertainment, whether in the home or on a portable device.”