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January 4, 2007

video

Burning DVDs from downloaded movies is so 2006

Posted Jan. 4, ’07, 9:29 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Video

QFlix 'Value Chain'I hear that in some places, people are fainting because they’re so excited about the Macworld keynote. Really. While we fully expect to hear some news on Apple’s forthcoming iTV device, which aims to finally tackle that elusive living room, other players in the downloadable video market aren’t sitting still.

Sonic Solutions (owner of Roxio) has launched a new initiative called Qflix, that partners with content creators and hardware manufacturers to allow, for the first time, downloadable movies that can be burned to standard DVDs, encoded with the Content Scrambling System (aka CSS).

Wait, CSS? The software that was famously hacked by DVD Jon a bazillion years ago? Yep, the same. The discs will also include anti-rip technologies Ripguard and APC, ensuring that the amount of copy protection on a disc will far exceed the actual content its protecting.

Qflix is an end-to-end solution that will require participation by not only content providers but also the manufacturers of the burning hardware and software as well as the makers of the actual media. All of these will need to sign on with Qflix in order for the system to work. In some cases, drives might only require firmware updates.

Will Apple play ball with Sonic? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Why spend so much hassle getting your video onto physical media when you can just send it over a network? Qflix is too little, too late.

[via Ars Technica]


1 Comments

Dan--the man said:

If anything, I think Apple would have just made their own system. It'd probably go a lot further than Qflix ever will. With iTunes, the iTS and all the production companies and whatnot already in agreements with Apple, it'd get much bigger, much quicker.

But enough of that burn your own DRMed DVD crap. BRING ON THE iTV!

January 5, 2007 3:38 PM

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