Hollywood teams up with several tech companies to create new movie service
Warner Bros. and Twentieth Century Fox are working with storage drive makers Western Digital and SanDisk on a new service that will allow consumers to back up movies that can be watched on notebooks, tablets and other devices.
This is Hollywood's latest attempt to battle declining DVD sales and daily movie rental kiosks, such as Redbox and BlockBuster Express. Almost 20 million digital movies were sold throughout 2011, according to industry estimates, with Apple iTunes, Vudu, Microsoft Xbox Live, and similar digital marketplaces.
According to anonymous sources related to the collaboration, the so-called "Project Phenix" digital rights management was first thought up by the group after they created the Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA).
Participating companies hope to be able to offer consumers a simpler way of managing multiple digital formats across numerous platforms. Importantly, users would be able to take content away from their household on USB memory cards, or access movies without access to the Internet.
"It's iCloud for movies," noted Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities analyst. "I think it's a nice feature to know that your physical copy is backed up in the cloud and accessible anywhere, and it should help sales overall. It gives the purchaser more flexibility."
Project Phenix allows users to store and play TV episodes and movies, even 1080p high-definition videos, that can be accessed online or offline. It would also be compatible with Ultraviolet, a rather unpopular cloud-based storage service that provides playback on tablets, smartphones, and other portable devices.
If production goes well, the technology can be licensed by the end of 2012, with Project Phenix ready to launch by late 2012-early 2013. Additional movie studios and storage providers may show interest and join the project, depending on consumer reaction to Project Phenix.
The record and movie industries have attempted numerous strategies to fight piracy, but very few have proven effective. An effort to create a new DRM that frees up how video content is played may create some headlines, but it's uncertain if consumers are going to quickly jump onboard.
Source: USA Today
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