Download And Burn Movies Available Soon

An anonymous reader writes "According to an article from PC World, a source close to the CSS Managed Recording forum said that technology which allows movies to be downloaded and burned to blank DVDs, using the same content-protection system as commercial discs, received official approval on Thursday. 'The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today. The burned discs will be compatible with the vast majority of consumer DVD players ... Despite Thursday's approval, services that allow consumers to legally download and burn movies in their own homes are unlikely to appear quickly. The DVD CCA said it will be initially restricted to professional uses. These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.'"

Soon?

I've been doing it for years.

Re:Soon?

Frankly, I don't get this great desire for direct-delivery, or downloadable, or burn-your-own type of delivery. Why? Well, hell.. you're already getting charged an arm + leg today for the media and its content.. so to make it better you're going to do more of the providor's work for them? You're going to use your bandwidth, burn to your media for the content? What kinda sense is that?

And further.. to continue the cries downloading is the way to go (especially in the middle of this HD-format battle we're in),instead of a shiny silvery thing (complete with its case, booklet, promo materials) we're going to be satisfied with a download direct to a black box? You think that box is going to have any to get that content out of it? Especially if the RIAA/Hollywood/Insert-Your-Favorite-Boogeyman-here , et al have their way about it?

I've been watching this trend with music (iTunes, etc..), I see people think it's the cat's balls for video.. and I simply don't get it. Or I'm to materialistic and prefer the tangible product in my hand compared to some stuff on a harddrive somewhere which is (imho) prone to higher levels of control or loss due to failure..

-r (or maybe it's just another sign i'm getting older.. :)

Ohhhhh

Swing and a miss. nonstandard dvds, nice try, please come again.

What?

These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.

So, how is burning, ripping, and sharing... different than just sharing? Oh no, a $0.25 disc down the drain! Gotta buy DVD-RWs next time.

huh?

So, I go to a retail store to buy/download a dvd online - buy a special disk and burn it there ... instead of going to the dvd aisle? yea.....

Re:huh?

Umm, because now they can offer a much larger catalogue and you have even less excuse than ever for pirating something that you claim is rare / not available locally?

Yawn...

The burned discs will be compatible with the vast majority of consumer DVD players ...

This is a lie. And if I learned something from history (and e.g. Sony advertising), then that this is a lie...

The DVD CCA said it will be initially restricted to professional uses. These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.

That's not professional use. It's a business model that will fail. If I learned something from history, then that this is one of the business models which fail because you don't confront paying customers with prison-vocabulary like "controlled environment".

I don't get it

So I am going to walk into Best Buy, walk up to a kiosk, pick the movie I want to watch, wait 5-10 minutes for it to download and burn on this special DVD, pay for it, and walk out? As opposed to me just grabbing the movie off the shelf and skipping the burning-downloading part?

A DVD costs pennies to make/transport....

>"I think that this will reduce considerably the costs for the distribution of a movie"

A DVD costs pennies to make/transport (I get plenty of them for free with magazines/etc.). Installing all the hardware/infrastructure needed for this system will cost a fortune.

Need more imagination.

Perhaps the advantage is that you'll be able to gain access to a giant catalog of movies as opposed to simply what is in stock? Furthermore, locations could offer this huge selection of movies without even having stock?

A good example would be a kiosk at a supermarket. You could come in, choose a movie, swipe your credit card, start the burn process, when it's done, it could set it aside until you swipe your credit card again, after you are done shopping. It could use DVD-RW and predict demand for popular movies and keep recycling disks, so that if you pick a popular movie it doesn't even have to burn it. It could do this all through the night and at 10 minutes a disk (conservative estimate) could produce 144 DVDs a day. More likely it'd be closer to double that.

Even more obvious is that it could be integrated into an online service that would let you choose movies and guarantee their availability when you go to the store. Browse online then simply pick it up when you go for groceries. Convenience and instant gratification.

CSS??

using the same content-protection system as commercial discs

So why bother? It's been broken for over 7 years. Unless...

The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today ... ahhh, this will maybe prevent ripping? Or will there be media taxes imposed? Will I need to install special drivers to burn to or read from the discs? Would such drivers, if required, govern my PC playback and 'secure' access to the discs?

Another disc format ?

computer store conversation

customer: hello, my son says i need some blank dvds for my holiday video
Salesman: certainly sir which would you require ?
customer: iam not sure
salesman: well is it DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-HD, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, DVD+DL, DVD-DL, DVDRW+DL, DVDRW-DL ?
customer: erm iam not sure DVDR i was told
salesman: ok lets say its DVD-R what speed would you like?
customer: ??
salesman: 1-4x, 2-8x or 4-16x
customer: ???
salesman: and would it be an Organic layer based disc or Gold archival format ?
customer: forget it i'll just have a box of VHS tapes please

Re:Another disc format ?

customer: forget it i'll just have a box of VHS tapes please
Salesman: would you like Sony, TDK, Memorex or own brand
Customer: er, Sony
Salesman: what grade would you like? XB, XBR, XBR-E
... ad nauseam ...

unwanted technology

i just don't understand, why those stupid companies (yes there seem to be more of them) constantly work on innovations no one really wants or cares about? is the machinery that mindless or are the people in charge ignorant? maybe they got too much money, so they can't imagine, that there's others out there that are willing to pay horrendous amounts of money for the same shit over and over again. ... i just don't know, how itunes could ever become such a huge success. do people really realize, what they are doing, when buying from that store? are they aware of the implications, that in a few hours, all those songs are lost, because their ipods turned to dust and the music they bought went down with their only way of listening to it?

i think there's a general lack of awareness regarding DRM and competing technologies. it doesn't seem that this will change in the near future and just as with sony's (already almost forgotten) rootkit disaster (time really seems to heal all wounds). the public outcry will take a while to surface, because "the mob" isn't aware of it now.

Convenience for who?

All this saves is retail storage space - ie it is convenient for the studios and the stores because they don't need the same warehouse and shelf space. Its not convenient for me. I can already walk to the Global Video 50 yards from my house and buy (or rent) DVDs. Except now, if its not a popular choice, I have to wait at a booth until a 4GB file downloads.

It just reinforces in my mind that consumers are merely obstacles between the studios and their money, and technology is merely a lubricant to ease the movement of money from us to them. Nothing else matters - in fact anything else is an obstacle.

and available for Linux?

This will, of course, be available for open source software users in the quarter after hell freezes over.

Price

These new MPAA approved DVD-R(W) Discs will be available for the low low price of only 29.99 a disc. With 80% of the revenue being kicked back to the MPAA by the disc maker

What a bargin! LOLz

Waste of money.

Pressing real discs is much cheaper than burning DVD recordables. If you are dealing in quantities over just a few hundred, real replication is the faster, more reliable, and more economical solution. This idea makes no sense for the consumer or the business owner and there is nothing convenient about it. The only possible good that can come out of it is the increased availability of obscure DVD titles that there is currently no retail shelf space for. But it's never going to happen because this business model doesn't make sense for any business that is interested in volume: a requirement in the retail media channel. Too much overhead in terms of time, equipment, and pissed off customers stuck with useless or failing DVD recordable discs. The concept will fail before obscure titles ever are considered for this kind of duplication.

I don't get it

...it is already now possible to easily rip and copy DVDs, so why even bother to protect the images. Sell the downloadable images for half the price and let people burn them! What do you gain by "protecting" them?!

Anyone think...

...that perhaps this isn't supposed to succeed? Think about it; the studios want this to happen. First, they say "downloadable and burnable movies for the masses!" Second, they come up with a business model designed to fail and a process designed to be less convenient for the consumer. Third, sales end up in the gutter. Fourth, they discontinue offering movies in this manner. Fifth, anytime someone starts talking about how movies should we should be able to download movies and burn them to discs, the studios point at this and say that the model is unfeasable. Sixth, they are able to label almost anyone who has a movie on a disc that wasn't burned by them as a pirate.

they have not let go of their strangle hold yet

The technology will require discs that are slightly different from the conventional DVD-Rs found in shops today

You can bet those disks, which cost them a nickel to make, will cost you $7 apiece. They are not going to stop robbing us, they are just trying to make it less obvious.

Consumer?

What's the difference between a consumer DVD player and, e.g., an enterprise DVD player? Or a "prosumer" DVD player? Are they able to ignore regional settings and have a CSS licence or something?

There are so many unwarranted uses of the word "consumer" in TFS and TFA it isn't funny.

Umm okay?

If you are going to be in a professional environment, why the hell would you want to sit and wait for a disc to be burned? Let's say you're at your local shopping mall, chances are that you'll be within sight of a Sam Goody, FYE, or Suncoast store...if you're going to buy a movie, you might as well buy it in retail packaging.

Why own?

Most dvd's aren't watched more than once, and with increasing streaming services, why would I want to pay full price for these?

Still, for those rare dvd's one does want to own, why would you want a shit burned DVD with some crap injet label instead of a slick case with insert?

Yet another example of too little too late

When will the MPAA realise their existing monopoly-based sales model doesn't work any more?
They should do something innovative instead of trying to release pointless and unwanted variants of the old sales model.

I say this is pointless because anyone with a dvd burner and a subscription to netflix or blockbuster can already do more than this 'new concept' is offering. Furthermore they can still use standard media, and it probably costs a lot less per copy.

Hmm.

I saw this a few years ago ('02-'03) at a Sheetz store in Williamsport, PA. It wasn't there for long. You could go to the thing, pick a movie, and get the DVD a few hours later, I believe is how it worked.

Sorry bucko, Blockbuster is faster. (They made you return the video).

Good thinking

These might include kiosks in retail stores where consumers can purchase and burn discs in a controlled environment.

Because teenagers and college kids working in kiosks will prevent their friends and peers from making unauthorized duplications of any film without the express written consent of the MPAA, Skywalker Studios, and George Lucas.

Almost a Good Idea....

A Modest Proposal

Seems to me a better way to do this would be simply to sell two kinds of DVDs in retail stores, including a new kind that gives the RIAA a fee in place of royalties in exchange for the granting of rights to download and burn any kind of copyrighted material onto that disk anywhere. This fee, of course, would be added to the cost of the DVD the consumer pays.

So those who want the RIAA to get their pound of flesh can do so and burn with a clear legal conscience, and those who prefer to pirate can buy the cheaper DVDs we are already using.

This would require the RIAA to monitor all P2P downloads so the royalties can be divided pro rata to the artists due them. But since they already seem to be monitoring DLs, it would be of no significant added cost to them.

Techological progress

... is what I call it - we used to burn books, now we'll burn ruch multimedia content!!!

You Can Do This Already

The EZTakes Movie Downloads Store [eztakes.com] has been live for over a year and has over 2,000 downloadable/burnable DVDs online. They don't use DRM and all of their movies are licensed from the content owners.

A blast from the past!

I remember Blockbuster was going to be providing burn-on-demand VHS tapes Real Soon Now, about 10 years ago... I see this having almost exactly the same chance of becoming a reality.

You call this news?

Sonic announced this deal with your favourite company Macrovision last October: http://www.sonic.com/about/press/news/2006/10/secu reDVD.aspx [sonic.com]

Re:Legal in own home?

I SAY WHAT IS LEGAL IN MY OWN HOME.

The preferred argument of wife-beaters everywhere!

Re:Legal in own home?

Mods, this is NOT a troll. It is a really good point.

At what point does the "legal in my own home" argument fail to hold water? And if it fails to work at some point, what does that say about the entire argument?

For example, is it legal to shoot heroin in your house? How about meth? Is it legal to pass counterfeit bills to your drug dealer? Can you deprive him of liberty if he calls you on it? Is murder legal in your own home? How about arson to hide the evidence of the previous "legal" activities?

If your argument fails at some point in that chain, does it continue to work for your original "legal in my own home" actions?