The announcement is substantial for the adult video industry because nearly all of the mainstream Hollywood studios have approved the technology and licensing arrangement that is certain to remove a major obstacle consumers now face with burning movies they buy digitally over the Internet onto a DVD that will play everywhere.
Burning a DVD will take anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes using Sonic's Qflix technology and consumers will be subject to restrictions, such as the number of burns.
The lock, known as CSS or content scrambling system, comes standard on prerecorded DVDs today. All DVD players come equipped with a key that fits the lock and allows for playback.
So far, Movielink, CinemaNow and Amazon.com's Unbox haven't been able to use CSS because studios fear widespread DVD burning could lead to piracy.
Companies participating in Qflix include Verbatim Corp., which makes blank discs, the movie download service Movielink, video-on-demand provider Akimbo Systems Inc. and the Walgreen Co. chain of drug stores, which could offer the service with in-store kiosks.
Sonic has been working for three years to develop Qflix and get studios to agree to amend the CSS license to allow a download-to-burn.
