First there was Napster. From the Napster model came a multitude of other P2P services that have made CD’s almost obsolete. The music industry took 2 steps. Sue the heck out of individuals who made songs available for downloading and create a method of legal online distribution of music.
The movie industry has faced a similar problem with illegal distribution of movies. Perhaps not quite as bad as the movie industry, as movies are immensely larger in size to download then songs. As the music industry has moved to legal online distribution of songs, the movie industry appears to going down the same path.
Enter Roxio.
Roxio has developed the Qflix ecosystem which is made up of manufacturers, distributors, software developers, systems integrators, retailers, and other digital media related companies who have all embraced the on-demand creation of secure DVD titles using the Qflix platform.
With one download, you get a movie that can be watched instantly on your PC and burned to DVD. You’ll no longer have to choose between downloads and DVDs!
So how does this magic work? There are three simple steps: First, buy a Qflix DVD burner, available from Dell and others. Your burner will come with the Roxio Venue software, which you need for the following steps. Next, open Venue and choose a movie from the CinemaNow online store. Finally, press the download & burn button. That’s it!
You’ll have your finished DVD in hand in about 1.5 to 2 hours, and you can even watch the movie while it downloads to your PC. With a Qflix drive, you can pick a movie when you get home from work, and your DVD will be ready for viewing on the big screen after dinner.
The Qflix ecosystem is made up of four key components:
- Qflix-enabled DVD recordable discs
- Qflix-enabled DVD recorders
- Qflix-enabled software for PC or CE devices
- Qflix online secure key servers
These specially-modified components work together to enable premium content to be burned onto recordable media with the CSS (content scrambling system) copy protection format, used universally by the DVD format. The finished DVDs are functionally identical to standard retail DVDs and can even be created with printed case liners and discs just like off-the-shelf DVDs-look and behave identically to standard replicated DVD titles and will play in virtually every DVD player on the planet.
By making CSS-encrypted burning virtually ubiquitous, the Qflix program enables the rapid, low-cost release of new titles, a virtually unlimited virtual shelf for back-catalog titles, the economical distribution of hard to find and specialized content, plus the convenience of in-store or in-home DVD creation.
With one download, you get a movie that can be watched instantly on your PC and burned to DVD. You’ll no longer have to choose between downloads and DVDs! Since the CinemaNow license allows for playing back your purchased Qflix movies on up to three PCs at a time (in addition to burning one DVD), you can install the software on additional PCs for downloading and viewing.
CinemaNow, which integrates within Media Center, is available currently only in the U.S. As this distribution model gathers acceptance, I am sure that expansion will occur to other areas of the world. I like free (don’t we all!), but it is nice to have the convenience of legal online availability of movies. I am not sure I care for the costs associated with special burners and discs, but that is the price one must pay to be legal. But at $120 from Dell, that is not a bad price to pay.
October 25th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
You don’t mention such nicities as Scene Selection, Extras and MultiLanguage Subtitles. I get these with real DVD’s. Comment?
October 25th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
From the website: “The finished DVDs- which are functionally identical to standard retail DVDs and can even be created with printed case liners and discs just like off-the-shelf DVDs-look and behave identically to standard replicated DVD titles and will play in virtually every DVD player on the planet.”
Does this answer your question?
October 25th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
Yes and No. When I download (from CinemaNow or elsewhere) I save the download on my WHS (an HP MediaSmart EX475). Does that download contain the capability for subtitles, scene choices and extras?? Because the downloads I now make from the meager choices at CinemaNow DO NOT. Likewise, when I try to play the same download on my Xbox 360, I am greeted with the assertion that I have a license problem. Incidentally, thanks for your help here. We must all hang together …
October 25th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
You may be correct. It is my understanding from the press releases and other marketing info that these are the real DVD’s, not tied into the machine you d/l’d from or time limited like a rental.
Time will tell. It would be nice to get one for review to better answer your questions. Obviously, marketing and reality often are poles apart!
October 26th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Well, I certainly hope you get a unit to review. My foray onto the Qflix site says nothing about subtitles, extras, etc. My own experience in this area leads me to be wary of marketing claims. I’m on my third “extender” (an HP Connect) for WMC, and none of the three have been able to stay connected to WMC for more than an hour. On a wired network otherwise totally reliable. This HP Connect at least plays all from the HP MediaSmart Server, but VMC (SP1) won’t stay connected, and the HP Gateway software won’t even recognize that sharing has been enabled for the HP Connect. These people are selling hardware, remember, and you have to buy the hardware before discovering that the software doesn’t quite work …
October 26th, 2008 at 5:03 am
I sent them an email (with a link to this post) asking about your specific questions. *Hopefully*, I will get a response early next week.
Regarding your comments about extenders, I can understand the frustration. Me thinks that there are so many “marginal” products (in general) in the whole chain from computer to extender to get a good handle on what a connection problem really is. I have a gut feeling that many routers/NIC’s are simply not designed to handle the kind of bandwidth required for streaming, HW or SW wise.
November 1st, 2008 at 1:44 am
I’m checking out this new technology and at least new movies are selling at about $10.00 less than packaged ones. I don’t know yet if extras are included, but this gives a choice of paying for full features or a discounted price. The more choices we have the better. I also don’t know if this will affect the international market. There are some foreign titles I would love to have but they are hard to find in the States.