Disney/CinemaNow Download to DVD

 
By Stacy June 02, 2006





The download to DVD market may be moving slowly but it seems to be moving in the right direction. I’ve been posting about this over the last few months, Movielink making deals with Hollywood, EZTakes allowing burning and the possibility of NetFlix entering the market have furthered the possibility of useful download to DVD services. Now CinemaNow and Disney have made a deal to allow burning.

USA Today reports how the deal will work;

….CinemaNow will sell the films for $19.95 and will allow consumers to transfer films to a portable device running Windows Media software.
In a deal similar to others announced in April, Disney will sell its films online the same day they become available on DVD, thus closing the gap between DVD sales and video-on-demand by several months.

This service will allow transfer to up to three different devices and burning onto a DVD. Like all the current download to DVD services, the DVD can only be played on a computer. Only the porn industry has allowed download to DVD that plays on a regular DVD player. Not to sound creepy, but since the porn industry spearheaded the VHS revolution maybe this will help the DVD burning market as well. Adult films purchased from CinemaNow can be burned and played on a regular player. CinemaNow is talking to other studios to get more content that can be copied to DVD.

I’ve said before, the studios should work with the technology and not fight it. I don’t think they can really win the war on piracy; they should offer consumers more legal options to get what they want. One problem with piracy is that it is global, meaning the studios can’t charge the same price for a DVD in every country like they do now. I have friends in Thailand and S. Korea who only copy because the DVD’s aren’t priced with the local economy in mind. They all say they would buy legal copies if they were $10 instead of $20 or $30 like they are now. Couldn’t a download to DVD service help everybody get what they want? Making some money is better than making none.

Related:
Smaller, Faster Video Downloads
CinemaNow
The Download to DVD Possibility
Akimbo download service