Sonic And Macrovision Agree Custom Recording Of Secure DVDs

Sonic Solutions and Macrovision have announced a licensing agreement to provide the industry’s first comprehensive content protection solution to enable the custom manufacturing of secure DVDs by retailers, e-tailers and DVD production facilities.
It is expected that the new solution will make it possible for movie studios and other content owners to expand the number of titles in their catalogue that are available for purchase by consumers in a variety of channels.
Typically content providers are only able to provide a small fraction of titles to the consumer market, and the agreement over content protection and importantly the playability of short-runs on titles virtually on demand marks a potential milestone in title distribution.
The integration of the established Macrovision’s RipGuard and ACP technologies into Sonic’s DVD On Demand technology solution, which will allow content encrypted with the industry-standard Content Scramble System (CSS) found on mass-replicated DVDs to be recorded directly to optical DVD media. Sonic will license the new combined solution to video publishers and distributors.
With the addition of RipGuard and ACP technologies to Sonic DVD-on-Demand, Macrovision and Sonic can together enable DVDs on Demand that feature 'triple protection' to safeguard against digital ripping and analogue and digital copying.
An innovation that will provide the essential security for content owners who wish to offer consumers more access to niche and 'back catalogue' content, but have been wary to do so without adequate protection.
Macrovision EMEA General Manager Jim Ryan stressed that both content protection and consumer playability were crucial factors in the agreement.
Ryan commented: “What we are trying to do is diversify our solution offering for video customers as they begin to move from a physical world into digital distribution.”
With this fully protected custom DVD manufacturing solution, content owners can offer DVDs through a variety of existing and new channels, such as online sites and retail kiosks.
Systems equipped with the Sonic and Macrovision solution will produce DVDs that offer the same audio and video quality, features, and protection as current commercially mass-produced titles.
Jim Taylor, Senior VP and General Manager of Sonic Solutions’ Advanced Technology Group, commented: “This is about moving the manufacturing process closer to the user, but at the same time using the advanced protection mechanisms that Hollywood is already using.
“We are expecting very strong support to take this forward for manufacturing on demand. So this will widen the amount of content that is available to purchase.”
The new Sonic and Macrovision solution will be available later this quarter.
(SP)