Audio Video News

Movielink and Sonic Solutions announced a licensing agreement for technology that will let consumers take the movies they've purchased and downloaded online and burn them onto recordable DVDs. (What a novel idea!) The content will be burned in a protected format that will allow playback on standard DVD players. (Why didn't I think of that?) The content provider will have to authorize the use of the technology with the provider's particular content. (Now there's the rub...)

The licensing agreement is a two-way deal. Movielink gets to use Sonic's DVD-on-Demand technology that makes it possible to download, format, and burn movies to recordable DVDs. Sonic, on the other hand, will do their part by including the Movielink Service within the company's Roxio CinePlayer as well as other Sonic software applications.

The two companies say they'll begin a parallel marketing campaign "to rapidly establish a large user base of tens of millions of users". The download-to-burn compatible software will be distributed through Sonic's large PC OEM, retail, and online distribution channels.