Hollywood studios will cross a significant technological and psychological frontier today when they offer the first downloadable movies that can be legally burned onto a DVD.
Four major studios struck a deal with online movie service CinemaNow Inc. to offer more than 100 mainstream titles that can be copied to a disc and played on almost any DVD player or television set. Prices will start at about $9 a movie.
The deal was hailed as a milestone in Internet distribution, giving film fans what they've long demanded: the convenience of downloading a movie and playing it on the living room TV.
Today's launch also previews a likely agreement between the major studios and Apple Computer Inc., which is expected to expand the offerings on its popular iTunes online store to include big-studio movies. Several studio executives Tuesday confirmed that they were holding talks with Apple but did not want to be named because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.
Apple declined to comment.
Coupled with the CinemaNow agreement, an Apple deal would cement the Internet as a viable film distribution vehicle. Although studios have offered online movies since 2002, fears over piracy have kept the films locked to computer hard drives or to discs that play only on a PC. That restriction has kept the market for legal movie downloads relatively limited.
"Burning is important to consumers," Universal Pictures Vice Chairman Rick Finkelstein said.
As with record labels' reluctant steps into online distribution a few years ago, the major studios are "not embracing it with both arms yet," said David Card, vice president of Jupiter Research.
CinemaNow's service uses relatively new anti-piracy technology that prevents a burned DVD itself from being copied. Because that technology is still being tested, the initial batch of titles being offered was described by Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff as what's left "at the video store when you arrive too late and the shelves are picked clean."
Among the initial releases: "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," "Barbershop" and "Scent of a Woman."
If CinemaNow's anti-piracy technology proves effective, studios can be expected to offer newer and more popular movies. This year, for instance, the major studios began selling big movies online the same day they were released on DVD, ending a practice of delaying each film's Internet availability for several months.
