Disney to unveil new technology to ditch DVD
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 21 October 2009, 15:06 IST   |    2 Comments
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Disney to unveil new technology to ditch DVD
Bangalore: Disney is all set to launch its technology called Keychest which will allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices - from the Web, to mobile gadgets like iPhones and cable services that allow on-demand viewing, according to Wall Street Journal. Keychest aims to address the hurdles of playing a movie back on devices other than a PC or laptop, and limited storage space on those computers' hard drives. Keychest uses the same "cloud computing" method that Google Docs uses, permitting users to store files and photographs on remote Internet servers and access them from anywhere, rather than keeping them on their own computers. This technology can provide the much needed boost to the movie industry. According to Wall Street Journal, DVD sales, have fallen as much as 25 percent at some studios. Blu-ray discs and digital downloads from sites like Apple iTunes Store, haven't grown quickly enough to offset the losses. Blu-ray and downloads combined currently make up just 11 percent of home-video sales, according to industry estimates, with DVDs representing the other 89 percent. That proportion could grow to 20% next year. In Disney's most recent quarterly earnings report, its movie studio recorded an operating loss for the first time since 2005. Bob Chapek, President of Home Entertainment at Disney Studios, says the company doesn't expect Keychest to deliver tangible financial results for five years. But he predicts that in combination with Blu-ray, digital distribution "should bring our category back up to a healthy state where we can expect growth in the future." Keychest could put Disney on a collision course with an initiative, known as the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, or DECE, that has similar goals. But Disney argues that their effort represents a more streamlined approach. Instead of designing a new set of standards and formats, as DECE is trying to do, and having participants sign on, Keychest works using a combination of digital file formats that are already common, and recognized by a wide range of existing devices. The Keychest process is enabled by a system that generates a unique "key" when the movie is purchased. Movies bought on discs, whether DVD or Blu-ray, could also generate an access key. In the case of a DVD, the user would need to manually type in a code; Blu-ray players are designed to connect to the Internet, and could send codes automatically.

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