DVD-burnable Movie Download

Movielink, a Santa Monica, California-based Web film service is signing up a deal with Sonic Solutions technology, which will allow the company to employ Sonic’s DVD-on-Demand software for burning digital copies of films downloaded from the Web to DVD, according to a joint statement from two companies.

Movielink is a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Brothers Studios. Movielink offers films for rent for as little as $1.99, and its users purchase movies for as much as $19.99 for newly released titles. Only a portion of Movielink's 1,500-title library will be available for download-to-burn until Movielink clears those rights with its studio investors. Movielink is the first major download service to offer download-to-burn DVD for use in personal computers, and many consumers have been waiting until those DVDs could also be played on standard DVD players linked to television sets.

Currently, film enthusiasts who purchase movies via the Internet can rent or buy from a handful of film download services, but that content can only be viewed on their computers or other handheld devices. In order to restrict piracy, top Hollywood studios demanded that movies be protected by strict Digital Rights Management (DRM) software which prevents movies from being copied to DVD. The problem with such a strategy was that many customers didn't like being forced to watch them only on their PCs. Now, Sonic Solutions is providing DVD-burning software that comes equipped with DRM protection, which would prevent the making of numerous copies.