July 23, 2009

Sonic, Widevine Put Movies on USB Flash Drives

Sonic Solutions and Widevine have announced they are enabling the delivery of premium movies on USB flash memory devices. Sonic's self-contained Roxio CinemaNow USB movie drives will include an integrated media player as well as the necessary video codecs to enable instant PC playback of movie content offline. Once connected to the Internet, consumers can add the title to their Roxio CinemaNow Digital Locker to access it on other ecosystem devices such as networked Blu-ray disc players and connected TVs. Sonic expects the first drives to appear at retail in the 4th quarter.

Widevine is providing Hollywood-approved digital rights management technologies to enable secure multiplatform playback.

"Delivering content on USB drives is the latest example of how Roxio CinemaNow is enabling access to digital Hollywood hits across the broadest possible range of devices," said Dave Habiger, president and CEO, Sonic Solutions, in a prepared statement. "Teaming with industry leaders such as Widevine is allowing us to overcome the technical hurdles of digital rights management and platform optimization behind the scenes."