AfterDawn: News

French movie rental operator creates new download drive

Cinebank, the largest video rental operator in France has developed a new and unique system for movie rentals by creating a portable hard drive that customers can use to load up at an instore kiosk then play back on their TVs via HDMI or a docking station.

The devices can hold up to 14GB of data, which is enough for over 30 movies at DVD quality.



The rentals use DRM and remain watchable for 30 days after which they expire. The kiosks can load 6 movies onto the drive in under 2 minutes.

Users pay for the movies using a prepaid card and the revenue from each rental is split between the retailer and the movie studios.

The new venture is aptly named Moovyplay and is created by the owner of Cinebank, CPFK Holding which also owns Video Futur and Video Pilote.

The system can hold up to 3000 movies which allows the rental stores to expand without actually adding physical stock.

So far, Moovyplay has licensed titles from Warner Bros. and New Line and is in talks with all the other major American movie studios. Licensing deals have also been made with nine major French distributors, including Seven Sept. and BAC.

The drives are being made by the leading manufacturer of portable media players in Europe, Archos and the drive itself will sell for 140 Euros.

The company hopes to open 13 kiosks as a test in November and if they are a success, the company hopes to expand to elsewhere in Europe and ultimately the US.

The company also said the entire operation was being handled internally, including the DRM encryption and prepaid cards.

Source:
Video Business

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 12 Aug 2007 17:25

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• 13 comments

• club42

  Quote:The devices can hold up to 14GB of data, which is enough for over 30 movies at DVD quality. Hopefully thats a typo in the main article because under 2GB per movie would not be normal dvd quality. Still a innovative idea. I would like to see flash media for movies over optical in the near future.

  12.8.2007 17:34 #1

• H0bbes

  This is innovative, I gotta hand it to them. If it makes it to the US, it may fly especially if the price is reasonable.

  12.8.2007 17:35 #2

• Kazi

  pretty frickin cool

  12.8.2007 17:57 #3

• vtowner

  I'm sure someone will find a way to remove the DRM and then these people are screwed.

  12.8.2007 18:18 #4

• DVDBack23

  Quote:Quote:The devices can hold up to 14GB of data, which is enough for over 30 movies at DVD quality. Hopefully thats a typo in the main article because under 2GB per movie would not be normal dvd quality. Still a innovative idea. I would like to see flash media for movies over optical in the near future.I believe the movies will be in MPEG4 with average movie being 500MB :)

  12.8.2007 18:23 #5

• mspurloc

  None of these marketing people have a clue as to what "DVD quality" means, obviously.
  
  Hey, check out my youtube video! It's DVD quality!

  12.8.2007 19:04 #6

• c1c

  Maybe the French are on some kind of different math system. DVD quality ha! Still a cool idea of the flash drive though, I like! Much better than downloading or even streaming. Go out and get some milk and cigarettes, hook up your portable drive and get a movie, then you can link it to all your friends standing behind you in line and split the cost 4 ways, or better yet burn it for all your family and share the cost of 1 'transfer' Can't see this working for big time hollywood blockbuster movies. I like the idea though.

  12.8.2007 19:22 #7

• PeaInAPod

  I love the idea, I would definitely pay for this service. Imagine, the movie(s) you want would never be out of stock.

  12.8.2007 19:53 #8

• MightyOne

  Kool idea.
  
  Not sure if consumers are willing to put Forth the money for the drive.
  a 14 Gig drive for $140. Is that a little steep ?
  
  You would also need to purchase this so called docking station, or i assume it would come with the drive ?
  
  Being in its "beta" stage...it could have great potential if consumers can get to the machines....but its not much different than going to a video store. I could see Video stores resorting to these methods next...and keeping there stock next to nothing. All fiber optics between stores. And of course the rental cost wouldn't be any cheaper.

  13.8.2007 10:52 #9

• SProdigy

  Exactly. Why pay that much for the drive, and then the rentals? It would have to replace DVD (or for you optimists, HD optical formats) in order for it to have legs. You do have to buy a DVD player in order to buy/rent DVDs, so it's not that farfetched of an idea, it costs next to nothing for the retail stores and studios to implement it, so if the price to consumers were right (and Hollywood doesn't inflate the price, inflating their margin well over DVDs of today) then it may have a chance.

  13.8.2007 12:16 #10

• Unfocused

  It can write the full 14 Gigs in under 2 minutes? What are they using for transfer, USB 2.0? That is pretty good speed.

  13.8.2007 21:03 #11

• borhan9

  Quote:The rentals use DRM and remain watchable for 30 days after which they expire. The kiosks can load 6 movies onto the drive in under 2 minutes.For this reason i would not go with this company.

  17.8.2007 18:58 #12

• PeaInAPod

  Originally posted by Unfocused: It can write the full 14 Gigs in under 2 minutes? What are they using for transfer, USB 2.0? That is pretty good speed.I'd bet money there using eSATA.

  17.8.2007 20:04 #13