While video retailers believe Qflix discs could represent the level of direct-to-the-consumer functionality that Blu-ray has yet to deliver, there's a catch that makes these discs not exactly as versatile as the "V" in "DVD" implies.
Early last year, movie studios gave their support to a burn-on-demand technology being developed by Sonic Solutions that would enable broadband customers to burn copy-protected DVD movies to specially created media. With Qflix console drives now capable of playing movies downloaded from CinemaNow -- a service that began testing legal burns in June 2006 -- Dell is announcing this morning it's the first company to build an external Qflix drive for use with PCs.
The listing for Dell's Qflix DVD burner
went live on its Web site this afternoon. Although Dell's marketing told the press today that the drive would be marketed for now as a bundle with Inspiron, Studio, and XPS laptops for $119.99, this listing indicates the drive is equally available separately for the same price.
What makes the service functional -- which, to some extent, also renders it controversial -- is that it does not burn movies to traditional DVDs. Rather, it requires the use of special "Qflix-certified" recordable media, which come pre-encoded with certain features of CSS copy protection. The Qflix drive can only burn movies to these discs, which right now are not exactly available at your local store.
The software you use to burn these discs is called Roxio Venue, which Sonic Solutions announced last month. At the time, Sonic said Venue would let burned DVDs play in PCs, but it would not specify which ones. While Qflix DVDs are said to be "compatible with the billion DVD players deployed worldwide," to quote Qflix marketing literature, they are intentionally designed not to be played back from just any PC. Meaning, you may only be able to play Qflix discs on Dell's Qflix PC player.
This somewhat contradicts CinemaNow's current marketing, which states Qflix discs can "play on any DVD-enabled player or PC."
Dell's statement this afternoon says that Qflix drives will soon be offered as an option for desktop models, though the fact that the external drive uses a standard USB cable indicates that it can effectively function in any PC to which Dell's Qflix burner is attached. Presently, Qflix discs have standard video resolution designed for 480i displays; similar technology for 1080p high-definition displays has yet to be announced.
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Dell releases external burn-on-demand DVD for Qflix
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