Theft of the device is problematic for at least 2 reasons, one being simply the loss of a $1,000 unit. The second is potential piracy of the content.
According to another poster who supposedly spoke to RP, the so-called "encryption" is simply DivX encoding (posted on Agora a few days ago).
If that is true, then the content could potentially be pirated and resold illegally. Supposedly, the only protection is a battery that has a proprietary charging system and a USB cable with a unique connection into the device.
The device itself might be useless after the battery wore down, but what would stop someone from dismantling it, removing the hard drive and installing it another device that would be able to access and transfer the content on that hard drive that is in standard DivX format?
IMO, it sounds too risky for the content provider who can lose millions of dollars to the pirated versions of their movies. If they are going to allow the device to have 20-30 of their movies, the potential losses could be enormous if just one of these devices were to be stolen. Therefore, I expect that the content providers would insist on the devices being used only in the controlled environment on board.
