IBM and PortoMedia are collaborating on delivering DVD-quality movies to cell phones and portable media players.
PortoMedia said on Friday it is working with IBM Research to deliver two-hour, DVD-quality movies in just 18 seconds to mobile phones or portable media players.
The movies would be sold through kiosks and loaded onto secure digital flash memory cards that can be inserted into the phones and other players. Porto said the same content can be shown on TV sets at high resolution.
Along with IBM, the Irish company is developing extensions for encryption systems known as copy protection for recordable media (CPRM), which was developed by the 4C consortium comprised of IBM, Intel, Matsushita, and Toshiba.
CPRM is also the basis for the new content security protection standard used in next-generation Blu-ray and HD-DVD players.
The extensions that Porto is developing for the CPRM will enable different rules to be applied to the playback of content, so the content can play on a device for a set period of time or number of times.
‘Consumers are looking for exciting new ways to access content.’
-Steve Canepa,
IBM
The content might also be transferred to other protected devices, such as a DVD RAM drive, from which it could be played an unlimited number of times, but never copied again, as in a purchase model.
PortoMedia plans to test the distribution model during a large-scale pilot test next year, but declined to specify where it will take place. However, PortaMedia CEO Timothy O’Brien also hopes to see the technology available in retail outlets in both the United States and Europe next year.
“There is interest in both the U.S. and Europe based on the idea of the Flash card as a portable medium for a new content distribution channel,” said Mr. O’Brien.
High-Resolution Video
He contrasted his system to other mobile phone TV systems on the market. The system his company is developing will be able to transmit a high-resolution image that will be downsized for the mobile device and expanded when it is output to a TV set through an “AV Out” connection on the portable device, or an adapter that will allow playback on a standard TV.
“The mobile phone could act as a DVD player,” said Mr. O’Brien. “Some people today are starting to distribute a low-res file to a mobile device, but the content protection and content resolution is much lower. If you were to buy that content, it’s only good for the mobile device.”
He said his technology will meet consumer demands for flexibility, while also meeting the content owners’ demands for enforcement and usage conditions.
“As the increasingly on-demand media marketplace continues to evolve, consumers are looking for exciting new ways to access content,” said Steve Canepa, vice president of IBM Media and Entertainment.
The content would be distributed through a network of IBM-managed media kiosks, from which the content will be downloaded onto a Flash memory card. The kiosks would be installed in locations such as retail stores, as well as train, bus, and gas stations.
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