Following Panasonic and Sony and their future program in Japan to distribute movies on micro SD support, Sonic Solutions and Widevine announced their goal to launch a similar system in USA by the end of the year. Their offer, known as "CinemaNow USB Movie Drives" will feature a USB key including all components: the movie, codec for playing the file and the dedicated application to display the movie. You will simply need to plug it to a PC (compatibility with Mac remains unclear) and the movie can be directly watched. If connected on internet, one will be able to get bonus and add-ons, similarly to the contents available on a BD media. The UB key can be used on 5 different computers.
As you might have suspected it already, Movie majors and key players, are not really following the strategy of Music Majors, dropping DRM and enriching the offer, they simply simply try to introduce new physical support to be more compatible and handy to use on a computer than a DVD or a BD media. However, with such USB key, the customer will have less freedom than with a DVD or BD, as he will not have the freedom to share his DVD with his family members, or friends, who will then potentially purchase the film if they like it. In other words, the USB key will be more define as a product dedicated to a small family, a couple with 2 children.
