Sony readies movie downloads
Sony Pictures Entertainment, driven by the popularity of Napster and other media file-sharing technologies, is working on a secure, movie downloading service to be tested this year. "We believe that the movie business must not wait like the music business, until Napster or some other equivalent steals our movies," said Sony of America CEO. Blockbuster and RealNetworks are also working on Net movie delivery systems.
Contributing to pressures to go online soon is a video compression technology called DivX ;-) that uses MPEG-4 technology and MP3 to compress video files for Net downloading and copying to CD-ROM. The developers, a French film buff and a German programmer, are working on a legal and funded version of their product called DivX Deux.
For information on Sony's movie delivery system, go to www.techweb.com. For more about DivX ;-), go to www.techweb.com.
