With the entertainment industry always looking for the next big thing, Disney is working on some home entertainment technology designed to allow you to ditch DVDs and Blu-rays completely. Dubbed Keychest, the idea is to use the digital cloud principal, where you buy a film but rather than physically having a copy on disc or as a file on your hard drive, it would be stored remotely, with you givien a password to access it.
The benefit is that theoretically as long as you have your key, you could access your film on any compatible device. So, for example, you could start watching a movie on a mobile phone, continue of a laptop, and finish viewing it on your TV. It’s being touted as a way to ditch the DVD and give you access to a film you’ve bought on virtually any device capable of playing back digital film.
At the moment Disney hasn’t officially announced the technology, although they have apparently shown it off to other studios and will be making an announcement about it next month. It’s seen as a rival to DECE, which is backed by the other studios and is looking to develop new formats for digital content, so copyright owners will still have some control over content, while avoiding the DRM and other issues that have annoyed people so far.
However, as yet there’s no news on how they’re going to get around the quality issues surrounding live streaming of anything but low quality video files. Expect more news soon, as all the studios are keen to find a way to take advantage of digital delivery of content and are becoming more proactive in finding ways to give consumers something they want.