Posted Thu Nov 5, 2009 at 11:00 AM PST by Mike Attebery
Kingston and Paramount have teamed up to bring the much watched Transformers sequel directly to USB.
Paramount Digital Entertainment has announced that they’ve signed a deal with Kingston to bring their films to USB drives and SD cards, but the release of 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' just has us scratching our heads.
Everyone seems to agree that digital distribution is the future of entertainment, but just how it will be delivered seems to be in strong contention. Netflix and Hulu take a streaming approach, while Blockbuster and Amazon go for a pay per view sort of download service. Kingston and Paramount have, on the other hand, created a way to combine the inconvenience of having to leave the house to purchase a movie with the video quality of a stream.
For $30, consumers are able to pick up the newest Transformers film on a 4GB USB drive. According to Kingston, users simply need to plug the USB drive into their computer to play the file, but details on what format the file will be in and what kind of DRM will be involved aren’t there.
There’s also no information on the quality of the video included, but since it’s on a 4GB drive, we can assume it’s not up to Blu-ray standards.
All this wouldn’t be so bad if the cost of the USB drive and movie were less than the two purchased separately, but for $30, that just isn’t the case, as a quick Amazon search quickly confirms.
Paramount says that more movies are coming via USB sticks and SD cards, but if a $30 price tag and less than impressive visuals are what we’re getting, expect the trend to end soon.
Source: Video Business
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