MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Walt Disney Company is close to unveiling new technology to allow entertainment companies to distribute media to consumers using computers and cell phones, rather than on DVD and television.

The technology is code-named Keychest and sounds like its the for-pay web service that Disney CEO Bob Iger announced back in July. The service would basically let consumers pay one price for permanent access to content from a number of different devices — like set-top boxes and mobile phones.

As the WSJ points out, this type of system could really bring the idea of movie downloads to the mainstream — because content would be stored and accessed from the cloud on your different devices, rather than downloaded and then stored for playback.

Digital Media Served From the Cloud

Think of the service kind of like Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace — content you buy via your set-top box would also show-up on your mobile phone or on your computer. The advantage is that the content can be easy to access from multiple devices from the user, but the content provider ultimately has control over who gets to watch the content (making piracy much more difficult).

Even content purchased on physical media, like Blu (Blu)-ray or DVD could still work with the Keyset system, because a customer could either type in (or in the case of Blu-ray, have the key transmitted over the Internet) a code that would then “unlock” viewing options for that product on different devices. For consumers, this would be like the iPod friendly digital downloads that now come packaged with many DVDs or Blu-ray discs. Only instead of a download, you could access the content over the cloud.

Of course, all of this content seems to be based on the idea of ubiquitous connectivity. How consumers would (or if they could) access content when not online (say you’re on a trip or in the car) hasn’t been discussed.

via Disney’s Going Digital: Buy Once, Watch Anywhere.