If The Walt Disney Company isn’t just wishing on a star, its new Keychest technology could become the way to watch video. According to The Wall Street Journal, Disney is getting ready to show how owning a movie or a TV show could mean not a physical copy, but access to the video, which would live on a server somewhere.
Code-named Keychest, the technology could let consumers pay one price and then watch a movie from any compatible device, whether an iPhone, a computer’s Web browser, or an on-demand cable system.
Competing Initiative
The Journal said Keychest will be unveiled next month, and Disney is now trying to get major studios, networks and consumer technology companies to join the effort.
A key advantage of the service would be that users wouldn’t have to worry about storing movies or TV shows, or losing purchased copies. Additionally, it solves the problem of wanting to watch a movie on your TV that you had downloaded to, say, your computer. Compatible devices and services would also recognize your Keychest purchase.
While DVDs may make some management issues easier for a consumer, they also mean playback is limited to DVD players. And their appeal is diminishing. Some studios are reporting that DVD sales have dropped as much as 25 percent.
But Disney isn’t the only studio with dropping revenue that is coming up with this kind of solution. A competing initiative, called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), is developing a similar approach.
Founding members of DECE include Lionsgate, Fox Entertainment, NBC Universal, Paramount, Sony, Warner Bros., Comcast, Intel, Microsoft and others. Disney says that, while the two efforts may be similar, Keychest is a more focused approach because it utilizes common file formats already in use, compared to DECE’s attempt to create new standards and formats. In fact, Disney says, DECE…