While some of us just can’t resist endless iPhone coverage :), there are a few other things in the CE world to keep an eye on. Among them, the DVD Copy Control Association has very quietly approved CSS copy-protection technology for use in movie download services and DVD kiosks. What does this mean? It means that companies can start offering on-demand DVD burning of the movies you buy. Instead of figuring out how to transcode video for a portable media player or how to stream downloaded flicks from a PC to a TV, now you can transport media the old-fashioned way. Just take it with you on a good old DVD.
The one major downside? If you’re consumer at home (i.e. not buying from a kiosk), you’ll need a new DVD burner and a new type of DVD-R disc to burn downloaded movies.
In the endless quest to move media around, we’ve come up with a couple of “alternative” solutions in our household. (And by “we”, I have to admit I’m talking about my husband here…) First there’s the cable that runs from the old G4 Mac in our basement up to our TV in the living room. Great for playing downloaded video, but not up to the task of streaming media. Second, we have now moved a 23″ computer monitor into the kitchen that works quite nicely for online viewing when hooked up to a laptop. Granted these aren’t sexy solutions, but they do the trick.