Andre Yoskowitz
25 Dec 2007 16:32
Cinea,a division of Dolby Laboratories, has quietly phased out the Cinea S-View, the DVD player custom-made for tens of thousands of Oscar voters since 2004.
The S-View was used as a piracy-busting fixture that worked "with DVDs encrypted so that the discs only could play on a machine registered to each particular voter."
"Cinea remains committed to anti-piracy, changing focus from the S-View platform to support of its watermarking technology, Running Marks," said a Cinea spokesman. "This business decision had nothing to do with lack of studio support."
Despite what the spokesperson said however, sources have indicated that Cinea is killing off the device due to million of dollars in losses that have mounted since its inception. Major studios have gotten comfortable with the DVD watermarking standard and therefore have given little money to experimental technologies such as the S-View.
Since its introduction in 2004, Cinea and the S-View have been stumbling. The company has faced increased costs due to its pledge "to distribute machines to new members of the guilds it was servicing." Voters also complained at the impracticality of the machine, angrily pointing out the fact that they must lug around the machine while on vacation during the holiday season. Even more embarrassingly, in 2006 the drama "Munich" was omitted from that year's "Orange British Academy Film Awards", due to a technical glitch that prevented screeners of that film from being viewed by BAFTA members.
Cinea has said however, that they will continue to press on with their watermarking technology, a more practical service.
Source:
HR