CinemaNow, Macrovision ink tech pact

Online movie download site CinemaNow Inc. has struck a deal with software maker Macrovision Corp. aimed at making it easier for manufacturers of media players and other devices to make their products compatible with CinemaNow's on-demand movie service.

Terms of the agreement, which was being officially announced Thursday, were not made public.

CinemaNow has been pushing to make its movie service available beyond users' personal computers, with the goal of enabling users to easily transfer movie downloads for viewing on TV sets.

CinemaNow users can currently download movies and videos from the service for viewing on televisions via several devices, including Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, certain portable media players from Archos and Samsung Electronics Co., and on Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Media Smart LCD TVs.

The Macrovision deal should eventually lead to many more compatible devices coming to market in the second half of this year, said Curt Marvis, CinemaNow's chief executive officer.

"This year we'll see CinemaNow start to become available across a very, very broad spectrum of products," Marvis said.

The agreement called for both companies to integrate their technology. Consumer electronics manufacturers, many of which already incorporate Macrovision's anti-piracy or digital distribution technologies in their products, will have to update their Macrovision technology for their new devices.

Devices equipped with the technology will be able to download movies, music videos and other CinemaNow programming directly to digital TV sets, set-top boxes and network-attached storage devices. The devices will also be able to find, stream and play other content stored on a home network, CinemaNow said.

The Macrovision-CinemaNow technology alone won't make devices automatically compatible with CinemaNow's service, but it should make it far easier for manufacturers to adapt them, Marvis said.

CinemaNow is privately held and has about 1.5 million monthly users.

Among its investors are Lionsgate Entertainment Corp., Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.

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On the Net:

http://www.cinemanow.com