Four major Hollywood studios have signed on with Film Fresh to distribute films in the DivX format, freeing them to be played on many more devices.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for downloadable movies on the Internet has been the lack of ways you can play the films once you have.  Thanks to highly restrictive digital rights management (DRM), you were pretty much stuck with only watching them on your computer.  The new deal between film studios Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount and Lionsgate with online retailer Film Fresh is about to change all of that.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the deal between Film Fresh and the Hollywood studios includes older catalog titles as well as the most recent releases.  Pricing will run between $10 and $16 USD, but the video site may play with pricing some by offering package deals.

The reason this is so exciting in the download community is that DivX not only allows for smaller files while maintaining image quality, but it also can be played on numerous devices.  As DivX has picked up acceptance by hardware manufacturers, this has led to compatibility for the file format to be added to gaming systems such as the PS3, and it has also been built directly in to some TVs, media streaming units, DVD players and more.  No longer will you have to watch the files just on your computer or some approved portable device.

DivX also allows you to burn the files on to DVDs so that you can just drop the disc in to any DVD player and watch it as you like.

Up until this deal was struck, Film Fresh has only dealt with independent and foreign films, so this is a fairly significant coup for the company.  How long the deal is for or how extensive it is was not discussed.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 7:03 pm under Online video, Piracy.

Read more entries by Sean P. Aune.
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