MOD supports SD card playback on more devices
Company is prepping retailer-branded set-top boxes
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 1/6/2010
JAN. 6 | Kiosk company MOD Systems, which began testing the first digital movie kiosks with major studio content in early November, announced today that it will now support playback of those downloaded movies on virtually all PCs and in the future on Blu-ray Disc players, TVs and other consumer electronic devices with SD card slots.
The kiosks from MOD and partner NCR offer movie downloads from Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures to SD cards, the same cards used in digital cameras to store photos.
Up to now, those downloads could only be played back on the TV through an MOD SD card set-top device, called GreenPlay.
With MOD now supporting playback on PCs, consumers who have computers with an SD card drive can slip an SD card into the slot and immediately playback an MOD download. No additional software is needed for playback. For PCs without an SD card slot, MOD will sell a SD-to-USB converter, which can be plugged into a PCs’ USB drive for immediate playback of downloaded films.
Retailers are expected to sell the cards and the converters by the kiosks. Pricing will vary by retailer, but MOD chairman and CEO Anthony Bay said “the intention is to make it as inexpensive as possible.”
MOD also will launch a second-generation of set-top boxes branded by retailer, which connect to TVs for playback of movies downloaded from kiosks. MOD is in talks with retailers on the boxes, Bay said.
But MOD is looking beyond its own set-top boxes to reach the TV and is now talking to makers of Blu-ray players, TVs, portable devices and other consumer electronics with SD card slots. The company has developed technology so that consumer electronics companies can add MOD support into devices that have an SD card slot, either through firmware upgrades on devices already in consumer homes or by baking it into new devices.
MOD will use the GreenPlay name for the SD devices that playback its downloads so consumers will know whether a device with an SD card slot will play content from the kiosks.
Bay said he’s “quite pleased” with how the technical trial at six Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores is going, but wouldn’t be more specific.
He said the two most common questions from consumers are about playback of kiosk-downloaded films on other devices and about more content, two things the company is now addressing.
MOD plans to move from a technical trial to a broader pilot test of the kiosks in the coming months. When it does, it will add digital movie sales in addition to the movie rentals it is now offering in the kiosks.
