Ghostbusters is first film to be released on USB stick

[norm]

Are you the USB keymaster? You could be soon if you pick up PNY’s new 2GB USB flashdrive, which comes with Ghostbusters pre-loaded. While the music industry has been playing around with USB flash drives for a few years now, the movie business is still relying on discs, but that may change following this partnership between PNY and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

We don’t know what file format and compression settings are used on the film yet, but a spokesperson for PNY explained to Custom PC that it does come with a form of DRM that prevents you from copying the movie. ‘They have DRM protection,’ explained the spokesperson, ‘so customers can download the movie onto their laptop or PC if they wish, but they have to have the USB drive plugged in to watch the movie, as the DRM is locked in the USB drive.’

PNY’s sales and marketing director for the UK and Nordics, Stefanie Summerfield, says that there will also be room on the 2GB stick for ‘12 hours of video play, 33 hours of music and 1,080 pictures,’ and added that ‘this is all in addition to getting a preloaded movie on the USB flash drive.’

The PNY 2GB USB key with Ghostbusters is available from Argos now. Would you be interested in buying movies on USB flash drives, or would you rather stick with conventional media such as DVDs? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/604788/ghostbusters-is-first-film-to-be-released-on-usb-stick.html

That's pretty cool in my book. Now if we can get rid of Blu-ray, DVD, and CD's I would be happy. This along with the new USB 3.0 speed (600MB's) should blow by Blu-ray's read speed ( up to 432Mbits with 12x while the PS3 is only at 2x). I'm so tired of slow read and write speeds for games, movies, backing up. They should have done this sooner. I'd rather plug a USB Stick into my 360 then a disk.

[Brocman]

YAY!!! Cartridge games again, don't forget to blow on the bottom to get all of that magic dust out!!

[Inlimbo]

Having an additional 12 hours of video available on a 2gb stick with a movie already on it? There def has to be some sort of new compression program. Maybe a form of divx thats also hd, that would be very cool. i wonder tho if its would be cost effective enough to produce games this way. i still lean towards the virtual console path, either way storage is going to be a huge issue.

[norm]

Yeah they said in the article that they didn't know what sort of compression was used if any. Also the price is pretty high for a movie the 12Gb.

I do think having games produced this way would be cost effective the the 4 to 8Gb sticks are priced pretty low. What I think the selling point would be is the read speed. With USB 3 it will be so much faster then any Blu-ray or DVD out there. You wouldn't have to worry about a drive failure, scratched disks, jammed drives, slow loading times, or any of the other number of things that could go wrong.

Think about the newer HD TV's they all generally have USB ports. How much easier would it be to either have all your movies on a USB and play them that way. Most homes aren't going to have an HTPC or anything close so this would be a way to fill a niche market. I would love it if PC games came on USB sticks.

The only thing that would be nice is if they do allow you to copy the game, movie, program to a new stick. That way it would allow you to back up a USB stick without worry. Maybe if one ever went bad they would allow you to login to a website and download the file onto a new stick. Enter in a code and a reason and there you go.

[Rdaug27]

I know I have seen Ghost Rider and a few other movies on memory stick.

[Zabka]

YAY!!! Cartridge games again, don't forget to blow on the bottom to get all of that magic dust out!!

I think I will put mine in the freezer.

[Inlimbo]

Ok so im trying to wrap my head around flash memory becoming the industry standard. The way i can see it going is this. Future consoles will be able to receive games via download or physically inserted. If choosing to DL a game instead of having a cartridge, disc, etc.. the dl virtual product will be significantly cheaper then it duplicate in physical form. Unless there is a technological revolution in the next 3 that makes broadband free and accessable , then i assume the next platform will have to have a physical game as an option.

I also see that unless Microsoft and Sony start publishing true first party games(like nintendo), that the giant game companies(ea,activision) will start publishing their games to a console that they specify. As in there will be multiple companies making consoles all with similar attributes(like dvd players). The power of first party games is that the console companies that own them produce them for their systems. With ever increasing license fees that game companies pay on top of rising development costs, i see a structure change coming. Companies like EA and activison own alot of developers and are aquiring more everyday. When they wake up to the realization that they control the marketplace and not the consoles then we will see this happen. It costs them wayy too much to develop the same game for multiple consoles plus all the license fees. Features like psn or xbl can both be copied and emulated so i dont see that being any saving factor either. So this is where i see things going with games in the future.

[AndyPants]

YAY!!! Cartridge games again, don't forget to blow on the bottom to get all of that magic dust out!!

i finally found out why that worked (it wasn't magic, sorry Zab) but the issue was the 20 something pin connectors (which u can get on eBay to resurrect an old NES) had conduction issues and the moisture from ur breath helped make a connection.

Go figure.