The long-awaited “common file format” (CFF) for the...
The long-awaited “common file format” (CFF) for the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem’s UltraViolet digital locker system, which will let studios encode only one version of a movie instead of the literally dozens now needed to serve all viewing platforms, is…
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now finalized, said DECE General Manager Mark Teitell in a recent interview in London. Movie industry employees have been secretly road testing it for “several months,” Teitell said. If the tests are successful and any discovered bugs easily fixed, DECE will formally announce “limited real market use this year,” he said. Without CFF, there has been “an unhealthy diversity of different device types, so the retailer has to encode and encrypt titles in 10, 20, 30 different encodes,” he said. Using CFF “is more like mastering” for DVD or Blu-ray, he said. “The studio only has to encode and encrypt once and give it to the retailers. One file can be played by different [digital rights managements].” In the road tests, “we want to find any interoperability issues,” such as the way fonts are handled by different players, he said. “We are now getting to the end of testing and will then clean up the spec. We anticipate we will soon announce limited real-market use this year.” CFF has taken longer than expected “because everyone wants to make sure it’s right,” said Yves Caillaud, DECE European managing director. “The user experience is critical.” While it’s true that no specific plans for CFF-ready hardware have been announced, “we plan to trigger a ’sunrise’ in the U.S. first,” which is when everything new must be CFF-compatible, Teitell said. “It’s important to synchronize the turn-on.” DECE prefers “a positive sunrise, with CFF adding value,” he said. “We are concerned that some legacy devices might not be able to cope with CFF.” Guardedly, Teitell confirmed two more developments DECE hopes will make UltraViolet more appealing. “We are making it much less onerous to create a UV account,” he said. “People won’t immediately have to make up a user name and password. We'll send users one later to use or change if they wish.” DECE also is making improvements to its code redemption, he said: “It will be smoother.”