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20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers Join Forces to Create Project Phenix

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Two of the world’s largest Hollywood Studios, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers, have teamed up to create a digital storage solution to try and take on the might of iTunes and Netflix.

The studios have teamed up with storage giants SanDisk and Western Digital to give consumers a new way to download and most importantly store digital content, which in turn will cut out the likes of Xbox 360 and iTunes – well that’s the hope.

Apparently it’s going to also give viewers ways to watch content without an internet connection, were not quite sure how, as the whole point of digital distribution is that it’s done via the internet.

The new system is codenamed Project Phenix – apparently that’s the right spelling – and will enable users to download movies and TV shows directly to a special flash drive.

The idea is to allow users to transfer purchased content to different devices that may not be connected or allow viewing on devices when no connectivity is available.

1080p video streaming will also be available to watch over the cloud on a range of connected devices, while the drive will also do a better job of protecting the studios’ copyright. It’s hoped the system will be a major step in trying to ween illegal downloaders from using torrent sites.

The vision for this new product is to store, play and back up in the cloud personal and professional content,” said Mike Dunn, President, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The device renders content up to 10 times faster than over-the-top internet. We see Project Phenix as a key component of the emerging digital ecosystem.

It all sounds a bit flakey to us, there’s no mention of pricing, and quite how it’s going to work – especially with no internet or what technology is behind the flash drives.

We like the idea of Hollywood studios thinking outside-the-box when it comes to the digital revolution, but this doesn’t sound like the future to us.

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