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The online movie store has been offering a download-to-DVD service for more than a year, but the FluxDVD technology it has been using is prone to errors and incompatible with consumer DVD players.

Unsurprisingly the reason for using such an unusual system was DRM. The movie studios insist on it, but the DVD Copy Control Association declined to license the CSS system used to encrypt commercial DVDs. It has <

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since relented, establishing industry specifications for recording downloads, and from next year CinemaNow customers will be able to burn movies to CSS-encrypted DVDs.

But there is a catch. The system requires specially formatted discs that require a new burner, since no currently shipping DVD writer for PCs supports CSS. At least the software is in place, with disc-burning specialist Sonic Solutions on board.

"The online video distribution industry will get a massive shot in the arm with the ability to burn downloaded video to DVD with the same protection and ubiquitous playability of packaged DVDs," said Sonic senior vice president Jim Taylor.

Sonic and CinemaNow are holding talks with disc and drive manufacturers and CinemaNow chief executive Curt Marvis said, perhaps optimistically, that the price of the discs will be "comparable" to standard DVD-Rs. He hopes to start promoting the service from mid-2008 when he expects all the major studios to have agreed to movie burning.