Over the past couple of months, we've seen the Sonic solutions company stick its nose pretty much everywhere, its Roxio CinemaNow platform, as well as other technologies, claiming a very important role in the future of digital content delivery. And now, Sonic is back, this time announcing a major deal with Blockbuster, the ultimate goal being to make the latter's On Demand service available to as many people as possible, across a variety of platforms.

For the time being, the deal refers mostly to TiVo machines, select Samsung HDTVs and Blu-ray players, as well as certain Motorola phones. However, Blockbuster and Sonic will continue to collaborate with CE manufacturers to make their digital libraries of mainstream content available on the broadest possible selection of PCs, portable media players, Blu-ray Disc players, personal video recorders (PVRs), set-top boxes, mobile phones and Web-connected television sets. In other words, pretty much every communication and/or entertainment solution out there.

"We are pleased with our collaboration with Sonic and the tremendous strides we are taking to make Blockbuster's digital content readily available to millions of consumers," said Jim Keyes, Blockbuster Chairman and CEO. "We will continue to work together to form relationships with more top-tier device manufacturers and expand our reach to more home and mobile electronics."

"Combining Blockbuster's trusted brand with Sonic's digital delivery technologies has proven to be a very successful formula," said Dave Habiger, president and CEO, Sonic Solutions. "Our alliance will continue to help more CE manufacturers complement the rich entertainment playback capabilities of their devices with a vast array of high-quality content."

Of course, there are a lot of forward-looking statements issued within this announcement, which means that it remains to be seen to exactly what extent they will turn real and, more importantly, just how many devices they'll be able to reach in this way.


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