Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, SanDisk and Western Digital® to Advance Digital Ownership of High Definition Movies

BURBANK and LOS ANGELES, Calif., Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, SanDisk (Nasdaq: SNDK), and Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) today revealed "Project Phenix" (working title), an initiative that will give consumers an easier and faster way to organize, store and move their high definition digital movies and TV shows – including new releases in up to full 1080p quality - across multiple devices. In addition to local storage, the content will also be backed up via the UltraViolet industry standard as well as other cloud-based services.

The project is being developed by the newly formed Secure Content Storage Association (SCSA). Established as an LLC, this coalition will create and license solutions that secure high definition and other premium copyright-protected content on local and portable hard drives, and flash memory products such as USB flash drives, SD™ cards and solid state disk drives (SSDs). Once content is downloaded to a hard drive or flash memory product, it could then be accessed, online or offline, on any SCSA-enabled device such as a connected TV, laptop, Blu-ray™ player, tablet, mobile phone or game console. The optimized content will be made easily available for purchase via digital download, digital files bundled with physical media, kiosks in retail stores, or other means of secure digital delivery.

"Developing solutions that will allow consumers to easily access and store true HD digital content is a critical component supporting digital media and entertainment consumption," said Darcy Antonellis, President, Warner Bros. Technical Operations. "Through the SCSA, we will accelerate the development of products that will make it easy for the consumer to download, store and playback their high definition digital movies and TV shows, in full 1080p, on any SCSA-optimized device at home and on the go."

"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."

The SCSA's solutions will be designed to work with the industry-backed UltraViolet (UV) ecosystem and aimed to complement other next-generation high definition content protection technologies already in the market such as Intel® Insider™. The SCSA expects to make its solutions widely available for license this year.

"The SCSA will provide consumers with a digital solution for movies and TV shows that is as simple to use as DVD and Blu-ray discs," said Bert Hesselink, CTO of Western Digital Branded Products. "The SCSA solution will allow the consumer to store high definition purchased content, including copies of certain DVD content, in a secure, consumer-owned digital home library on a hard drive, along with their personal photos, music, and videos. Digital library content can be easily viewed inside the home on a TV, PC or tablet, or when owners are on the move with a portable library copy, providing mobile viewing even when a reliable Internet connection is not available, such as a plane, car, train or remote location."

"Consumers around the world will finally be able to enjoy locally stored premium Hollywood content in up to 1080p quality anywhere they desire on a broad range of electronic devices," said Sumit Sadana, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at SanDisk. "With the involvement of major Hollywood studios and leaders in the HDD and Flash memory industries, the SCSA alliance's openly licensable security standard holds the promise of fostering new device capabilities, new business models and ultimately improved value for consumers. SanDisk is very pleased to participate in this ground breaking alliance."

Companies interested in learning more about the SCSA can contact: [email protected]

SD is a trademark of SD-3C, LLC. Other brand names mentioned herein are for identification purposes only and may be the trademarks of their respective holders.

This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements relating to expected SCSA technology solutions, expected benefits to consumers and expected availability dates. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including delays in the development and introduction of new technologies and products, the introduction of competing technologies, the new technologies and products may not work with current or new technologies or perform as expected, the impact of continued uncertainty and volatility in global economic conditions; and other risks and uncertainties listed in the aforementioned companies' recent SEC filings. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

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SOURCE Western Digital Technologies