MusicGiants, which sells music in lossless CD-quality formats and beyond, just announced a high-definition video download store with 250 movies from Paramount Studios, with more major studios expected to sign on later this year. The store also offers videos from HDNet.
MusicGiants calls this "the first time it's been legal to load high-definition movies onto a media server," because users won't have to commit a felony by bypassing copyright protection in order to load the 1080p/1080i (depending on the source) movies onto a hard drive.
The movies are delivered in the DRM-ed WMV format on Seagate hard drives; as of today, $159 will get you ten movies, but the company plans to offer a la carte movie downloads within the next couple of months. Initial packages include a family pack and an action pack. When the hard drive arrives, users need only connect the drives to a media center PC, their home network, or a Microsoft Media Extender device such as an XBox 360.
"Everyone else sells cars," said MusicGiants CEO Scott Bahneman, "and we sell high-octane gas."
