HP and Sony get into the DVD printing business together

It may be the first of a series of content agreements between a prospective technology provider for video rental outlets and a major studio. But what's even more interesting is what the agreeing parties refuse to say about it.

In an unusual partnership between two corporations that, in other markets, are direct competitors, Sony and HP yesterday announced they will be getting into business together in a new and unique way: Sony will be the first studio owner (with Columbia and Tri-Star, and with major stakes in MGM and United Artists) to provide HP with content for what is being described as a "manufactured-on-demand" (MOD) DVD service.

Yet in a surprising response late yesterday evening, an HP spokesperson explicitly declined to BetaNews to reveal, for now, just what that service will be.

"Over the next several weeks we'll be offering more detail on key points of what MOD means and how it works," the HP spokesperson told BetaNews. "That said, we don't share specifics about the operations."

With details intentionally sparse at this time, we have little to go on but for this statement yesterday from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president David Bishop, who spoke as though the secretive MOD manufacturing system already existed: "HP's manufactured-on-demand service provides us with a viable means of delivering a broader range of niche and library product to consumers. We know there is strong consumer demand for these titles, and by working with HP we can monetize our deep product library and help give retailers the means to bring a wider offering of Sony Pictures product to consumers without a significant investment in inventory."

The idea seems to be for HP to provide rental outlets, especially those that could soon be hurting for business as demand for at-home streaming video picks up, with in-store kiosks. These could enable either shopkeepers or customers with the means to burn their own DVDs on site, from a massive selection that stores would not have been able to keep in their own constant inventory.

It is absolutely not a new idea. For years, a firm called Kaleidescape has fought in court to have the right to build a similar system, battling against studios and IP rights holders that refused to permit either Kaleidescape or its customer stores the right to make licensed videos on-site. Kaleidescape won that right in court last April, but on at least two successive occasions since then, studios attempted -- unsuccessfully -- to implement technical restrictions that would circumvent the court's permitted activities.

Now it would appear that at least one studio is fully relenting, but once again, its move doesn't directly benefit Kaleidescape, which showed off its first completed kiosks at CES 2008 a few weeks ago. If HP comes into the market not only with connectivity but with something Kaleidescape doesn't have in its arsenal -- the ability to print packaging on site as well -- then Kaleidescape may need to come up with a kiosk upgrade, and quickly.