Five firms to create HD-centric DRM for SD cards

Format shifting without resort to the torrents?

Panasonic, Samsung, SanDisk, Sony and Toshiba are to develop a better DRM for memory cards.

Just what the world needs: more DRM...

The quintet's notion is that the technology will allow HD content to be transferred to SD cards and such and not copied elsewhere.

A typical scenario: your DVR records, say, a future Doctor Who Christmas special, and you copy it to SD so you can watch the show on your smartphone or tablet. But you won't be able to pass it on to a chum.

The punter gets to move HD material between devices, and the content makers can let him, safe in the knowledge the files aren't going to end up on Pirate Bay.

That's the theory anyway, and the five are confident they can pull it off. And get it into products some time during 2012.

"This content protection solution will be robust enough to protect HD content," they said today. "A high level of content security will be realised through the use of the initiative's technologies, including unique ID technology for Flash memory and robust copy protection based on public key infrastructure." ®