Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) today unveiled its plan to streamline the distribution of its film and television content by leveraging a series of new digital entertainment technology and services created by Ascent Media Group (AMG) and HP. SPE, AMG and HP have formed a first-of-its-kind alliance to digitize SPE's library of film and television assets.

SPE and AMG chose the HP DMP to digitize its entire library of film and TV content, enabling SPE to create content once and deliver it more securely, quickly and cost-effectively than ever before. Since deploying the solution in November 2004, SPE and AMG have digitized more than 500 of SPE's film and television titles.

In addition, Warner Bros. Studios and HP today announced the expansion of their existing alliance to develop the industry's first digital, end-to-end process (DETE). HP, Warner Bros. Studios and Accenture are designing and implementing an architecture that will enable Warner Bros. Studios to be the first studio to create an environment that will allow a transition of its entire film production and distribution process -- from creation through post production -- to an all digital, file-based process.

The HP DMP is being adapted to meet the specific needs of the studio and will serve as the foundation of this architecture. The DETE will enable Warner Bros. Studios to transfer digital files between its production, post-production and distribution businesses easily and securely.

Apologies for the lengthy quote but it's well worth it to understand what the plans are. The whole process of WB creating a movie will be digital, I would assume decimating the cost of production, transfer and distribution to any media.

Wouldn't it be great if these costs were transferred into the production of really great movies? Who are we kidding. Still this is going to radically change the process of movie delivery, and could it be a step towards selling movies direct to the consumer digitally? It certainly seems a huge leap in the right direction.

There's even talk that Hollywood Studios are looking into BitTorrent and actually are keen on the idea. Imagine that, logging onto a Studio store and downloading a release just out of the cinema or just before it's released for rental in a few hours. Fantastic. Or choosing which media you would like your movie on and with which extras and additional features with it being cut and mailed to you almost automatically?

Okay, that's a bit of a leap, but not as much as the celluloid to digital process Sony are implementing here. Does anyone else see the benefits of this and how it could be used?