Movielink, an online Video-On-Demand company, has signed a licensing agreement with Sonic Solutions for their DVD-on-Demand technology. The agreement should make it possible for Movielink customers to purchase and download movies online, then burn them to DVD to watch in any standard DVD player.

There are 100 million DVD players in the United States alone, but Movielink customers have been required to watch downloaded films on a computer up until now. Only movies authorized by the studios will be able to be burned to disc, but since Movielink is jointly owned by Universal, Paramount, Sony Pictures, and Warner Brothers, those studios are presumably going to be making some of their library available soon.

Movielink has had trouble building a following, and one reason for that is people generally don't like watching movies on a computer while their television sits idle. For the majority of potential users, the DVD player is the center of an ideal movie-watching environment, and the ability to download and burn movies to DVD could be what Movielink needs to really take off.

Movielink CEO Jim Ramo said in a statement that Movieline is "anticipating an industry resolution to establish rules for converting secure Internet-delivered Movielink downloads into a secure format compatible with DVD players in the market today." While Movielink uses a combination of technologies in an attempt to ensure that downloaded films do not end up freely available on file-sharing networks, DVD encryption technology has already been broken. Movies burned to disc will almost certainly end up re-ripped to unprotected files on a computer, though the company is working to use DVD-standard CSS copy protection to ensure that casual users are thwarted. The goal is to balance the requirements of the copyright holders with the needs of the installed base of DVD players, many of which cannot handle newer encryption systems.

While Movielink will use Sonic's DVD-on-Demand, Sonic has agreed to bundle Movielink's software in packages Sonic sells to end users, such as Roxio CinePlayer, which is commonly bundled on laptops running Microsoft Windows.

Movielink's service is available in the United States only, and requires Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer. Movies are available for purchase starting at $8.99 with most newer movies priced at $19.99. 24-hour rentals start at 99 cents, with most newer movies in the $3.95-4.99 range. While you only have 24 hours to watch a downloaded film, you can download it today and wait up to 29 days to start the 24-hour window. Movies are available at Movielink at roughly the same time they're available for rental or purchase at your local store or through Amazon or Netflix.