Panasonic and Disney partner to sell movies on SD card, launch planned for November

Panasonic and Walt Disney Home Entertainment have agreed to distribute Disney movies on SD cards. New titles on the popular solid state media format will be released into the Japanese market day and date with their DVD counterparts; but the scheme will begin in November with a back catalogue release – the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

The venture is designed to promote movie-viewing on mobile phones, sat nav systems and other devices with integrated SD card readers. However, such convenience comes at a price, with the small discs being priced at more than twice that of DVDs.

This is not the first time SD cards have been promoted for packaged media. In the US, MP3 player maker Sansa launched a hybrid music/video format dubbed Slot Music based on the Micro SD format, but it has so far failed to gain industry traction.