The proliferation of personal media players, media enabled cell phones, and ultra portable laptops has been great for the consumer, untethering and allowing us to carry more of our digital lives with us.   But typically around 4GB per film, carrying a decent sized library of full length DVD quality movies isn’t easy, especially when most flash based personal media players or mobile internet devices max out at 32GB.

That’s why it’s exciting to hear that Kingston and Paramount have partnered to deliver movies to consumers via flash based media.  The capacity of existing SD cards and USB thumb drives is immense relative to the requirements of a full length feature film, and the range of devices supporting one of these two forms of flash media is huge.   And continually declining flash memory prices should keep costs reasonable for consumers.

While details about copy protection and the amount of content on each flash device aren’t yet clear, it’s nice to know that a portable alternative to the mighty DVD will soon be available.  Hopefully more studios will follow Paramount’s lead, develop non-proprietary standards, and provide a wide range of content to consumers at a reasonable price.