The big box retailer partnered with CinemaNow owner Sonic Solutions to provide streaming content via prefab setups in the retailer’s lineup of “connected consumer electronics” such as TVs and Blu-ray players. Best Buy says it’s in talks with various hardware manufacturers.

In theory, Best Buy is taking on Amazon, the iTunes Store and Netflix in the movie streaming space.

The retailer said it would start promoting digital delivery in its many stores (where DVDs and Blu-rays already are starting to lose floor space.) Remember, Best Buy bought what’s left of Napster in 2008.

Selling low-fi electronics to Joe and Mrs. Sixpack, of course, offers Best Buy a killer opportunity to push its own streaming-content brand. No name or pricing structure was announced, although the Los Angeles Times said Best Buy planned to experiment with various models, including subscriptions and ad sponsorship.

Here comes the Best Buy-CinemaNow deal’s canned statement: “We expect on-demand entertainment to quickly grow into a mass market activity, with digital sell-through and rental becoming a significant new revenue stream for content owners,” said Dave Habiger, president and CEO of Sonic Solutions.

CinemaNow, no longer a standalone, claims to have more than 20,000 movies at the ready. Unfortunately, many are the same “classics” and weary catalog titles found on Netflix’s Watch Instantly. Roxio CinemaNow’s biggest partner is Blockbuster, although it’s done some preliminary dealing with Netflix on streaming content.

Best Buy said the movie downloads would be tried on “web-connected television sets, portable media players, PCs, Blu-ray Disc players, set-top boxes and mobile phones.” (Sonic Solutions calls that sort of thing the “Roxio CinemaNow ecosystem.”)

Apple, meanwhile, is said to be working on a subscription TV service that would run off the existing iTunes Store software. The $30 or so subscription fee is relatively steep, but could be a good deal for the many people who now get their TV programming online (compared with TV and satellite). Disney is expected to sign on first, reports Peter Kafka of All Things Digital.

When we buy a movie off iTunes, the file roosts on the local hard drive, gobbling up space. Kind of like a big DVD box set you rarely touch.

The big streamers — Netflix, Amazon — simply send the content to you, and that’s that. No hangovers, no commitments. Soon, all entertainment media will work that way. All those MP3 files don’t make much sense either — at least if you’re engaged in forward thinking. You want to hear “Unchained Melody” on Valentine’s, who cares where the file sits.

Now comes news that Apple’s iTunes 8 upgrade will include streaming video for video purchases, meaning the movies or TV shows remain on Apple’s computers, not yours.

Apple Insider, which broke the story, says the feature is called iTunes Replay. The tech blog says the scheme will have iTunes functioning as a media server, from which you call up the movies you’ve paid for, whenever you want. Replay on demand.

One clear beneficiary will be the lagging Apple TV box, which should be able to send the video stream to your TV without its current minor hassles and storage limits.

Of course, streaming high-quality video requires big pipes and up-to-date broadband service. Those with slower streams will need to stay with downloads, which usually perform flawlessly at the local level. And those hit movies won’t be of much use when you’re flying the unfriendly skies.

Silicon Valley Insider urges Apple to produce a cheap Apple TV box without a hard drive, a video sister to the AirPort Express wifi distributor.

Meanwhile, Netflix announced today that it broke through the 10 million-subscriber barrier. So far this year, that adds up to about 600,000 new subs. Who knows how many came aboard exclusively for the Watch Instantly streaming service (no additional cost with a regular subscription), but most analysts are crediting the Netflix online videos with boosting the bottom line.

And Blockbuster unveiled its plan for video game rentals by mail, allowing the waiting-line specialist to compete with Gamefly.

The brand will live on as a unit of Sonic. The CinemaNow-Sonic Solutions deal was put at $3 million.

CinemaNow has been around since 1999, but in recent years has been falling back in the pack as movie downloaders have seen their options increase with online operations such as the iTunes Store and Netflix/Blockbuster.

Instead, the CinemaNow movie operation has focused on delivering content via consumer electronics via deals with TiVo, DivX, ARCHOS, Dell, EchoStar Communications, Hewlett-Packard, Macrovision, Microsoft, Samsung and Technicolor.

Sonic Solutions and CinemaNow already partnered for downloading and burning of Sonic’s Qflix DVD drivers. The latest hookup will result in a “Premium Content Group” at Sonic focusing on “increasing the placement of CinemaNow’s storefront on PCs and consumer electronics devices, and expanding the adoption of the Qflix technology platform.”

CinemaNow employees will remain in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Here comes your canned quote from Dave Habiger, president and CEO of Sonic Solutions, downloaded from the press release:

“The digital delivery of premium content is at a tipping point. By providing consumers and OEMs user-friendly content services and software that works across multiple platforms, we will make it possible for any device or PC manufacturer to add an online movie store of Hollywood hits to its products.”

Habiger told investors that in bringing in premium content to go with its output systems, “We’re trying to take a page out of Apple’s playbook.”

CinemaNow says it offers more than 6,000 movies, TV episodes and music videos. Content providers include 20th Century Fox, Disney, EMI, HDNet, IFC, Lionsgate, MGM, Miramax, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Sundance Channel, Vivendi Entertainment and Warner Bros.

Sonic’s products range from the authoring systems used to produce DVD and Blu-ray titles to the Roxio-branded photo, video, music, and digital-media management applications and services.

One of its products, Toast, has been helping music fans burn MP3 to CDs for a decade.

Disclosure: This blog is an ad affiliate of CinemaNow, in a deal worth not much at all.

Previously, CinemaNow customers were locked into using Microsoft’s Windows operating system and its far from flexible digital-right management system. Now the content can be downloaded or streamed to devices operating off Mac, Windows or Linus software — Mac or PC.

The change comes as CinemaNow adopts a multiplatform copyright-control system made by Wildevine Technologies. Wildevine says its DRM system allows consumers “to securely enjoy Hollywood feature films,” a safeguard that’ll certainly help us all sleep better at night.

More from the DRM folks:

“CinemaNow will be one of the first to securely distribute premium content on all major consumer platforms running Windows, Mac or Linux. Customers will have unparalleled flexibility in accessing the portal using Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or the Opera browser.”

The plan is to have consumer electronics makers preload the CinemaNow/Wildevine set-up into their products, which would include high-end TV sets and DVD players.

Wildevine gave an L.A. Times tech blogger a list of companies ready to incorporate the movie software — whose interface reportedly is similar to the iTunes Store, of course — but CinemaNow issued a retraction, saying the deals were not done.

CinemaNow’s wider reach comes within a week of the death of rival online movie service Vongo.

Disclaimer: Your friendly movie download blog runs affiliate ads for CinemaNow.

Fox Home Entertainment’s zombie thriller “28 Weeks Later” quarantined off the No. 1 spot in CinemaNow’s download sales at this week, while the studio’s hit “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” glided into second place.

In rentals, the men of “Wild Hogs” and “300″ occupied Nos. 1 and 2 on the video download service’s top 10 chart.

Download sales:

1. 28 Weeks Later
2. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
3. Reign Over Me
3. Surf’s Up
5. Wild Hogs
6. 300
7. Perfect Stranger
8. We Are Marshall

Download rentals:

1. Wild Hogs
2. 300
3. Perfect Stranger
4. Fantastic Four (original)
5. We Are Marshall
6. Fracture
7. Vacancy
8. The Lookout
9. Delta Farce
10. Blades of Glory

Burn to DVD:

1. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
2. The Center of the World
3. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
4. The Abandoned
5. Seeing Other People

(CinemaNow movie ratings as of Tuesday, Oct. 16)

CinemaNow — Legal Movie Downloads

CinemaNow Free Trial. 100% Legal. 100% Video.

The industry watchdog DVD Copy Control Association said it will release software allowing the burned discs to be played on home system DVDs players. The content burned onto a disc cannot be daisy-chained, or copied again.

“This is great news,” CinemaNow chieftain Curt Marvis told the L.A. Times. “We expect the proliferation of burners that can burn these types of discs.”

The process of linking computers to TV screens to play movies hasn’t thrilled many consumers. Even using a device such as Apple TV, the images can look crappy and weirdly framed — good for Starwars Kid but not “Star Wars.” Presumably, the download-to-burn content will permit reproduction that’s competitive with studio DVDs.

The DVD CCA is the same bunch that enforces regional controls on DVDs, allowing distributors to control release patterns around the world. Multiregion DVD players, common overseas, are needed to override that control.

Update : Audio good guys Sonic Solutions detailed their download-burner software technology and said players should be hitting the market in the first quarter.

Movie Downloads. 100% Legal. No membership fees.

1. 300
2. The Number 23
3. Breach
4. The Hills Have Eyes 2
5. The Bourne Supremacy

Movielink’s top 5 rental downloads
(week ended Aug. 27)

1. The Last Mimzy
2. Zodiac
3. 300
4. The Number 23
5. The Contractor

CinemaNow has sealed deals with Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI and Sanctuary Records. The music videos will be offered on its Web site WatchMusicHere.com, as well as on CinemaNow itself.

The selection also will include uncut European versions of select music videos as well as concert performances from around the world, CinemaNow said Wednesday. Prices for download-to-own range from $9.95-$14.95. For rentals it’s $2.99-$3.99. All videos are in the WMV format.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment digital chieftain Thomas Hesse was so gobsmacked he rushed out this canned message: “As consumers increasingly rely on the Internet for easy access to high quality content, we think that (CinemaNow) will occupy an even more prominent place in the entertainment landscape.”

Not to be outdone, CinemaNow’s general Curt Marvis countered with this slice of corpo-speak: “Our music video catalog is growing rapidly, as we strive to offer our customers the widest selection available in today’s marketplace.”

CinemaNow relaunched WatchMusicHere.com last month packaged with a similar Warner Music deal.

Previously, customers who hadn’t figured out a workaround had to download videos to a Windows PC and watch them there, or when possible burn the title to disc for use in a standard DVD player. All of the above steps on the pain-in-the-ass side.

Now, the downloaded content can be played via the network-connected 360, which of course plugs directly into living-room TVs. The Media Manager upgrade makes CinemaNow’s burn-to-DVD function available to Vista users. Xbox 360 users have been able to access movies via the Xbox Live marketplace for some time.

Wednesday’s corporate-speak from CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis went like this: “CinemaNow is on a mission to enable simple and fast integration into our customers’ lives. This upgrade alone makes our entire library of more than 7,000 videos available to the millions of Xbox users who are downloading movies online and watching them on their TVs.”

Here, Rob Pegoraro takes a shot at MovieLink and CinemaNow:

If you must obtain a movie in the next few hours but can’t leave your house or have anybody else pick up the flick, these two Windows-only stores might work. Otherwise, it’s unclear who would bother with them: They stock far too few movies, charge too much for them, offer them at a quality inferior to any DVD and grossly restrict your use of these purchases.

But, he allows:

Movielink is less annoying than CinemaNow, but not by much.

And the kicker:

Collectively, these sites amount to the most hostile movie-procurement option since the video store in Kevin Smith’s comedy “Clerks” (which, by the way, you can’t rent or buy at either site).

The movie downloading business has some serious PR campaigns to wage — most of the coverage I read is either clueless or hostile.