MUMBAI: The Walt Disney Co has made public a technology called KeyChest that enables consumers to buy films or television shows from various distributors, store them on remote servers and play them on multiple platforms ranging from TVs to computers and phones.

The company will roll-out KeyChest in both the US and the international market. It will soon announce partners who will participate in the programme.
 
Disney said negotiations with content distributors, cable companies and telecommunications services have been ongoing for several months and hopes the technology will be deployed before the end of 2010.

The company also said that a third-party company will operate KeyChest and expects other studios to make their content available through the authenticating technology Disney has developed.
 
Company officials said the goal of KeyChest is to make it easy for viewers to see a movie accessed from various outlets and to address the issue of compatibility in maneuvering content from device to device as well as limited storage space on consumers‘ hard drives.

Disney officials said they hope to use KeyChest to build momentum for the long-stalled digital distribution of films.