Could Cisco router doom Hollywood, terminate DVDs?

The Terminator it's not, but Cisco's recently announced super router, the CRS-3, may end up playing a bigger role in the future of online video and Hollywood's bottom line than the fictitious cyborg played in the evolution of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career.

Time magazine today said the router, which seemingly got more pre-release hype than Avatar, might in fact be more trouble for Tinseltown than video piracy and offshore P2P sites, and could hasten the end of the DVD.

The problem? It could be too fast, allowing downloads of movies in seconds instead of the hours it currently takes. The router, Cisco said when it was released, could stream every film ever made in less than four minutes. Add to that Google's stated intent to trial 1 Gbps Internet and, Time, says, we could see a disaster flick in terms of the movie business that rivals 28 Days Later, and watch as Hollywood's painstakingly constructed pay wall cracks.

The Motion Picture Association of America has been mum so far on both developments, but Time points out that it fought tooth and nail to kill the VCR and block the evolution of the DVD because both allowed for copying and sharing of movies without the studios getting their cut.

So, perhaps Cisco's claim that the CSR-3 would "forever change the Internet" is less far-fetched than pundits who criticized the hoopla surrounding its announcement knew.

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