Dell is teaming up with Sonic Solutions to offer an external drive that allows users to download movies from CinemaNow and burn them to DVDs.

Users can purchase the $120 burner starting Monday as a stand-alone product on the Dell Web site or add it as a bundle when purchasing certain Inspiron, Studio, and XPS laptops. A bundle option for select consumer desktops is expected soon.

Sonic Solutions, which acquired Roxio in 2004, joined forces with Pioneer in October 2007 to create a legal, recordable DVD standard known as Qflix. It allows consumers to burn copyright-protected movies to DVD, but users must purchase Qflix-enabled equipment, like software, burners, and DVDs.

The following month, Sonic partnered with CinemaNow to let Qflix users purchase and burn CinemaNow content. Monday's Dell announcement expands on that arrangement.

The Dell Qflix DVD burner comes with software downloads for Roxio Venue and CinemaNow, a USB cable and two Qflix-enabled, recordable DVDs. Users must use Qflix-enabled DVDs to burn CinemaNow content; additional DVDs will be available from qflix.com/getitnow in the next few days, according to a spokesman.

"The cost will be comparable to premium media" or about $1 per disc, he said.

At this point, only 100 CinemaNow movies are available through this offer, but that number will be "ramping up to thousands by year's end," the spokesman said. Movies will cost about $10.

Adding Roxio Media Creator, which retails for about $100, will allow the Qflix drive to also burn photos, audio, and personal video, according to Sonic.

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