The first UltraViolet-enabled movie comes out today, but most people haven't even heard of UltraViolet let alone know what it is. You'll soon be seeing plenty of UV logos since most of the future movies we end up purchasing will be UV-enabled, but just what is UltraViolet all about?
When it comes to buying movies, many of us are used to purchasing physical combo packs that combine a Bluray, DVD and digital copy. The digital copy is usually served up by either iTunes or Amazon and now movie stuidos are using a service called UltraViolet. Like Apple's iCloud service for music, UltraViolet stores all the movies you've purchased in the cloud, keeping a "digital locker" where all of your movies are stored. It seems like movie studios want to change the way we watch movies at home to keep us purchasing movies rather than simply renting them.
So how does this work? After purchasing your first movie, a code is included. Simply enter it into the UltraViolet site-this will allow you to stream and watch movies you own off of the UltraViolet site using any internet-connected computer. This is similar to the way Amazon's movie service is setup. UltraViolet will also allow you to download any movie you own to an UltraViolet-supported device, which will likely be an app designed designed to specifically work with each device. Right now they are working with the popular Flixster app to allow UltraViolet movies to be played on mobile devices. Flixster can be found on either iPhone or Android app stores and we're likely to see an update in the near future.
[via Engadget]
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As long as it works with my set-top box an doesn't require me to hook up my desktop/laptop, this sounds like another step to consuming content how and when I want without resorting to illegitimate means.
I'm cool with staying with Netflix (no matter how many whiners whine about price hikes, et al.) as opposed to buying one Blu-Ray/DVD/UV combo package for > twice the price of streaming Netflix's catalog per month.
Granted it boils down to whether you want to specifically view a handful of new content or delve into a larger, not-as-recent pool.
The united states are lucky with all these video on demand alternatives. I'm from the Netherlands, and we are stuck with More expensive and less lucrative alternatives. The best options now are considered to be online streaming from you're own computer. Despite the fact that most people will still download there movies instead of paying for it. Hope this will change soon, I believe it will be better for the movie studios, worse for torrent sites and also worse for internet prices ;)