UltraViolet - The Next Big Thing?

Barry Nelson · March 2012

Yesterday, Wal-Mart announced they were joining with some of the Hollywood Studios to promote "UltraViolet" movies. The original concept was when you bought a DVD, for a couple extra bucks you would get a UltraViolet (digital) copy that would be stored in the cloud (a storage server somewhere). The idea being you could then log in to a website and watch your movie whenever you wanted to from any device anywhere. Sitting in an airport by yourself and bored, fire up the laptop or IPod, log into the website and watch your copy of Cast Away.

Now Wal-Mart has agreed to take the movies you currently own and turn them into UltraViolet (digital) movies and store them in the cloud for 2 bucks a film. Want the movie upgraded to BluRay and then stored in the cloud that will be 5 bucks. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-fi-0314-ct-wal-mart-ultraviolet-20120314,0,1647278.story

I admit I am intrigued by this concept. I could take my films to Wal-Mart they will store them in the cloud and then any time I want I can log into their Vudu website and watch the film from anywhere. My biggest fear is I am in the only one who likes this idea and the Vudu website goes the way of Betamax. So I need to know, does anyone else think this is a good idea and would you be willing to pay a small amount to store your films forever in the cloud?

Mr Beech · March 2012

The one thing I know people hate about UltraViolet is that is is not like the standard Digital Copies you got in Blu Rays in years past. It is instead a limited time license and requires an internet connection (two bad aspects, for sure). Recently, I hear that they understand the criticism and if you want, you can get an iTunes digital copy for offline viewing by simply emailing your UltrViolet copy code to their customer service and in a day or less, you get the iTunes code.

Not sure, but I think that solves and timed license problem too.

Anyways, I am not a huge digital copy user, but it sounds like a decent solution for those who do like to have a digital copy library to match theirs.

AdamCarterJones · March 2012

I've heard of this.
I know some films come bundled with a digital copy of it for your pc or whatever you use.

The cloud idea is interesting.
It's obviously taking the premise of the likes of what Netflix and Lovefilm essentially offer in way of live streaming.
It could kill the business of the aforementioned companies, but without proper policing people could trade hard copies of the films, and so not paying for them, uploading them to multiple accounts thus defeating the object of clamping down on film copyright theft.

00-Agent · March 2012

I like the idea in theory and could see myself paying to put a couple of movies on the cloud but that is it. In the end I don't find myself stranded with 2 hours to kill that often, at least not unplanned. I am more likely to find myself bored with a half hour of free time and there is plenty of free content out there to waste that much time on. I put FRWL on my phone a year and a half ago thinking it would be great to watch sometime when bored, I haven't watched more than 5-10 minutes of it.

My guess is that a person would put one or two movies on the cloud, never or rarely watch them, and would then not pay to do it again. I guess if you have enough customers it could work.

Mr Beech · March 2012

00-Agent wrote:

I like the idea in theory and could see myself paying to put a couple of movies on the cloud but that is it. In the end I don't find myself stranded with 2 hours to kill that often, at least not unplanned. I am more likely to find myself bored with a half hour of free time and there is plenty of free content out there to waste that much time on. I put FRWL on my phone a year and a half ago thinking it would be great to watch sometime when bored, I haven't watched more than 5-10 minutes of it.

My guess is that a person would put one or two movies on the cloud, never or rarely watch them, and would then not pay to do it again. I guess if you have enough customers it could work.

I always have a few staple films on my devices for when I don't have internet (web connection is something that UltraViolet seems to encourage), but as long as I do, I never find time to watch a movie unplanned.

I just keep Star Trek (2009), Casino Royale, The Dark Knight, and Watchmen and I haven't had to watch any of them on the go in recent memory.

UltraViolet - The Next Big Thing?

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