Ultraviolet, the first major digital movie locker service, has announced that it will be shutting down on July 31st. To maintain access to your movies, you must redeem your codes and link your Ultraviolet library to at least one participating retailer before that date.
Ultraviolet was the movie industries attempt to create a centralized system to provide digital access to movies purchased on DVDs and Blu-rays. While most Hollywood studios, apart from Disney, participated in the service, Ultraviolet struggled to get retailers on board, with Walmart’s Vudu being the only notable participant.
With the launch of Disney’s far superior Movies Anywhere service, Ultraviolet’s days were numbered. With most major digital content retailers, including Amazon, Google, Apple, and Vudu on board, Movies Anywhere quickly became the service that people hoped Ultraviolet would have been.
If you have DVDs or Blu-rays with Ultraviolet redemption codes that have not expired, you’ll want to redeem those codes by July 31st. If you have any movies in your Ultraviolet library, you’ll also want to link your library to a participating retailer by that date as well. Vudu is the main retailer you’ll want to link to, but Fandango, Paramount, Verizon FiOS, and Kaleidescape are also available options. Once linked to a retailer, your Ultraviolet library will remain accessible through that retailer after Ultraviolet shuts down.
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I’d disagree with Movies Anywhere being the superior service. Ultraviolet had the ability to create sub accounts with family and friends … so if anyone bought a movie that was on the main or sub account everyone had access to that movie. It was a great feature. The only problem with Ultraviolet was that it didn’t have the support of the online retailers … not sure why that is. Some how Disney always seems to get what they want (ex: HD DVD vs Blu-ray).
Yeah, I’m never doing a cloud movie storage for movies I “purchase”. NAS / Plex.
I Always said that too however, after years of purchasing 1000’s of Blu-rays secure storage is expensive. I’m also looking like a Horder. One of my son’s guest helped himself to a stack of 30 Blu-rays sitting on the kitchen table on the way out of the house when he left early in the morning. Too tired to continue working on them, I went to bed. I never got a chance to enter them into my library. That was a decade ago, those BDs weren’t inexpensive like they are now.
Wow, yeah. I have a bit over 160.
I don’t think I’ve even seen thousands of movies in my life time.
I’m still allowed that all my Vudu movies will not show up in Movies Anywhere.
Not all studios participate in MoviesAnywhere… that is why having Vudu on my FireTV was so important (sideloaded the Android TV app)… that way I could watch all UV and MA titles in one app.
There were some studios and movies that were Ultraviolet “only” so their purchases didn’t transfer to MoviesAnywhere, and thus other linked services like Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, etc.
That being said, I do have Plex (for on the go) and SPMC/Kodi(in the house) with my own home server setup for any movies I purchased then rip…
I’ve committed to Amazon and Vudu for buying movies, since they seem to consistently have the best prices/sales. Outside of that I always check that the movie is Movies Anywhere compatible.
If you accept someone having the key to what you think you’ve purchased, don’t be surprised if you find yourself locked out of it one day. Ultraviolet made it easier to accept having to obtain permission to watch your purchase, but make no mistake, you’re only ever watching what you’re watching because someone let you, this time.
The DRM-free mkv’s on my network are still going to be there August 1st. I daresay there are going to be more than zero people on that date that will have lost access to something they thought they purchased.
DRM demonstrably doesn’t stop pirates, but it does put honest consumers at the mercy of fortune and the grace of corporations. This is just another example.