Update on Ultraviolet and it's Issues/Features

    Last year, Ultraviolet was created by Warner Brothers and other movie studios in Hollywood as they wanted something to compete with iTunes that allowed them to keep more of the profits from distributing their films and TV shows digitally.  It had some serious issues when it started and it still has quite a few issues to fix as of this writing as well.  I signed up for an account to try it out and also because I had no choice since it was the only way to get a free digital copy of the final Harry Potter film without having to pay for it again in iTunes.  First you have to sign up for a Flixster account and I chose the sign up with Facebook option.  Then you have to sign up for an Ultraviolet account and link the two together.  As with all accounts you create online, you better write down your passwords and user names because you will need them later if you ever want to access your digital content again.
     Last year, there was no way to download the movies to your computer only to your mobile devices but now they have created a desktop application that allows you to stream or download your digital content purchased from Ultraviolet.  This is a plus, and a feature that helps it compete with iTunes.  However, once again you must download two things before this works, Adobe Air and then Flixster Collections.  Once you log into Flixster Collections (which by the way is an email address and password, the one you used for Ultraviolet not your Facebook account info, once again more things to remember) you are able to see what items you own.  They also give you links to some free previews and one free TV show episode.  When I tried to find out how to purchase some more titles from Flixster/Ultraviolet I ran into issues again.  There is a section called "Discover" and it has a bunch of movie titles in no particular order that you can browse through and some of them have a "Buy" link in them.  However when you click "Buy" most of the titles say to purchase them from Amazon or iTunes.  A little weird since I thought the whole reason for creating another digital media service was for Ultraviolet to collecte profits themselves from sales.  As it stands, it looks like you can only buy titles when they come packaged with the DVDs or Blu-rays and then you enter the code they give you in the package.  There is a section in Flixster Collections to have it read your iTunes library and you can have it import your content so you can view it all in one place.  This does not let you import it into your Flixster/Ultraviolet account though, so you can't access and stream these purchases from anywhere but iTunes.  If you have the physical DVD's or Blu-rays (meaning you didn't purchase them from iTunes or Amazon) then you can take them to Walmart and have them converted to a digital file that goes into your Ultraviolet "locker" for $2 a piece.  Not a bad price but if you are like me and own more than 200 DVDs/Blu-rays then it becomes cost prohibitive. 
     One more thing that Ultraviolet doesn't have is the ability to buy individual episodes of TV shows.  This is one of the features I love about iTunes.  I don't always want to buy an entire season of a TV show.  Sometimes I missed an episode and just want to watch the one I missed.  Sometimes I only want to own episodes that I will watch again of certain shows and therefore I love being able to just purchase my favorite episodes.  One of my new favorite shows is Person of Interest.  It is not offered in iTunes and will only be offered in the Ultraviolet digital copy when you purchase the Blu-ray set.  You will get all of the episodes digitally but once again, there is no way to just download individual episodes. This is frustrating and since one of the purposes of these systems (iTunes and Ultraviolet) is to give users an alternative to piracy and p2p file sharing, they are making it difficult when the same options aren't available.  Most users want to do the right thing and pay for what they see/use etc... but it is hard for people to do the right thing when free options are available (although not legal) with better quality and in the format they want without the passwords/account sign in issues.  I am not condoning piracy in anyway, as I think artists should be paid for their work, but there are ways to offer content at a reasonable price for consumers in the formats they want that still give artists their due.  
     When Ultraviolet was first announced, they said you could only download the digital file 5 times, which was an issue if you ever had to restore your iPhone, wipe your hard drive due to viruses etc... Luckily it looks like they have changed their mind on this and you can re-download to your devices. 
     Overall, the service has improved from when it was first developed, but did we really need another service to use for our digital files?  And did it really need to be so involved to get it up and running on our own computers/devices?  So far I will just be using it to watch my one movie I have in the system, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2, otherwise I'm going to use iTunes, where I can have all my videos in one place on all my devices and I can stream it all to my Apple TV.  And if Deathly Hallows shows up for sale on iTunes ($5 or less) I may buy myself another copy and ditch Ultraviolet all together.