Ultraviolet Update and iTunes

Since my last post on Ultraviolet, the company has added more features and more movie companies have jumped on board.  Here is an update on these new features, their pluses and minuses.

The Good:

• You can now download the movies and TV episodes to your computer for offline viewing which was not possible before.
• More movies are now available on the platform 
• To get more users, the companies are offering a lot of free movies when you sign up - Sign up with every company and get up to 35 movies free.
• VUDU (run by Walmart) lets you put DVD's you own into your computer and pay $2 each to have them converted to the cloud.  It is so easy and takes no time to do, it's legal and if you are like me and own tons of DVD's you don't have to spend a fortune to re-buy all of your movies in the cloud.  Best Buy's CinemaNow also has this feature and Flixster has it in beta.
• This is a legal way to have your movies in the cloud without torrenting which I don't believe is right

The Bad:

• Every company makes you sign up for your own account with them plus you have to have an ultraviolet account.  So each time you sign in, you sign in twice.  Pain in the butt!
• There are 5-6 different companies that you can sign up for to use this service and each company has different movies in their library that you are allowed to watch.  Even though the movies you bought are ultraviolet compatible, you can't watch them all with every service.  This means you have to have multiple apps on your computer to view all of your ultraviolet purchases.  Another pain in the butt!
• Copy Protection, UGH!

Now to iTunes...
 I really like the ease of the format and purchasing.  However, it still isn't perfect.

The Good:

• You only need one account and everything is stored in the same app.
• I can download purchases to view offline 
• This is a legal way to have your movies in the cloud without torrenting which I don't believe is right

The Bad:

• Certain companies that put digital copies in their Bluray's and DVD's don't give you a copy to store in the cloud for iTunes.  So you have a digital copy but it only works for UV compatible systems so in reality you have to use both systems.
• Copy Protection, UGH!

What I would really like to happen with these two formats is a combination of the two.  I want the movie studios to combine their catalogues and offer buyers the best of both worlds.  If you buy a Bluray, then you get the ultraviolet and iTunes codes with it and you can use both.  Some companies do that now, but it is very few.  If you have a movie you purchased in iTunes, it will show up in your Ultraviolet library as well and vice versa.  I am tired of consumers having to purchase and repurchase the films they love every time there is a format change or they buy a new device.  Lets put the consumer first for once!  Maybe if the studios focused on what their customers want instead of just trying to thwart piracy, they might not have as much piracy to combat.

Time to vent again...

     So today I went to iTunes to download some movies that were on sale this week and on a whim I decided to see if Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 was on sale or not.  IT WASN"T EVEN LISTED!!!!  Warner Brothers has removed most of the Harry Potter films from iTunes to support their push to Ultraviolet.  ARGH! It really angers me when companies decided for the consumer what format a film will be in.  If they want all of their films on the Ultraviolet format that's fine, but at least consider the customer first.  Most customers (like me) want media (film, music, etc...) in a certain format that works with our devices.  The iTunes format for digital content has been around the longest, therefore those of us who own a lot of content from that system would like any new content also in the same system.  One system, one place for storage and one place for the library.  By removing their content from iTunes, Warner Brothers is making the customer buy into its system but it isn't allowing transfer of previously purchased items into that same system.  For example, if I buy a song from Amazon, I can put it into Amazon's cloud player or I can put it into my iTunes library where every other song I own is stored.  This makes sense.  Amazon is allowing me to buy their content but I don't have to use their system if I don't want to.  When it comes to films and TV shows it seems that no one wants to play nice with the customer.  iTunes, Amazon and Ultraviolet all make you use their systems to use their content.  You can't buy it once and use it on any system you want.  Granted, a lot of these companies offer apps to be able to use their content on whatever device you have, but then you have content all over the place on your device.  On my iPad I have movies and TV shows from iTunes in the "Movies" app (which includes all the Harry Potter films except for the last one) and my Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is in the "Flixster" app.  Amazon doesn't even have a movie/TV app for the iPad so with them I'm out of luck which is why I can't purchase movies from them but at least I'm not forced to like with Ultraviolet.  It was the only option when I bought the DVD/Blu-ray pack.  If they would allow users the ability to buy a digital film or TV show and use it in any library/app they wish I wouldn't mind the different formats.  But as it is, it just makes me frustrated. ARGH! That is all for today, thanks for letting me vent!

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. 

WB Ultraviolet Digital Copy Rant

     So I just bought my copy of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 which was a wonderful ending to an extraordinary film/book series and yet I'm upset at the same time.  Why? Because the Bluray set no longer comes with an iTunes digital copy.  Instead you get an Ultraviolet digital copy.  Now I'm all for new technology, in fact I love it, but if you come out with new technology, it at least has to contain what the previous version did and then add new features to it.  Ultraviolet does not and that is what angers me.  On the surface it looks like another way to have a digital copy of a movie on your computer, but once you read the fine print you find out that it is a step back instead of a step forward.  The digital copy you get ONLY works with the Ultraviolet technology which is a new program you must download to your computer, kind of like iTunes so I'm not mad yet.  Then after you set up two accounts (one with Ultraviolet and one with Flixster - kind of a pain but still not too bad) you can download the movie to your computer.  Great! To get it on your mobile device you have to download the Flixster app (no biggie) but then here is where the first problem appears.  At the moment, you can only stream the movie to your mobile device if it is an iPad or iPhone.  This becomes a problem if, like me, you have unreliable wireless internet or if you have a wifi only iPad.  So now, I'm at a doctors appointment, waiting, and I want to watch my movie but I can't because there is no wifi.  All the other Harry Potter films are iTunes digital copies, so I can watch them right away because they are stored locally on my iPad, but I can't watch the final destruction of Voldemort.  They say that downloadable copies are coming to mobile devices eventually which will help with this issue but unfortunately when you read the fine print you realize that there is another HUGE problem.  You can only download the digital copy that you purchased 3 times.  So that would be once for your computer, once for your iPad and once for your iPhone.  But, what if you switch computers? Or what if your phone falls into the pool and you have to buy another one? Or what if you got a lemon of an iPad and Apple replaces it for free.  You have already used up your three downloads at this point so now you can no longer have the movie on that particular device.  Also embedded in the fine print is that this particular digital copy only lasts for 3 years.  So after 3 years, I can no longer watch my digital copy that I bought on any of my devices.  Of course the idea behind this is to prevent piracy, but what it does instead is further hamper the honest citizens of the world who are trying to do the right thing and buy digital copies instead of using torrent sites to get them.  Now I'm not saying that the iTunes system is perfect, because it still has issues too, but at least with the iTunes copy I can put it on any 5 computers, deactivate accounts on computers I no longer own and put the digital copy on as many mobile devices as I want.
     So what this new system leaves me with is a choice.  I can buy the Bluray/DVD copy and use freeware to burn myself a digital copy (not exactly legal but it should be since I own it) or I can only buy the iTunes copy (the quality doesn't come close to Bluray and I can't watch it on my big TV without Apple TV) or I can do what Warner Brothers really want and buy copies in all formats making me even more broke than I already am.  (Of course I have left out the last option of using torrent sites from now on to get my movies, but I'm just not that kind of girl.  I'm trying to be good and honest here WB and you are throwing that honestly and loyalty back in my face!)