The future of movie downloads is ultraviolet | Hacker News Reader

The future of movie downloads is ultraviolet

news.yahoo.com

17 pointsav50015 comments

It sounds like UltraViolet is nothing more than a unified standard for video on demand. In this case, multiple providers (e.g. Comcast to your TV, Verizon to your phone) all know about your purchase and can deliver your movie in a variety of formats. This is a win only if UltraViolet is accepted: not only by the movie studios (the typical challenge), but by all of the content providers as well.

Personally, I'd rather see the TV deprecated completely and handle all of my media through the Internet. If this has to happen via many different content providers, that's fine, and it may be better in terms of competition, but I'm not convinced it's all that necessary. It seems to me that the actual delivery of the video is nothing something that matters a whole lot to the average consumer, as long as they are getting their video now. Thus, it's more important to focus efforts on getting all of the content creators (movie and tv studios) to cooperate. Once you have the content, it's a simple matter to create different streams for different purposes and provide the movie on demand to any device. If all of the streams are essentially coming over the Internet, this is easy to do through one channel.

FTA: "a system that will let you watch the movies you buy wherever you are, regardless of formats and other technical hurdles"

The track record for things like this isn't encouraging. Case in point: Microsoft didn't even bother to make their own Zune media player compatible with "plays4sure" certified content. Plays for sure, indeed.

I predict a massive fail.

> The track record for things like this isn't encouraging.

I hope to be extremely surprised but I'm not counting on it. I won't predict massive fail though. I simply predict it won't get passed the vaporware stage.

It's about time. Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical medium. Eventually there should be a big database of all content (movies, books, music) and a listing of which ones you've ever paid for. Then, by providing your account details you can access those media from anywhere to download or stream. I've long suspected that this sort of system is unpopular among media companies because they can currently rely on customers re-purchasing all their favorites every ~10-15 years when CDs replace tapes, or MP3s replace CDs, or whatever.

Your description of this database sounds like an extension of Lala for all media. Is this what you're going for?

it's called "file sharing", minus the DRM and accounting.

no, it's different. I want to be able to stream-content, as well. And I want netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Amazon, and everyone else to know what I've purchased in my lifetime. Even if I bought the 'Shrek' DVD 10 years ago, I should be able to stream it from my Wii. Different from file-sharing.

Absolutely agreed. I want Steam for movies and music. I'd actually start spending money DVDs and TV series if a service like Steam existed. (Well, more money than my current "buy Supernatural on DVD and nothing else" policy, anyway.)

Movies/Music/TV are more portable than games, steam doesn't have to deal with portability (multiple different devices, not explicit PC's that run the games) (yet) which is why it's a good system for what it is.

Essentially a Steam for everything would never be able to have DRM otherwise certain devices would get locked out, which returns us to the original problem of DRM. Steam just locked onto a niche market and realized their potential.

> " Purchasing content should be totally disconnected from the physical medium."

And that is where I disagree. Something like UltraViolet for rentals, or all-you-can-eat plans, sounds perfectly fine.

But for purchased content? No. A thousand times: NO.

If I'm renting it, it's reasonable to have restrictions on it. If I'm buying it, I'll take just the bits, thank you.

No burden. No cruft. No phone-home or provider-based device support decisions. No fine print that the service may disappear one day, taking my library with it. No fine print that any terms may change post-sale. Because it's a sale. Not a license.

Just the bits, thanks; in a standard format.

Part of the problem is that the movie industry has proven time and time again that they can't be trusted in this area. You'd have to be an incredible optimist or on the industry's dime to really believe their claims.

Steam is an example of a service that has done this exact thing incredibly well, and it would absolutely not have worked without Valve building up a reputation for integrity and professionalism.

If Valve came out with UltraViolet, I'd be chomping at the bit for it because I trust them to honor their agreements and plan accordingly to do so into the distant future.

I wouldn't trust the movie industry at all, let alone enough to sign onto a service like this. They may never be able to regain the potential for consumer trust, and it's their own damn fault.

Heh... Somewhere there's a movie exec reading this article and thinking, "Hey, with this new system, we can update the ads that we force them to watch at the beginning of DVDs!"

What a horrible name choice. I think they likely picked it to be sure it's difficult to search for.

> One hurdle facing the digital locker concept is that the retailer collecting money on the sale may not be the one that bears the cost of delivering the movie over set-top boxes or the Internet. > So far, the necessary web of deals allowing for that complex transaction has not been set up.

That's the major problem with the whole system. If I buy all my content via, say, Amazon, why would Comcast want to deliver it to me for free? Ubiquitous connected DRM has never truly been a technical hurdle. It has always been a business hurdle. Without addressing the rev share issues, UltraViolet appears to be dead in the water.

Not to mention the lack of Apple and their massive installed base of content playback devices.

That Kurt Wimmer movie sucked. And Milla Jovovich looked like a skank in it. She's fallen a long way since The Fifth Element...

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