Ultraviolet Format Close to Commercial Release

[exfileme]

The Ultraviolet format is almost ready to go live, but Apple and Disney have yet to sign on.

Ultraviolet Format Close to Commercial Release : Read more

 

[alxianthelast]

Apple and Microsoft both need to stick picking their butts with regard to content that CAN'T be served online due to their massive size and bitrate.

 

[Soma42]

"For consumers, this means that for every Blu-ray and DVD they've purchased over the years, they'll also unlock a cloud-stored digital version that can be streamed on up to 12 registered Ultraviolet devices."

Good, it's about time people don't have to re-purchase their entire movie collection just because a new format comes out.

Does any current Blu-ray player support this? Or do you have to buy a new box?

 

[alxianthelast]

[citation][nom]Soma42[/nom]Does any current Blu-ray player support this? Or do you have to buy a new box?[/citation]

New format, new hardware; diodes, likely a new compression format as well and security since AACS isn't perfect.

 

[afrobacon]

Great, a new format. I haven't even bought a Blu-ray player yet.

 

[dioxholster]

someone explain what this new format does?

 

[Khimera2000]

Thats cool Im hoping theres a way to switch out those 12 devices. Heres hoping the digital only deal goes smooth.

to Dioxholster it helps standerdise digital movies, at least from a distrebution standpoint, it also helps push cloud services to

 

[nekoangel]

[citation][nom]dioxholster[/nom]someone explain what this new format does?[/citation]
digital distribution. its not a physical media to replace blue ray.

 

[Guest]

Cloud all over the place.... Stream to 12 devices..... It is all meaningless when CAPS are raping you....

 

[td854]

[citation][nom]shawn808stingray[/nom]Cloud all over the place.... Stream to 12 devices..... It is all meaningless when CAPS are raping you....[/citation]

So sad, but so true...
That said, I don't have caps on either of my ISPs :x

 

[alidan]

i have about a 200gb soft cap, god knows i have gone well over that some months.

assuming this is compressed data, and its compressed well, 1 blu ray quality movie, at 1080p could be as small as 4gb, and up to about 8gb for a standard length movie. for damn near indistinguishable form dvd quality, 1gb about, and this is from a novice encoder, you could probably get that down to 700mb

all that said, how many people are watching 200 dvd quality movies a month, 50 720p or 25 1080p?

now, as to bluray players... it is possible for ones that can update firmware to support this, i believe, i wont go into how, because it may be incredibly stupid on my part, but it may be possible.

 

[doorspawn]

So is it possible for 3rd party apps to offer extra features (variable play-speed, subtitle-translation, audio normalizing, etc, unavailable on standard players), or can you only play on licensed players due to DRM? The latter, of course.

Can you store locally and play back later when off-line, like on public transport where you most want to watch? Doubt it.

Will pirates rip it and share it sans DRM? Yes. Will the pirate version be superior? Yes.

Will this waste horrendous amounts of bandwidth? If it succeeds, yes.

 

[ralfthedog]

Why would Apple want to do this? Online movie sales are a big part of their business model. Disney is more or less owned by Apple, they will go the way Apple does.

 

[memadmax]

*yawn*

If they are trying to reduce pirating they will just fail....

 

[spiketheaardvark]

I'm starting to see why they're doing this. Apple doesn't want this because they've always wanted to sell more movies and such through iTunes. This is a direct competition to this model and they would be cut out of any profits if you could stream any movie you own to you iphone. This is a attempt by the studios to gain more control of distribution. It would let them put more pressure on companies like Netflix and Redbox, while encouraging people to buy movies again (assuming they make movies worth owning) I wonder if the system could be manipulated . . . Could this grant Netflix the right to offer 12 streams for every disk they own?

 

[Onus]

When a system is more about the distribution method than about the physical media, then I would anticipate that it is a money-grab. Global economies are foundering, and companies want to try to ensure they can maintain an income stream.
It will get back to "if you want to receive anything of value, you must produce something of value." Considering how little value there is in most content these days, this will be an epic fail.

 

[leper84]

Sounds a lot like Circuit City and Divx all over again, except this time they're throwing people a bone with their old movies trying to get them to sign on. I hope it fails, miserably.

"[Ultraviolet is] one of the largest consortia ever, especially across industries," he added. "And when that happens, you succeed."... i.e. they want to have zero competition.

 

[drwho1]

Don't care about any cloud "service", besides if I already own the movies... what's the point.

 

[maddad]

Unless the movie studios buy out the ISPs and eliminate the bandwidth caps, I can't see any cloud streaming movie service succeeding. Whats the point of being able to stream if u go over your cap and have to pay extra to the ISP.

 

[wild9]

A report from Pocket-lint suggests that the Ultraviolet movie format is close to officially going commercial. For consumers, this means that for every Blu-ray and DVD they've purchased over the years, they'll also unlock a cloud-stored digital version that can be streamed on up to 12 registered Ultraviolet devices. All they need is the UPC symbol in order to register their movie.

Just to clear this up. I take it that if I purchase a BR disk, upto 11 of my friends can watch it being streamed to their device. My big question is: at what cost to them?

My other question is in line with comments regarding bandwidth. Surely a streamed HD film is going to gobble storage and bandwidth like nothing on earth; how will the ISP's cater for this demand? Me personally, I don't warm to this idea. I prefer to buy a film, watch it and then maybe transcode it once in a blue moon so I can take it somewhere else. I rarely watch modern films more than once and even older one's, it would have to be pretty special for me to want to go to all this trouble whether it's cloud or transcode. I'd imagine this is more useful for corporate sharing but that's just my view.