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UltraViolet: The movie-watching wave of the future or a pointless hassle?

Kevin Spacey plays Jason Bateman's boss in Horrible Bosses.

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It's a DVD! It's a web streaming option! It's a dessert topping! It's a floor wax! It's all those things. Well, except the dessert topping and floor wax.

UltraViolet DVDs work like regular DVDs. No ultra-violet rays are actually involved, but they are packaged with a code and some instructions on how to also stream the movie from a remote server on to your phone, computer or tablet. The first movie to be released in this package is "Horrible Bosses," which came out Tuesday. "The Green Lantern" is available tomorrow. Many more films are still to come, including the final chapter in the Harry Potter series. UltraViolet has the backing and involvement of all the major studios with the exception of Disney.

In theory, it sounds great. Own a movie and be able to watch it in a bunch of different ways. In practice, it might be a little different. You'll need to hold on to the little slip that gives you the digital rights to the movie, you'll need to set up an UltraViolet account and you'll need to set up another account on some software system that will actually play the movie for you.

So are you ready for this new big thing? Max Dawson, professor of radio, TV and film at Northwestern University says it's going to be tough for some people. "It is very confusing considering the fact that we all just upgraded to Blu-Ray. What UltraViolet really is is not specifically one technology, but rather a new relationship between the consumer and the content owner. In the long-term, the aspiration is to be supported by all digital devices ranging from smartphones to set top boxes, but in the short-term, it's going to be more piecemeal. And it's going to be frustrating for consumers, that they're going to be required to download new software, get used to new file formats when many of us have just gotten used to iTunes."

Jennifer Holt, who teaches film and media studies at U.C. Santa Barbara, says the studios are betting big that people want to still hold a movie in their hands: "(The studios) still believe the physical copy isn't going anywhere soon. To me, it looks like a service trying to get in front of the movement of content to the cloud, and be the one place that is the standard. You know everyone is at this UltraViolet party -- every studio, Microsoft, Panasonic, IBM and HP, but there are two noticeable people that are not there, and that is Disney and Apple."

Discs vs. Bits. Disney and Apple vs. Hollywood and Microsoft. We got characters and conflicts, bring on the popcorn. But will UltraViolet pack the theaters? Dawson says, "Its success will largely depend on two factors. If this requires you to ditch your entire media collection you got through iTunes, the consumer will reject it. The other thing is compelling content; neither "Green Lantern" or "Horrible Bosses" falls into that category. As much as I'd like to see studios be able to achieve success, I'm not too sure this is the right solution."

Also in this program, a new mouthguard is being used by Stanford University football players to gather data about what kind of punishment the head takes during a game.

About the author

John Moe is the host of Marketplace Tech Report, where he provides an insightful overview of the latest tech news.
Grover Ferrell's picture
Grover Ferrell - Oct 16, 2011

Most people will watch a movie once or twice. I still have VHS tapes that I bought and only watched once. I have an enormous library of DVDs that I have only watched once. I think the practice of purchasing movies to keep may be over. I stream movies from NETFLIX and I am happy just watching movies once. Once and a while there may be an epic movie that we may want to keep but for the most part, see it once, never see it again. I think the future of movie watching will lie with digital streaming. I think once the quality of streaming improves and the quality of our home electronics improve, buying movies and going to the movie theater will cease. Movie theaters are already trying to reinvent themselves by making it more comfortable and serving restaurant quality food.Look at what happen to CDs, people are now digitally downloading their music primarily now.

Paul Johnson's picture
Paul Johnson - Oct 14, 2011

That's right, bath. No one would ever criticize the Ultraviolet approach to Digital Rights Management unless they were trying to pump up Apple stock. Duh!

bath swana's picture
bath swana - Oct 13, 2011

"And it's going to be frustrating for consumers, that they're going to be required to download new software, get used to new file formats when many of us have just gotten used to iTunes."

Sounds like Max owns some Apple stock.

John Hafen's picture
John Hafen - Oct 13, 2011

It would be nice to include a link to a vendor/s of the subject in an article, like the one on Ultra-Violet movies? Please post one or two. Thanks