Ultraviolet Shutting Down in July
Movie News | Jan 31st, 2019
The digital movie cloud service Ultraviolet is ending after 8 years of being the top dog in town, when it came to digital HD copies of movies. Well, that is until Movies Anywhere started. Once MA came into play, the writing was on the wall for UV to end at some point with only a few studios still using it (Lionsgate being one). The good news (I hope) is that you won’t lose all your movies, you just have to link them to Vudu or another online store before July. The digital movie cloud industry is tricky and I hope I never lose movies, but it could happen. I guess it’s good to always have a physical copy of the ones you like the best.
Variety reported about the news this morning:
Ultraviolet, a cloud movie locker once hailed as Hollywood’s best bet to get consumers hooked on digital movies, is shuttering. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the industry consortium that has been tasked with running Ultraviolet, will shut down the service on July 31.
DECE will start to inform its users of the wind-down this Thursday, and is advising users to not delete their Ultraviolet movie libraries. Users should instead make sure that their libraries are connected to the service of at least one retailer, which they can then use to access their movies and TV shows going forward, according to an FAQ document that is slated to be published on Ultraviolet’s website on Thursday morning.
DECE president Wendy Aylsworth told Variety in an exclusive interview this week that the decision to discontinue Ultraviolet was a response to the evolution of the market for online entertainment. “The marketplace for collecting entertainment content was very small when Ultraviolet started,” she said. “It was siloed into walled gardens at the time.”……..
UV website has posted what you need to do now:
ULTRAVIOLET WILL CLOSE ON JULY 31, 2019
What should you do now?Login here and choose Retailer Services to verify the retailers linked to your UltraViolet Library. If your Library is not currently linked to a retailer or if you would like to link to additional participating retailers, select one or more retailers to link to your UltraViolet Library.
Don’t unlink or close your UltraViolet Library, as UltraViolet and retailers will be working together to maximize your continued access to movies and TV shows.
Between January 31 and July 31, 2019:
You can continue to access your UltraViolet movies and TV shows through the retailer(s) linked to your UltraViolet Library.
You can also continue to purchase new movies and TV shows and redeem digital codes by following the redemption instructions. Depending on the retailer, these new purchases and redemptions may or may not be added to your UltraViolet Library.Linking your UltraViolet Library to additional retailers can maximize your access to your Library and help avoid potential disruption.
After the shutdown date:
Your UltraViolet Library will automatically close and, in the majority of cases, your movies and TV shows will remain accessible at previously-linked retailers. You can continue to make online purchases and redeem codes, but these may only be available through that retailer, and will not be added to your UltraViolet Library. Thank you for making UltraViolet part of how you enjoy digital entertainment. See Help for more information.
