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Dreamworks Movies Come to Walmart Disc-to-Digital
Tue Apr 17, 2012 at 02:00 PM ETTags: DreamWorks, Walmart, Disc-to-Digital, VUDU, Ultraviolet (all tags)
Both current and catalog titles will be available for use with the service.
Walmart Disc-to-Digital just got a little more animated thanks to the addition of both current and catalog Dreamworks titles.
Starting today you can bring your DVDs and Blu-rays into any participating Walmart and shell out for a Vudu version of the movie. As will all of the movies on the service, you'll pay $2 for an SD copy of a DVD or an HD copy of a Blu-ray, while an upgrade from SD to HD will run you $5.
"Walmart is breaking new ground in helping consumers understand the opportunities of new technologies amid the changing digital landscape," says Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Dreamworks Movies Come to Walmart Disc-to-Digital
Tue Apr 17, 2012 at 02:00 PM ETTags: DreamWorks, Walmart, Disc-to-Digital, VUDU, Ultraviolet (all tags)
Both current and catalog titles will be available for use with the service.
Walmart Disc-to-Digital just got a little more animated thanks to the addition of both current and catalog Dreamworks titles.
Starting today you can bring your DVDs and Blu-rays into any participating Walmart and shell out for a Vudu version of the movie. As will all of the movies on the service, you'll pay $2 for an SD copy of a DVD or an HD copy of a Blu-ray, while an upgrade from SD to HD will run you $5.
"Walmart is breaking new ground in helping consumers understand the opportunities of new technologies amid the changing digital landscape," says Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Disney Will Finally Put 28 Day Delay in Place – Still Skeptical of UltraViolet
Mon Feb 13, 2012 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Disney, Ultraviolet (all tags)
The company will only be selling directly to rental sources that agree to the delay.
The folks at Disney are joining the rest of the studios in applying a 28 day delay to rentals of their DVD and Blu-ray releases. CEO Bob Iger says that, up until now, he hasn’t seen any benefit to the delay. At this point, he says that the trend is visible.
As far as UltraViolet goes, Disney is taking a “wait and see” approach. Iger says that UltraViolet is “not as robust” and not as “consumer friendly as we had hoped. For now, Disney is sticking with its own digital locker – KeyChest.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Analyst Attacks Paramount for High Prices for UltraViolet Movies
Mon Jan 30, 2012 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Paramount, Ultraviolet, Industry Trends (all tags)
When the studio launched UltraViolet, there seemed to be a bit of potential in the idea. Based on pricing though, it seems like Paramount doesn’t actually want to sell anything. Frost & Sullivan analyst Dan Rayburn says that Paramount’s way of doing things is completely wrong.
“What studio executive thinks consumers are going to pay $22.99 to stream a movie when we can buy the DVD for $7 or rent it for less than $2?” he writes. “The economics don't make sense.”
A fine example is the 2010 movie ‘The Fighter,’ which sells for $22.99 for an HD version and $16.99 for standard definition. For just a dollar more than the SD UltraViolet version costs, you can order the Blu-ray and enjoy special features and a better picture. For $7.99 you can watch ‘The Fighter’ on Netflix in HD and have an entire month worth of other movies.
“At some point, the studios are going to get burned just like the music industry did,” says Rayburn. “They need to wake up and realize that consumers are demanding digital content for a fair price.”
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Samsung's 2012 Blu-ray Player Lineup Includes One Compact and One Sporting HDMI Inputs
Wed Jan 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ETTags: Blu-ray Players, 3D Blu-ray Players, Samsung, Ultraviolet, CES 2012 (all tags)
As you might expect, they also come packed with UltraViolet Disc to Digital for DVDs.
Samsung has more than a few Blu-ray players coming out in 2012 but they're highlighting two in particular as their flagship products. The first is a player with a surprisingly compact form-factor and the other can operate as a makeshift receiver.
Samsung's new BD-ES6000 changes things up significantly in terms of size. Samsung says that their new compact player is only slightly larger than a Blu-ray disc. It looks more like a Blu-ray drive for a computer than a player, but Samsung says you can still expect the kind of high-quality playback for both 2D and 3D discs as its bigger brothers.
The BD-E6500 goes in the other direction. Instead of the minimalist approach taken with the ES6000, Samsung has added a new function to the Blu-ray player. The E6500 gives you a pair of HDMI inputs on the back of the player that you can attach other components to, just like you would a receiver.
All of Samsung's players have at least one thing in common - a new video processor that can upconvert DVDs and low-resolution streaming video to 1080p. They also support Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bitstream outputs.
Samsung's new players also give you the ability to register DVDs with UltraViolet and then access digital versions of those movies any time you want on any registered device. You can then pay to upgrade that copy to HD if you like.
Source: Samsung
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British Retailer Tesco Offers Up an UltraViolet Like Service of Their Own
Mon Dec 05, 2011 at 10:00 AM ETTags: Tesco, Ultraviolet (all tags)
The service is called "blinkbox" and it gives customers digital copies of movies they buy.
The UltraViolet digital distribution / digital rights management initiative is up and running in the US but it hasn't made it overseas yet. Ultraviolet will launch sometime next year in the UK but it's going to have a bit of competition from a new service called "blinkbox."
blinkbox is a creation of the massive retailer Tesco. It gives customers digital copies of movies that they buy, but only if they purchase a movie using their Tesco Clubcard. Tesco currently owns 80% of blinkbox.
Digital copies of movies purchased from Tesco will be available to watch on tablets, PCs, tablets and game systems.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Miramax CEO Says the Cloud is the Only Way to Survive
Thu Oct 06, 2011 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Ultraviolet, DRM, Cloud, Industry Trends (all tags)
Mike Lang of Miramax says the traditional model needs big changes if it's to survive much longer.
The business of selling movies is in trouble, says Mike Lang, CEO of Miramax. With rental and subscription services like Netflix gaining in popularity, there's less incentive for customers to buy movies.
Lang says consumer needs to be able to buy something and know that it will work on anything they own, just like the way Netflix shows up on a strong majority of home entertainment products. "It’s very difficult for the consumer to know that when they buy something that it works on any device."
The way forward, according to Lang, is to embrace UltraViolet wholeheartedly. He says that really pushing the digital locker system will get consumers interested in making purchases again instead of just renting.
"Ninety-five percent of the software industry in the world is now through cloud-based transactions," says Lang. "I’m hopeful that the movie business gets there."
Source: Home Media Magazine
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'Shameless' Blu-ray Comes with UltraViolet Digital Copy
Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Ultraviolet, DRM (all tags)
We've been hearing about Utraviolet copy protection for some time now - looks like it's finally here.
No matter how you feel about copy protection, you can certainly see where the studios are coming from. They want their content sold, not pirated. That's where Ultraviolet comes in - the new DRM format championed by a variety of studios.
With UltraViolet, you'll be able to watch the movie on your smartphone, computer, tablet or what have you, but you'll need to register your device to do so. You're limited to 12 devices, three of which can be streaming at any one time. As far as DRM goes, it doesn't sound too horribly intrusive.
'Shameless' is the first TV show packing UltraViolet on the Blu-ray release. Executive producer John Wells is pretty high on the technology, calling it a game changer.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Warner is Raising Fees for Netflix and Redbox
Thu Feb 03, 2011 at 10:00 AM ETTags: Warner, Netflix, Redbox, Ultraviolet (all tags)
The company is pushing towards movie ownership instead of streams and rentals.
Netflix is making a lot of money streaming movies and the folks at Warner want a piece of it. In a call about the company's fourth quarter results, CEO Jeff Bewkes said that the company would be raising the licensing fees that Netflix and Redbox are paying for movies.
It seems as if Warner underestimated both Redbox and Netlix and priced their content accordingly. "The current terms are not commensurate to the value of our films,” said Bewkes in the call. “The value should be considerably higher than what we are getting now.”
In addition to raising the price to Redbox and Netflix, Warner is introducing premium Video on Demand (VOD) content which would let viewers watch movies on demand just 60 days after the theatrical window.
Warner is pushing hard for disc ownership as well, especially with the new Ultraviolet digital rights management system. "Ultraviolet should dramatically increase the appeal of owning movies," says Bewkes.
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The Universal "UltraViolet" DRM Beta Starts This Fall
Thu Jul 22, 2010 at 01:00 PM ETTags: DRM, Ultraviolet (all tags)
The cloud based "digital locker" system may be the new standard in video encryption in the coming months.
Many consider digital rights management (DRM) a bit of a frivolity, but companies insist on it nonetheless. The latest is a universal DRM now named UltraViolet. It's nothing we haven’t heard before, but the plans are apparently moving forward.
The idea behind UltraViolet is to let users move their digital content from device to device but to enforce the security nonetheless. It involves authenticating your device on a digital storage locker, which would seemingly require internet access for movie watching.
The rights management system will roll out this fall with a Beta test, which should prove interesting. The official launch is expected somewhere in late 2010. We'll certainly be on the lookout for any new info.
Source: Ars Technica
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