I usually hate DRM with a passion, and I'm not fully on-board with it. Sure my Kindle is full of DRM laden books, which I'm not particularly happy about. When I broke my last Kindle's screen, backed the files up to my PC and restored them to the new Kindle I found out even my public domain books from Amazon were full of DRM. Of course Amazon restored them over the cloud so as a non-pirating individual it wasn't really an issue. It will only become one when I ditch my Kindle for the IRiver reader or something (in which case I can get the public domain ones free again anyways, the paid for ones, not so much).
I've been ripping my DVD's to a NAS drive that does UPnP and DLNA, and that's worked really well for me. I've even ripped a couple of BluRays but I still consider those in the experimental stage. The thing is even with all my DVD's in binders instead of the original boxes I have such a huge collection that takes up physical room, has to be moved when I do, and still is subject to the likes of hose-beast theft and hurricanes. The real question - do I trust DRM companies or do I trust the multiple time proven unreliable reliability of optical media for backup? Granted my situation with the hurricane and multiple thefts is unique to me, but it leaves an impression.
On to the actual Ultra Violet digital. I'm not 100% sure why the companies are taking this approach now. I suspect they're worried someone will figure out how to break the encryption on the physical digital copy disk, I consider that irrelevant considering I can already rip both the DVD's and the BluRay's. I suspect it has something to do with Microsoft, Apple and Sony having to cooperate to make the Digital copy disks work while us Linux folks are shouting about being left out of the loop, this offloads the responsibility to a shared third party.
My redemption process with a little confusing, the websites from the links aren't exactly straight forward in their explanations, and that's been one of the top things people have been bitching about online. When I follow the URL on the little slip of paper inserted with my Cowboys and Aliens disk it told me to go to a Universal website, which I did. Then it asked me to create an account which was mostly a revolving door dead end. I found out first I had to create an account at uvvu.com which is the license holding website, THEN I had to create one at universaldigitalcopy.com, which is the rights holder. When I got logged into both of those I got to type in my redemption code. THEN I had to chose a retailer to provide the digital copy. That's right, setting up all of that, THEN I had to log-in to Amazon with a code given to my by the Universal site to actually obtain the movie/file itself. They also said I had to hurry, because if I waited until March it would be too late. Amazon reiterated this fact. I had to have my code in and the movie downloaded or streamed by March if I wanted to keep it. I couldn't find a download option even though it was mentioned, so I streamed it.
Now never fear, Amazon wasn't my only option, I believe iTunes, Vudu and a couple of others were mentioned, but I don't recall which ones for certain, Amazon was the only one I actively used unless Hulu was one of them and I don't have a plus account so I didn't bother.
As I was writing this I decided to poke around to see if I could play back the movie on my Android phone. I had a "thank you" email from Universal, I clicked and they offered me a free copy of either Being John Malkovich or Dazed and Confused. I took John Malkovich, oddly I hadn't seen either movie which is a surprise and it was a true coin toss, I'm not sure why I chose the one I did other than it looked like it may have had a little more SciFi and artistic value, but it was close. Unlike Cowboys and Aliens I did not have to redeem a coupon code at Amazon or elsewhere for this title. The rabbit hole gets deeper.
To answer the question, I haven't figured out how to play back the movies on my Android phone yet. Amazon doesn't seem to have a method through any of the four apps on my phone, the market place, the regular shopping app, the MP3 app OR the Kindle app. I tried logging into the uvvu.com site, still no luck. There doesn't appear to be an ultra violet app either. I'm not really into watching movies on my phone, but it is a matter of curiosity.
The Good:
I can stream it from either Amazon or the the uvvu website.
Since I can stream it from Amazon I can use my BluRay player to play back Cowboys and Aliens. That's nice but I do actually have the BluRay for that.
The copy is secure even if there is
another devastating incident that wipes out my property.
It's operating system agnostic - except for maybe Android and I'm not convinced there.
The Bad:
Three friggin accounts to redeem something?
The order of operations wasn't exactly clear, I could see other people giving up or calling support. (actually according to reviews on the Green Lantern movie Amazon page many did)
The playback methods are inconsistent. The uvvu site even states not all of the movie companies will allow playback from their site, so far I've dodged the bullet on the whole site centric thing.
Inconsistent management. I cannot play back Being John Malkovich on my BluRay player since it was a uvvu only redemption and there isn't a uvvu or Android app.
To finish:
I think this may actually turn out to be an acceptable DRM laden media management service for both the studios and the customers. It's nearly seamless, once you actually get content, and unlike iTunes it doesn't have platform lock-in, and in the case of one of the two movies mentioned it even works
with the locked in platform. One of the nice things about going virtual that promotional offerings are more likely to happen, for instance when I was looking through my email for answers I found not only the movie redemption that got me Being John Malkovich, I also found a free MP3 and movie redemption from Amazon. This has nothing to do with Ultra Violet, it just points out the offerings are more common. (BTW, I got Time Warp as my freebie song and Imagine That as my other freebie movie)
As of this moment I wouldn't dump money directly into getting Ultra Violet content, but it does have some promise. If the prices get/stay low I may consider it. As it stands I'm not going to ignore the freebie/included redemptions that may come my direction. I've been giving my classic digital copies to my mother save one or two I played with she wouldn't be interested in anyways. Mostly they've been kids movies and she redeems them with iTunes on the Mac I gave her. Things just may change now.
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P.S.
If you happen to absolutely hate the idea of this DRM laden stuff and you happen to buy something that comes with a redemption code please feel free to email the code and URL to me or post a reply anonymously - anonymous posts are screened and will be for my eyes only unless I approve them :-)
-------------Update-------------
Yes I realize I just posted this but I don't feel like editing the original post to reflect what I just discovered.
There is an app called Pocket Blu that will enable you to watch the movies from an Android device. Maybe. It has to be a Universal release to work with this app, and your phone can't be rooted. Considering I would rather have two days worth of battery life instead of 12 hours tops, really 8 last time I tried it with the Sprint firmware I'm going to keep my phone rooted. It was supposed to have a nifty feature that let you watch/listen to directors commentary on your phone streaming over the network while leaving the actual movie running without that sort of stuff being on screen, and work as a remote control but it didn't work. Never found the player. I know it's not networking issue, I shut down the Pocket Blu app and started up the LG Remote control app and it worked just fine, so networking issues aren't to blame. Rooting or issues with my particular player may be however, but my player seems to work with just about everything else, I'm quite happy with it.
Update Again:If you've read the above be sure to read my very next post
dealing with Sony's version of Ultra Violet. The above Universal method is far, far superior to Sony's, and with Sony I already had the uvvu.com account setup so it
should have been
easier.
Plus another note - I tried Pocket Blu at my parents house with their Samsung last week. It didn't work there either.