Warner Bros launches the first Ultraviolet title in Ireland…
When it comes to digital movie downloads Irish movie fans have had very limited choice but now the way you watch movies at home is about to change forever, thanks to the launch of Ultra violet this week. Ultra Violet is a collaboration between major Hollywood studios (including Warner Bros, Sony, Paramount, NBCUniversal, Twentieth Century Fox) and leading technology companies to create an easy way for consumers to buy digital movies, manage and share their collections, in essence “buy once, play anywhere”.
Until now, you could choose between purchasing a physical disk to watch in a DVD/Blu-Ray player or you could purchase a digital copy to watch on an tablet/phone/digital device. UltraViolet will allow you to have the best of both worlds. As well as getting a physical disk consumers will get a free digital version and can access their entire movie library from the cloud and choose to stream or download movie titles on a wide variety of devices, including PC, Mac, Android and iOS, allowing you to watch all of your movies at home or on the go.
Irish movie fans can try the new service with the release of the Warner Bros title ‘THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY’, following this all Warner Bros titles in Ireland will be UV-enabled, including GANGSTER SQUAD, CLOUD ATLAS and THE GREAT GATSBY.
The technology also allows you to share your titles between five other people and allows three simultaneous streams at any one time. Even better is the promise of future-proofing, consumers can upgrade their content (eg SD to HD) and eventually will be able to convert old previously purchased DVDs into digital copies. Meaning you won’t have to buy all your old titles a second time. Walmart are already running a service in the States where customers can bring old DVD titles in bulk for scanning, allowing them to access the titles online through UV.
UV is already successful in other territories, UV accounts surged from 9 million to 11 million in January and more are joining the service as new titles are released. Speaking at the launch Jo Williams from Warner Bros said “By making THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and all future theatrical new release titles UV enabled, we are offering consumers a simple and more compelling way to purchase, manage, access and share their digital movie collections. This is just the first step, I’m confident we’ll be seeing more and more compatible content and services launching in the coming months.”
We tested the new service here at Movies.ie and after a few teething problems were able to beam our DVD copy of THE HOBBIT onto our Iphone just in time for a flight, the thoughts of having our entire DVD collection in our back pockets without having to pay a monthly subscription is pretty mind boggling, we can’t wait to see what comes next.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is out now on DVD/Blu Ray and UltraViolet.