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iTunes or UltraViolet?

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T

Tedesco!

Member
I'm curious to hear GAF's opinion regarding the digital copies included with Blu-rays. Personally I am on the side of the iTunes digital copy. I like having everything contained in one ecosystem. Plus, I can watch movies through my Apple TV, unlike UV. UV requires Flixster, an app that on a good day is only partially buggy, and on a bad day completely useless.

For the past few days I've been engaged in an email conversation with an executive from one of the studios that only support UV who claims that the public wants UV. He says that UV is better for the consumer. I disagree, but I am only one person.

GAF, your thoughts?
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
Tedesco! said:
I'm curious to hear GAF's opinion regarding the digital copies included with Blu-rays. Personally I am on the side of the iTunes digital copy. I like having everything contained in one ecosystem. Plus, I can watch movies through my Apple TV, unlike UV. UV requires Flixster, an app that on a good day is only partially buggy, and on a bad day completely useless.

For the past few days I've been engaged in an email conversation with an executive from one of the studios that only support UV who claims that the public wants UV. He says that UV is better for the consumer. I disagree, but I am only one person.

GAF, your thoughts?
Click to expand...

UV would be great if they actually made it work as it was designed for. It's completely broken and shitty because everyone is doing their own thing instead of being unified. Not all UV movies show up in Flixter. Some you need to go through the studio and get either their own app or watch through their website through their account system. It's a complete mess. iTunes isn't great either because you're limited to Apple devices so it's not very portable. Both suck, but iTunes is a bit better.
 
K

killdatninja

Banned
UV requires flixster account? I have my UV movies linked to VUDU and it work's really well. I prefer the quality of UV compared to the apple format.
 
A

Auron_Kale

Member
I prefer iTunes solely because I do feel like I have more ownership of it.

I can freely delete content as I need to but can easily install it back onto a device that supports it via iCloud & my apple ID.

Also iTunes is better in that it'll sync new purchases with my devices with just one purchase.
 
M

Mudkips

Banned
Do people actually use these "digital" copies? (The BluRay itself is also digital, damn it!)
I have dozens of movies that include a free UV or similar copy which I've never even bothered to redeem. I assume some of them are expired by now.

I just rip my own copy. Fuck the police DMCA. I get my quality AND my portability, and I have my original with special features (which I'll never watch) safely stored away.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Personally, just rip and make your own copy--you have control over the fidelity and bitrate, it doesn't take very long, it's a simple process, more flexible for different devices, and the service can't shut down (not that I expect iTunes to shut down)
 
Z

Zaraki_Kenpachi

Member
Mudkips said:
Do people actually use these "digital" copies? (The BluRay itself is also digital, damn it!)

I just rip my own copy. Fuck the police DMCA. I get my quality AND my portability, and I have my original with special features (which I'll never watch) safely stored away.
Click to expand...

Are you that ignorant to think that how people are using the blurays are the same as the digital copies? And not everyone has a bluray drive on their laptop.
 
J

JB1981

Member
Marty Chinn said:
UV would be great if they actually made it work as it was designed for. It's completely broken and shitty because everyone is doing their own thing instead of being unified. Not all UV movies show up in Flixter. Some you need to go through the studio and get either their own app or watch through their website through their account system. It's a complete mess. iTunes isn't great either because you're limited to Apple devices so it's not very portable. Both suck, but iTunes is a bit better.
Click to expand...

You may have to download a specific app but as long as you link the service to UV your movies will show up for you. I use VUDU exclusively for digital versions of movies.
 
likedamaster

likedamaster

Member
Yeah, iTunes remains tremendously high quality after compression, much more than any other and in all resolutions. I've seen it compared to most other content providers, and iTunes won every time(to be fair, don't think it was compared to Ultraviolet). iTunes, retained the best image quality and natural film grain after compression in all tests.

Although, of course a full bluray would be the best of all.
 
U

UraMallas

Member
I also use VUDU for UV and it works great. I don't have to be tied to a computer or an Apple TV, which I don't have. I have three devices and a TV that have VUDU on them so that means I can watch my movies anywhere.
 
S

Shadow780

Member
For the longest time I thought Ultraviolet digital copy was that Gogovich movie and I thought why are they keep giving away that awful film?!
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
JB1981 said:
You may have to download a specific app but as long as you link the service to UV your movies will show up for you. I use VUDU exclusively for digital versions of movies.
Click to expand...

But why do I need to download several apps to gain access to all my UV movies and sign up for multiple accounts to redeem them? That's the stupid part. It should be one login, one point of access across everything. Needing multiple accounts and then hope that there's support for the device you want to watch on defeats the goal of UV. Having every studio doing their own thing rather than conforming to one standard breaks the system and makes UV broken in my eyes.
 
Qwell

Qwell

Member
UV all they way for me, but like others have said using vudu and not flixtser. I actually took a long survey yesterday regarding uv and it's funny because it kept talking about flixtser which I never use. I have over 100 movies on my vudu account and a lot of that is from doing disc to digital conversions. Vudu app works great on all devices I've tried it on, and I like how simple the redemption process is. I was in Vegas on business when I got the dark Knight Rises delivered and I just had my wife read me the redemption code and I was able to stream it in my room from my laptop.
 
U

UraMallas

Member
Marty Chinn said:
But why do I need to download several apps to gain access to all my UV movies and sign up for multiple accounts to redeem them? That's the stupid part. It should be one login, one point of access across everything. Needing multiple accounts and then hope that there's support for the device you want to watch on defeats the goal of UV. Having every studio doing their own thing rather than conforming to one standard breaks the system and makes UV broken in my eyes.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never ran into this.
 
T

Tedesco!

Member
Mudkips said:
Do people actually use these "digital" copies? (The BluRay itself is also digital, damn it!)
I have dozens of movies that include a free UV or similar copy which I've never even bothered to redeem. I assume some of them are expired by now.
Click to expand...

I'll be happy to take your codes off your hands.

I can't speak for everyone, but I use the digital copies because I have a three year old and it is easier to utilize the collection on iTunes via the Apple TV that to pull the physical media out and draw the attention of my boy. The majority of my BR collection has digital counterparts with the exception of Star Wars, Willow, and a couple of other titles.

Stumpokapow said:
Personally, just rip and make your own copy--you have control over the fidelity and bitrate, it doesn't take very long, it's a simple process, more flexible for different devices, and the service can't shut down (not that I expect iTunes to shut down)
Click to expand...

The iTunes copies have upped their game, so to speak. I think Jaws was the first title I bought that came with an HD digital copy, and now almost all of the BR titles have HD digital copies.
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
UraMallas said:
I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never ran into this.
Click to expand...

Paramount movies don't work in Flixter. Paramount movies tell you to go to the Paramount UV redemption site which then makes you create a Paramount account before you can redeem your UV movie there. This is all separate from Flixter which apparently is incompatible with Paramount movies. So now I have a Flixter login, and a Paramount login and now I have to go to two different locations to view different UV movies. It's a complete mess.
 
A

androvsky

Member
Marty Chinn said:
Paramount movies don't work in Flixter. Paramount movies tell you to go to the Paramount UV redemption site which then makes you create a Paramount account before you can redeem your UV movie there. This is all separate from Flixter which apparently is incompatible with Paramount movies. So now I have a Flixter login, and a Paramount login and now I have to go to two different locations to view different UV movies. It's a complete mess.
Click to expand...

Have you tried redeeming them on Vudu? I'm pretty sure they'll let you redeem every studio's UV codes with nothing more than a Vudu and UV account. And Vudu will give you a bunch of free movies when you link up a UV account through it.

And on topic, as I don't own any Apple hardware, iTunes is a bit of a waste of time for me. At least with UV I have a hope of using them somewhere other than my PC.
 
B

billy beane

Banned
Tedesco! said:
The iTunes copies have upped their game, so to speak. I think Jaws was the first title I bought that came with an HD digital copy, and now almost all of the BR titles have HD digital copies.
Click to expand...
Really? That's great to hear. I wasn't using my codes because I assumed they were still SD. Hopefully I still kept those codes.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

Member
Stumpokapow said:
Personally, just rip and make your own copy--you have control over the fidelity and bitrate, it doesn't take very long, it's a simple process, more flexible for different devices, and the service can't shut down (not that I expect iTunes to shut down)
Click to expand...

this. you can encode, remux or just save an image of the disc for the future. also with itunes video the colours are heavily altered from the source, i think its due to everyone having to conform to specs that apple sets storewide for its content.

unsure about uv and flixster but i dont think you can beat diy in terms of quality and flexibility
 
M

Mudkips

Banned
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Are you that ignorant to think that how people are using the blurays are the same as the digital copies? And not everyone has a bluray drive on their laptop.
Click to expand...

I don't have a bluray drive in my laptop either. Mainly because I don't have a laptop. Desktop for lifeeeeee.
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
androvsky said:
Have you tried redeeming them on Vudu? I'm pretty sure they'll let you redeem every studio's UV codes with nothing more than a Vudu and UV account. And Vudu will give you a bunch of free movies when you link up a UV account through it.

And on topic, as I don't own any Apple hardware, iTunes is a bit of a waste of time for me. At least with UV I have a hope of using them somewhere other than my PC.
Click to expand...

I have not since Vudu apparently doesn't work on my phone and in the past, UV always referenced Flixster as a point of redemption. So it's stupid that there are so many ways to get access to your movies and they're all inconsistent with what you can access. Here's my original post from last year when I ran into this mess:

Sorry for the old bump, but I just started messing around with UltraViolet redemption and why are these studios so stupid to set this up to fail? In concept, it's a great idea. In execution it's a mess. I go to redeem Hugo and I can't from the normal UltraViolet site. It turns out I have to go through Paramount's. Paramount wants me to create an account with them that gets linked to the UltraViolet one. That in itself is messy but then I get to this in the FAQ:


Can I watch Paramount Movies through Flixster?
If you have a Flixster account, your Paramount Movies will show up in “Your Collection” when you log in at Flixster.com. At this time, you cannot play Paramount Movies via Flixster, but when you click on the poster artwork for a Paramount title in your Flixster account you will taken to ParamountMovies.com to view the movie.


WTF is up with this? So this universal system that was supposedly created to make everything cross platform now needs not only multiple accounts, but now multiple apps? I don't even know why studios bother even supporting this? It's almost no different than everyone having a proprietary service if you're going to have to do all of that. Even worse, Paramount stuff doesn't work on Android.
Click to expand...
 
S

see5harp

Member
iTunes. Works across both windows and osx, on my iPad and iPhone and everything I've ever redeemed is just sitting out there on the cloud.
 
A

androvsky

Member
Marty Chinn said:
I have not since Vudu apparently doesn't work on my phone and in the past, UV always referenced Flixster as a point of redemption. So it's stupid that there are so many ways to get access to your movies and they're all inconsistent with what you can access. Here's my original post from last year when I ran into this mess:
Click to expand...

There's no Vudu app on any phone or tablet that I'm aware of. It's tragic. I recommend their website or PS3 for redeeming videos. Since it's UV linked, titles will show up in other apps where politically compatible. Which doesn't help at all with watching Paramount movies on a tablet or phone, I know. But at least it's one less site you have to deal with in registering. The best part is Vudu will log you into uvvu.com, so you don't have to remember that login either.


The frustrating thing is this isn't how UV is supposed to work. UV is supposed to revolve around a special file format that every UV player can play, without having to worry about streaming or studios not allowing other studios on their streaming app. They still supposedly working on it, but it's going on two years late now.
 
M

Marty Chinn

Member
androvsky said:
There's no Vudu app on any phone or tablet that I'm aware of. It's tragic. I recommend their website or PS3 for redeeming videos. Since it's UV linked, titles will show up in other apps where politically compatible. Which doesn't help at all with watching Paramount movies on a tablet or phone, I know. But at least it's one less site you have to deal with in registering. The best part is Vudu will log you into uvvu.com, so you don't have to remember that login either.


The frustrating thing is this isn't how UV is supposed to work. UV is supposed to revolve around a special file format that every UV player can play, without having to worry about streaming or studios not allowing other studios on their streaming app. They still supposedly working on it, but it's going on two years late now.
Click to expand...

I think what annoys me the most is that a lot of movies are dropping their iTunes redemption which I'd rather have until they straighten out this mess and that's me hating being tied down to a closed platform.
 
T

Tragicomedy

Member
androvsky said:
There's no Vudu app on any phone or tablet that I'm aware of. It's tragic.
Click to expand...

Vudu is available on Android devices. Check the Play store. I use it on my Nexus 7 all the time.

UV + Vudu is the way to go if you don't make your own digital copies. It works on PCs, Android, Roku, etc.
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
I prefer the digital copies my Bluray drive makes.
Seriously, DRM stripped versions or nothing. I suppose UV loses out even more by being a streaming service.
Why I would choose otherwise is beyond me. This way I can control all aspects of the video and deploy to whatever platform I like with the security of actually controlling how my content is managed.
Edit: Convenience perhaps. But since it takes me 20 minutes to rip a disk that's hardly an issue here.
Edt2: Didn't UV codes expire too? That's terrible.
 
J

jond76

Banned
I used to hate the idea of digital only, but VUDU and UV have swayed me. Its not perfect, but they are getting there.

You can can download a copy of UV movies to watch offline.

If anyone really hates UV, pm me the codes! Hahahaaaaaaaaaaa... I'll leave now...
 
devon the dude

devon the dude

Member
Marty Chinn said:
UV would be great if they actually made it work as it was designed for. It's completely broken and shitty because everyone is doing their own thing instead of being unified. Not all UV movies show up in Flixter. Some you need to go through the studio and get either their own app or watch through their website through their account system. It's a complete mess.
Click to expand...


this this this. Ultraviolet to me is just a mess. iTunes is easier, so that is what I use.
 
V

VeryGooster

Banned
Depending on the movie, I'll either redeem my iTunes copy or give them to a friend. I then transfer them to my iPad. Having copies of Casino Royale, The Avengers, and Titanic helped me through the Hurricane Sandy week of no electricity!

I can't even give UV copies of movies away. None of my friends like the service or know how it works or they forget their login (or that it exists). My friend gave me her UV copy of The Hobbit but I've yet to watch it.
 
S

Snaku

Banned
The best explanation of the UV format is that the UV code is the Bluray disc, and Vudu/Cinemanow/Flixter are the Bluray players. I've been buying UV copies off people for months now for a dollar or two a pop and been saving a shit load of money.
 
T

Tedesco!

Member
Snaku said:
The best explanation of the UV format is that the UV code is the Bluray disc, and Vudu/Cinemanow/Flixter are the Bluray players. I've been buying UV copies off people for months now for a dollar or two a pop and been saving a shit load of money.
Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing with iTunes codes. I buy them for $3-$5 a piece.
 
A

androvsky

Member
Tragicomedy said:
Vudu is available on Android devices. Check the Play store. I use it on my Nexus 7 all the time.

UV + Vudu is the way to go if you don't make your own digital copies. It works on PCs, Android, Roku, etc.
Click to expand...

That's great news, I didn't know about that. A Vudu app would be the perfect thing.

Of course, I go to download it and it's not supported on my phone. I have a Nexus 4. Not a good sign.

But I remember there's a Best Buy app, so what the hell, I try it. Make a new account for Cinemanow, go to link it to my UV account, and find out they're giving away 10 free movies just for linking an account. And there's enough different from the Flixster free movies than I can get 10 new ones. The main notable one for me is Big Trouble in Little China. I now have 19 UV movies, 2 of which are actually redeemed codes from purchased movies, lol. The scary thing is I linked my Vudu account before they were doing their 10 movie giveaway. Looks like it doesn't do UV code redemptions like Vudu though. :(
 
Squirrel Killer

Squirrel Killer

Member
I was about to buy a BR/Digital pack of Looper, I only really wanted the BR, but that's how it was packaged. Whatever, an extra digital copy isn't going to kill me. But when I saw it was a UV digital copy, I passed on buying a copy and just checked it out from the local library.

So, in my case anyway, UV = -1 sale.
 
L

LCfiner

Member
Polari said:
Isn't there DRM either way? If so, useless.
Click to expand...

There's DRM on your Blu ray disc, too. I wouldn't call it useless.

The digital copies are limited, yes. but not useless. They're a very easy way to get mobile optimized versions of video for your phone or tablet. takes less time than ripping and compressing the BR disc

To your point about DRM, I still can't bring myself to buy exclusively downloaded digital copies because I like lending out movies on disc and the DRM in digital copies bought from itunes doesn't allow that. But as a secondary copy sized to fit my iphone/ipad, the digital copies included on blu rays are a nice convenience.

But if they weren't there and I really needed a digital copy, I'd just rip the blu ray myself. I'm usually just too lazy, though.
 
S

SickBoy

Member
Tedesco! said:
I'm curious to hear GAF's opinion regarding the digital copies included with Blu-rays. Personally I am on the side of the iTunes digital copy. I like having everything contained in one ecosystem. Plus, I can watch movies through my Apple TV, unlike UV. UV requires Flixster, an app that on a good day is only partially buggy, and on a bad day completely useless.

For the past few days I've been engaged in an email conversation with an executive from one of the studios that only support UV who claims that the public wants UV. He says that UV is better for the consumer. I disagree, but I am only one person.

GAF, your thoughts?
Click to expand...

Choice is better for the consumer... I'm sure I've seen digital copies in the past that have offered some form of mechanism to use iTunes or some other format. Maybe not the recent past, but I'm sure it's been done.

I prefer iTunes, although I'm sure some studios (and some users) don't... but I don't get the assertion that Ultraviolet is what consumers want. For me, it's just another service I have to consider whether it's worth signing up for.
 
M

mcfrank

Member
iTunes is great for me since my wife and I both have iPads, iPhones and we have 2 Apple TVs. Ultraviolet seems terrible from my experience with Harry potter deathly Hallows part 2. Super annoying that part 1 was iTunes and part 2 was ultraviolet.
 
NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
This thread is literally the first time I've ever seen anything remotely positive written about UltraViolet. It's maligned for a reason.

1080p iTunes Digital Copy (yay Universal and Fox) > regular DVD > crappy SD iTunes Digital Copy >>>> UltraViolet
 
S

Snaku

Banned
NekoFever said:
This thread is literally the first time I've ever seen anything remotely positive written about UltraViolet. It's maligned for a reason.

1080p iTunes Digital Copy (yay Universal and Fox) > regular DVD > crappy SD iTunes Digital Copy >>>> UltraViolet
Click to expand...

It was maligned when it first launched because it was so fragmented. Now all Ultraviolet copies are linked with Vudu, and Vudu is a great service. People that still hate ultraviolet probably haven't used it in a year.
 
T

Tedesco!

Member
Snaku said:
It was maligned when it first launched because it was so fragmented. Now all Ultraviolet copies are linked with Vudu, and Vudu is a great service. People that still hate ultraviolet probably haven't used it in a year.
Click to expand...

Why would they? In that year's time they probably went iTunes. Why fragment your collection at this point?
 
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