Mr. Cinema

You can link your UV account to every UV retailer. All of my redeemed movies from Flixster and Target Ticket show up on Vudu because they are all linked together.

Decker

All mine are linked too. It's just there are a few codes that I guess don't transfer as true UVs. Strike Back wll play on Flixster, but not on Cinema Now. My copy of Django and Argo will play on Cinema Now, but not Flixster. Just like there are some Vudu-only codes (like the Disney ones). It's all very confusing.

hanshotfirst1138

So far, I've redeemed all of my digital copies through UV, they have been appeared in my other streaming services which are linked with the account, Flixster in Vudu. I actually kind of like it, it allows all the things to be grouped together. I'm sure that studio competition being what it is, that at some point I'll come across something that doesn't fit everything so well.

Tarantino

I didn't log into my account for over a year...and they deleted my account. For 'security reasons'.

What the fuck? Ultraviolet sucks.

SeekingZen

I live in Singapore. The region code for bluray is the same as the USA. Last October I flew back home to Phoenix. I went to visit my brother, and sell my Jeep. I bought several blueray at Walmart. I had never heard of UV because Singapore is out of region. Two free codes came with some external hard drives. I ended up with a half dozen UV codes, and a digital disc. I want to say the digital disc was the green hornet, but I could be wrong.

I have an iPad, so does my Wife. We each have iPhones, and Android phones. I thought some fresh movies for the flight home would be nice. I thought UV would be perfect for us because we have a variety of devices. I was wrong!.

The first UV code did not work. The service said it was invalid. We entered it over and over. The second worked. That was Hangover 3. The third said it had already been used or something. By then I was sick of it, so I tossed them all in the rubbish bin and forgot about it.

I have never used iTunes. I never had a need for it. We installed it on my brothers laptop. I tried to get the digital copy on the disc to work. It kept saying the included key was not valid. I got so angry I broke the disc in half

I returned to Singapore and watched my blue ray discs.

I started getting emails from Flixter, and UV. I requested that they close the accounts because of security.

There is a known bug in UV. It is possible to log in using some else's account if you are out of region. Evidently the system gets confused. Just enter a valid user account handle or email, and ANY password. An error will appear what says "Unknown Error" rather than "Unable to validated password". Switch to a different window and do it again. Go back to the first window and click on library. Tada! It works with Firefox if you are running Linux.

PhantomStranger

VUDU had a bad security breach in 2013.

Decker

That's fucking ridiculous. I hope you contact them and complain. You own your digital movies and they can't just confiscate them because you rarely use them.

SeekingZen

Similar to the one I mentioned, or another?

TheBigDave

Are you talking about your Vudu account or your Ultraviolet account? It's possible after the security breach last year that Vudu froze all accounts that remained inactive. But if Ultraviolet closed your account, that's troubling.

Back in March 2013, someone broke into Vudu offices and stole hard drives that contained customer information.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/09/vud...r-data-stolen/
http://www.vudu.com/password_faq.html

SeekingZen

I see. Well a physical break in is harder to defend against than an attack over the NET.

If I can get physical access, I can get into just about any Linux box no matter how hard they try to lock it down.

But of course it is much easier to steal the hard drives, assuming encryption is not enforced.

Matthew Chmiel

Disney might've "got" how films purchased digitally and stored on the cloud should work. The Disney Movies Anywhere app itself is okay, but how it connects to one's Disney Movie Rewards and iTunes accounts is where the magic happens.

1. Any film that I redeemed for points on Disney Movie Rewards that included a digital copy, even the digital copies my wife redeemed on her iTunes account instead, now show as purchased under my iTunes account.
2. Any film that I had an standard-definition copy of in iTunes has now been converted to HD alongside the addition of iTunes Extras.
3. It even managed to convert some of the Marvel films that were released prior to Disney taking over the studio (it got Iron Man 2, failed to do the same on Captain America and Thor).

What's also neat is that if you purchase a Disney film on iTunes (most of their entire catalog is now on the service in HD), it will automatically add the points to your DMR account.

I would be okay with each studio having their own respective app that links to my iTunes account rather than the hoops I've had to jump through with Ultaviolet, especially with the added benefits Disney threw in.

TheBigDave

I agree. I love Ultraviolet, but the way it works is clunky and confusing. The UV website sucks. And their customer service is awful.

Hopefully, they'll take a look at Disney Movies Anywhere and learn how to build a digital movie locker that's user-friendly.

You can add Captain America and Thor by disconnecting DMA/iTunes, then re-connecting. I posted about it a couple weeks ago here:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/blu-ray-bar...l#post12034161

Matthew Chmiel

You're the man!

SeekingZen

I logged back into UltraViolet. It seems they still have not completely closed my account.

They fixed the gaping hole in their security now. The out of region IP no longer causes an error that allows bypassing the password authentication. The login from out of region is the same as you get in region. Maybe they plan to open up Asia.

I checked Flixter. They did close out my account.

I use iTunes from out of region without any problems.

jiggawhat

Bought The Office S9 and to my surprise, not all the episodes are available. I'll have to check the packaging to see if it says not all episodes are on UV, but it's odd that they would exclude certain episodes.

Decker

Question : does any service allow you to download HD UV titles to an iPad in HD? Best as I can tell, Flixter, Cinema Now and Vudu don't, only an SD copy. It's really weird; I don't understand why they wouldn't unless it's some sort of restriction instituted by Apple to encourage/force you to buy the iTunes digital copy instead.

Then again, I don't think Ultraviolet copies are downloadable in HD on Android either -- at least via Vudu. Certainly that's not Apple's doing.
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SeekingZen

I requested last March that ultraviolet close out my account. They finally did today. I somehow feel a sense of accomplishment.

PhantomStranger

I had problems dealing with VUDU's customer service. I get the feeling these early streaming services are more interested in messing with their web interfaces than providing customer support.

SeekingZen

I think you may be right.

As for me, 64Gb mSD are cheap. I can rip the movies and store them for watching anytime and anyplace. No rules. No login. No invalid or expired codes. No codes that are "already redeemed" right out of the sealed package!

SeekingZen

I just thought of something. When I signed up with Flixter, and UV last October, only one code worked.

Another said "invalid"' and the last one, that i tried said it was "previously redeemed" or something like that.

That was when I tossed the remaining two (never tried to redeem them) in the rubbish, and wrote off the service as useless.

In March I closed Flixter account, and now the UV account.

Lets say those codes (free with purchase) were actually important to me..... Would customer service believe that the "previously redeemed" code came out of a sealed package purchased from "Squal-Mart" only the day before? Somehow I doubt it. What about the "invalid code"?

I know other people have reported "invalid", or "expired" codes on various forums. However, I have never seen anyone report "previously redeemed". Is that one new?

hanshotfirst1138

Stop shopping at Wal-Mart, problem solved . In all seriousness, no, customer service probably wouldn't believe you at all. Beyond that is the bigger question: what's to stop someone who has no interest in UV from just giving the UV code to someone else and losing them a potential sale? I see people selling the UV sheets on eBay all the time, so if the purpose of digital is to more tightly control the companies selling their products, I don't think it's entirely successful. But I suppose that those codes are a lot more practical than manufacturing discs. If you do disc-to-digital with UV instead of Vudu, does Walmart still get the cash?

davidh777

It probably depends on the service. I've had no trouble getting replacement codes from Warner.

PhantomStranger

They've turned a blind eye so far to the trading and selling of UV digital copies. The powers that be have certainly allowed it, one word from them and Blu-ray.com would shut it down in an instant. It's against the terms of service but it looks like they are willing to lose a little money in the beginning to build market acceptance. I suspect as soon as the UV and streaming market is a much bigger factor, individual trading will be banned by legitimate sites.

SeekingZen

The codes were a "gift", or "perk" built into the purchase the way i see it. I guess they feel no obligation to make good on something they gave away for free.

Ok, i do not know that they are free as such. I did not take the time to check for movies that did not come with the code, so I do not know if there is a difference in the price. I just grabbed them because I saw "Digital Copy" proudly on the package. I had never heard about Ultraviolet before i went on a shopping rampage two days before i left the USA for home. Blu ray cost about $30 here in Singapore. When I see a blu ray for $15 or so it is hard to pass up.

I could never lower myself to selling the code. That is sort of like selling influenza eh? Sorry I really enjoyed making that statement!

SeekingZen

Anyway, I am now done with Ultraviolet. The journey has been an entertaining one, and not in the movie kind of way. If I have further convinced anyone not to use their service then I have scored a small "point" for the people.

The "powers that be" did not want us Linux users to watch DVDs. They made that demand in the name of stopping piracy. It seems there was not a person among them that was smart enough to know that making a pirate clone of a DVD has nothing to do with Linux. They did not want the decryption algorithm made public. Again nobody among them seem to know that making a bit for bit pirate clone of a DVD did not require decryption of its content. I guess the same "powers that be" do not use Ultraviolet, so they cannot see that it is not very functional.

They lost the DVD battle on both fronts. Many of us are already playing Blu ray movies on Linux. They are about to loose that battle. So long we can rip our movies we can watch on our phones, they cannot win. We also have iTunes, Amazon, and Google. I do not see Ultraviolet growing much beyond were it is today (Four years old and still in beta.... Pathetic).