I own thousands of DVD and Blu-Ray discs. This is a consequence of my love for movies and television, and my desire to own those videos I love so I can watch them again whenever I want.
But DVDs and Blu-Rays take up space, and I'm running out of room on my shelf. Now-a-days I am more likely to buy my videos from iTunes to watch on my Apple TV or iPad. Heck... I'm more likely to rent my videos from iTunes to watch on my Apple TV or iPad. But not always. DVDs and Blu-Rays often have supplemental material that enhances my enjoyment of the movie/series, and so I still find myself buying discs of my most favorite movies/series to get all the goodies I can.
Besides, most Blu-Ray movies are available in "combo-packs" which includes a digital copy of the film. This is the best of both worlds, because then I get the supplementary material to watch at home, and the film added to my iTunes account to take with me. Sweet!
But it was a situation too good to last.
Because movie studios stopped offering iTunes codes for the "digital copy" and switched to this stupid fucking "digital locker" scam called "UltraViolet." And, let me tell you, Ultraviolet is one of the biggest fucking turds to ever plague consumers. It's so bad that I categorically refuse to buy any Blu-Ray that has Ultraviolet attached.
The latest casualty? The Dark Knight Rises...
FUCK YOU, WARNER BROS. PICTURES! FUCK YOU UP YOUR GREEDY CORPORATE ASSES!
And so...no $24.96 Blu-Ray for me. I'm instead going to pre-order the iTunes HD "Extras" version for $19.99. I don't know if it contains all the "extras" that are on the Blu-Ray but, as much as I want a physical copy on my shelf, I seriously don't give a fuck. The future is DIGITAL... and if movie studios aren't going to give me what I want, i.e. digital copies in iTunes... NOT shitty "Ultraviolet digital locker"... then the physical disc I covet isn't worth having.
And what's next? iTunes copies of the movie will be "edited for content" and you'll be forced to buy the Blu-Ray Ultraviolet crap if you want to see the entire film? I wouldn't be surprised. Any money-making plan, no matter how fucking insane, seems to be fair game to greedy executives. If movie studios continues this downward slide, I'm not going to "buy" movies at all. There are so many better alternatives to paying a company to fucking shit on you.
I love comments! However, all comments are moderated, and won't appear until approved. Are you an abusive troll with nothing to contribute? Don't bother. Selling something? Don't bother. Spam linking? Don't bother.
PLEASE NOTE: My comment-spam protection requires JavaScript... if you have it turned off or are using a mobile device without JavaScript, commenting won't work. Sorry.
Atom Entries Feed Comments Feed
Kinda curious. Why is Ultraviolet so awful?
I’d tell you to Google it to read about the bazillions of people who have complained about it, but I’m all about me… Blogography Link. Summary? IT DOESN’T WORK!!
My first real job was with what was then the third largest video duplicator in the country. It was the 90s and I was excited about prices dropping on CD burners. I got laughed at in the office. Things would never become so cheap that folks would burn stuff at home. Two years later I bought my first drive.
But what I really remember is what the COO told me — it is the job of studios to acquire copyrights and then milk these copyrights for every penny they can.
I also refuse to buy any that don’t offer the ACTUAL digital copy. I just saw this today, that they did this stupid ultraviolet crap for Batman. Seriously pissed me off. I’m still angry for the movies I bought that SAID they had a digital copy but that was what was inside. At least now the bastards actually SAY it’s UV instead so I can just not buy it.
We have only purchased one movie with UV simply because Kaie really wanted the DVD but we haven’t even tried that copy. And I skip all movies that only offer UV copies too.
No, it won’t include all the Blu Ray extras in the iTunes Extras package. If you use Microsoft stuff, you could get the digital version of The Dark Knight Rises with a 2nd screen experience (to use on your iPad, Android or Windows Slate) and have the Blu Ray extras and more (what they call Smartglass).
But yes – UV is horrible. I have a whole post on my site from weeks ago complaining about how bad and confusing it is for the consumer. Studios think it will get folks to want to buy more discs, but I agree with you – it’s horrible.
Sad you didn’t leave a link. Your article is well worth a read.
I don’t remember the last movie we bought that had the UltraViolent … err.. UltraViolet, but it let us download a digital copy of the movie via iTunes, stored locally on the hard drive and synced to the iPod touch (my wife’s).
But as you have blogged about before, the UV digital locker is horrible. We went through it with the last Harry Potter movie and I could never get it to work right.