Will UHD Blu-ray include codes for Vudu 4K

[NiklasK]

Anybody wanna guess?

It would be nice if the digital codes that are included with the forthcoming UHD discs would reddem in 4K via Vudu (or any other future 4K streaming service).

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by NiklasK

Anybody wanna guess?

It would be nice if the digital codes that are included with the forthcoming UHD discs would reddem in 4K via Vudu (or any other future 4K streaming service).

Considering it wasn't until recently that codes from Blu-ray redeemed in HD (and some still don't), I doubt it. Not for a few years at least.

[huskerbear]

With Vudu, Netflix, Amazon, M-go and who else? doing 4K I'm thinking there is a chance they will before too long. UV was doing HD codes in 2011 and prior to that it was considered more for phones and tablets not needing HD, today with Roku's and the like we are playing these on our TVs.

[echopulse]

UHD has been added to the UV ecosystem as a definition, so the ultraviolet site will record if you buy a UV movie in UHD. So it is possible we will get UHD ultraviolet codes.

[vanton619]

I think Vudu redemptions will, or at least purchases from WM will have UHD codes. Considering Vudu allowed 3D redemptions for the 3D titles they offered (The Amazing Spiderman, Hotel Transylvania, and a few others I think), I wouldn't be suprised if there was some option.

[satam55]

Ummmm.....

From disc to device: Under Blu-ray's next Digital Bridge

The promise of a simple way to watch your DVD and Blu-ray discs on your phone or tablet has long eluded studios. Now the upcoming Ultra HD Blu-ray format has a new method called Digital Bridge. Will it work?

Home Entertainment August 30, 2015 4:45 AM PDT by Geoffrey Morrison

Hollywood studios live in mortal fear of piracy, and nowhere is that fear more evident than when a customer tries to copy a movie bought, legally, to watch on another screen.



If I buy a $20 Blu-ray disc, I want to be able to watch that movie on my phone, or back it up to a hard drive so I don't have to find the disc to watch it again.

To some extent, Digital Copy and Ultraviolet were an attempt to fix this issue with current Blu-ray discs. Now there's a new disc format on the horizon called Ultra HD Blu-ray, or 4K Blu-ray. Perhaps coming as soon as the end of 2015, 4K Blu-ray players and discs offer improved picture and sound quality, supporting higher resolution, more contrast (in the form of HDR), a wider range of color and next-generation audio like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X.

The new disc format will also introduce a new disc-to-digital feature called Digital Bridge. Like Ultraviolet, it allows owners of the discs to "view their content across the range of in-home and mobile devices," according to its creators. Many of the details are still sketchy, but here's what we know.


Ultraviolet


Movie studios, when they dream at night of a perfect utopia, want you to pay (ideally a lot) every time you watch a movie.
Most customers, being not completely insane, want to pay once for a movie, and be able to watch it whenever and wherever we want. We have paid for something, so we "own" it. Renting is somewhere in the middle.

Ultraviolet was the cookie-crumb concession by the studios (well, most of them, anyway), to give us some ability to watch what we buy on something other than a TV connected to a disc player.

I'm guessing not a lot of people take advantage of (or even know about) Ultraviolet, since I've never been asked about it, and never gotten an email about it. That's amazing to me, as I get email questions about everything, and Ultraviolet is about as poorly implemented a service as I've ever seen.



In theory, you get a code with the Blu-ray you buy that allows you to stream or download that same movie from a site like Vudu, M Go, Flixter and a few others. I won't dig deep into all the ways they make this confusing for the customer, but lets just say that it generally works, once you figure it out and jump through all the hoops. You can stream it to your computer, download it to your mobile device, and so on.

So once you've registered the movie via Vudu or Ultraviolet, it is yours to watch anytime you want, though only through specific apps, and you can't, say, load the movie on a thumb drive and watch it on your friend's TV (unless she's one of the 5 people you can add to your VUDU account).

There's also a thing called Digital Copy, where you get an additional disc with the Blu-ray you buy that contains a file readable by iTunes (or other similar services) which can then be played on your various devices. Disney has their own version of all this, though it's compatible with Vudu too. And the codes have expiration dates because...who knows.

The one thing (OK, one of the many things) missing from all this is that none of the copies are Blu-ray quality. Vudu's HDX probably comes the closest, and on a phone or tablet screen, the lower quality isn't a huge deal. If you're holding these close enough to your face, maybe you will notice the poorer quality. Or maybe not.

So that's how things stand now with Blu-ray discs. But what about the disc format of the future, Ultra 4K HD Blu-ray? Its creators have a bridge to sell you.


What is Digital Bridge?



Digital Bridge is a feature included on on the upcoming Ultra HD Blu-ray ("4KBD") format that seems to be an extension on Ultraviolet. Some of the details on this are still vague, though, so we'll have to wait to see if it's as user-unfriendly as its predecessor.

What is clear is if you want to watch a copy of the movie on your phone/tablet, you'll need to register the movie you buy first. After you register, you'll be able to transfer a copy of the movie to a mobile device (phone/tablet), or a media player (presumably, like Roku). So far this is similar to Ultraviolet and/or Digital Copy.

The big change is you'll be able to make a perfect bit-for-bit digital copy of your new 4KBD. In fact, as far as early reports show, any copy you make from the 4KBD has to be a bit-for-bit copy. The 4KBD players won't be allowed to reduce the resolution.

So if you want to watch your new 4K movie on your tablet, it's going to need lot of spare storage space. You'll also be able to transfer the movie to a backup hard drive, which you should expect to fill up quickly.

Expect all this to be locked down tight. You'll be able to watch the movie you buy, but you're not going to be able to make additional copies for your friends, or, presumably, hand off the hard drive to your friend to play on his TV.

Why, a few months before release, are the details still vague? Well, it's either they haven't worked out the specifics, or more likely, they haven't got all the major licensees (i.e., the studios) to sign off on it.

Bottom line

How well this all works, of course, remains to be seen. The fact that it's part of the 4K Blu-ray specification at all shows that studios are listening to consumers, and trying to give them what they want, while not angering their shareholders. A delicate balance indeed.


http://www.cnet.com/news/from-disc-t...igital-bridge/

[Adam_ME]

Originally Posted by NiklasK

Anybody wanna guess?

It would be nice if the digital codes that are included with the forthcoming UHD discs would reddem in 4K via Vudu (or any other future 4K streaming service).

Yeah, I'd love to see that. I picked up the Roku 4 yesterday and was very tempted to buy one of those VUDU UHD titles just to try it out. The price wasn't horrible for the movies that aren't recent releases(i.e. San Andreas). $24.99(plus tax) each. I'll hold off for now since even at 25 bucks, it ain't worth it.

What I'd really like is for VUDU to offer some sort of discount if you already have the HDX copy and wish to upgrade. Maybe something in the $9.99-$14.99 range.

[lostinva]

Originally Posted by Scarface32

Considering it wasn't until recently that codes from Blu-ray redeemed in HD (and some still don't), I doubt it. Not for a few years at least.

Not been my experience at all. I've redeemed hundreds of UV codes from Blu-ray sources since the very beginning and only a tiny fraction of those have ever had that issue.

[leburn98]

If I understand the diagram correctly you would:

1. Pop the UHD into the player
2. Connect a device or external HDD to your player
3. The player would export the video as a SFF file
4. Play it on a compatible player/device

In theory Digital Bridge sounds great. Issues arise when talking about exporting to devices such as an iPad. The player's inability to downscale the resolution (and thus the file size) on export will be this feature's biggest downfall. Nobody will want to put 60GB+ file on their iPad, nor will the majority have the free space to do so. At the moment the 128GB iPad is their highend model. Granted technology advances and at some point 128GB SSDs will be the norm, but I feel that future is nowhere near at reach yet.

Now to be fair, the article states that UHD players would not be able to downscale, but it does not suggest that an approved/legal PC solution could not exist. Perhaps PC software players such as PowerDVD may have a more robust feature that allows more control on resolution and bitrate. If the movie companies are seriously listening to consumers as the article suggests, this is something that needs to be done.

[Smackos]

Just to clarify a bit, here's part of an interview with Dan Schinasi on the subject..

"..it will allow you to take a 1080p copy and store it on the hard drive of your machine or some other local storage, that you can watch anywhere distributed throughout the house. The Ultra HD version of that is currently being worked on but right now it’s HD only on Blu-ray copy, whilst Blu-ray export is a version that you can move to tablets and mobile devices. It’s the best of both worlds with digital extensions."