VUDU Fox UV Status Change Effective 07/11/18

[MachoKing]

Even from the studios that support Movies Anywhere, not all of their titles are MA enabled. . Quite a few are not but are still UV.

[jrod8]

Originally Posted by MachoKing

Even from the studios that support Movies Anywhere, not all of their titles are MA enabled. . Quite a few are not but are still UV.

yeah, that fact is annoying. And the odd anomalies like AIR FORCE ONE that's temporarily in one service, then not, then eligible for m2d but won't show up in search, then suddenly back on iTunes but apparently not MA even though it's Sony

I know have some old WB films from the 30s or so in Vudu/UV that *should* be MA of course but aren't.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by MachoKing

And you just think these Digital HD slips will be included forever? Incredibly short-sighted. Big stores like Best Buy are already making efforts to shrink the amount of physical media they carry. Physical media is essentially on its way out. But yea great reason to want UV to die quickly.

And what does that have to do with UV? If the studios want to get rid of physical releases, they'll to it regardless whether UV continues to hang around or is completely replaced by MA. The difference is that MA codes are much more valuable to me since they don't lock my digital copies into one provider that I don't really want to use.

[MachoKing]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

And what does that have to do with UV? If the studios want to get rid of physical releases, they'll to it regardless whether UV continues to hang around or is completely replaced by MA. The difference is that MA codes are much more valuable to me since they don't lock my digital copies into one provider that I don't really want to use.

You're in the UV section hoping UV dies, because you don't use it and think that needs to happen in order for the other studios to join MA. Sigh. Worried about a very small number of releases that are Vudu only redeems.

What do these Vudu-only redeem slips have to do with UV? You tell me since you think it does. Movies like Death Wish (2018) which is not UV but released with a Vudu only code. There are codes for non-MA titles that only have an iTunes redeem as well. Has nothing to do with UV.

[jrod8]

To be fair, a lot of the Lionsgate digital slips ARE UV only that you're basically forced to get redeemed through Vudu so I don't think Fiffy is off-base or anything. And because Vudu was really the ONLY place to redeem UV codes (mostly - I know Sony has their own site, and others have died over the years) it's also not unfair to kind of conflate UV/Vudu since for a long time it kind of mean the same thing. I don't think anyone is trying to pick a fight with you or anything. Clearly you prefer UV and that's a-ok, speaking for myself I'm just trying to get prepared for when it goes the way of the dodo because that's just what the signs seem to be pointing to regardless of anyone's feelings about it. It's going to be the digital version of Betamax and HD-DVD. It lost. Disney and their marketing power, money, influence, etc won over with MA and it's just a matter of time before the holdouts join in.

[jrod8]

Originally Posted by MachoKing

Anyone with a functioning brain should know this.

YO BRO I tried to be nice but you really should chill out . There's no need to treat anyone like that - in real life or on a forum where everyone's anonymous. Everyone else is having a calm discussion about the pros/cons, their feelings on the matter, etc and you keep coming back here throwing shade on people. The simple fact of the matter is that the marketplace eventually won't sustain two products that are essentially overlapping and MA is already proving itself to be very popular with consumers. Hence, UV is gonna die and MA will be the end product. I'm done with this thread for now, but feel free to back the UV bus up over me again if you feel like it.

[MachoKing]

Originally Posted by jrod8

YO BRO I tried to be nice but you really should chill out . There's no need to treat anyone like that - in real life or on a forum where everyone's anonymous. Everyone else is having a calm discussion about the pros/cons, their feelings on the matter, etc and you keep coming back here throwing shade on people. The simple fact of the matter is that the marketplace eventually won't sustain two products that are essentially overlapping and MA is already proving itself to be very popular with consumers. Hence, UV is gonna die and MA will be the end product. I'm done with this thread for now, but feel free to back the UV bus up over me again if you feel like it.

You had to "try to be nice." Not sure what I said to upset you. It's just the truth.

I was responding to one person who said they "want UV to die" for reasons that 1. They don't use it. 2. Because there are digital copy codes that aren't MA.

And that's the person you decided to side with, says a lot. Selfish, close-minded, and nonsensical reasons for wanting UV to die. As I already said, UV does not need to die for studios to join MA.

If UV eventually goes away, so be it. Why would I want it to die though? That's just silly.

[Fiffy]

Originally Posted by MachoKing

What do these Vudu-only redeem slips have to do with UV?

I'm talking about UV-only codes. There are still new releases that come with such codes (Lionsgate and titles from smaller studios like STX), but more importantly a huge number of older releases. Before MA came along, a large share of BD releases came only with UV codes that had limited value for anyone who preferred other providers than Vudu (which, according to EST market share numbers, is a sizeable majority of users). I'm glad those times are coming to an end. In my view the lack of support by the big providers that most people actually use was always UV's biggest flaw.

[echopulse]

Nobody wants UV to "die" from what I read. We just want the remaining studios and retailers to join MA to make it a better system, where everyone can have all of their movies, and TV shows in a single system, so they don't lose them when a provider shuts down. UV shutting down might be a side-effect of that happening, but we don't want that to happen until after MA adds the missing features that UV has, like TV shows, better management, and hopefully it's own disc to digital program. We should put pressure on VUDU to develop it's own sharing feature as well. The writing is on the wall as far as UV being a long term system. It was a great idea, but they just couldn't get the players to co-operate to really build it up to what it needed to be to sustain itself. They are literally down to two streaming providers, and two studios, who haven't even had many blockbusters in the last few years. Paramount and Lionsgate combined hasn't even hit double digits for marketshare this year, and last year Paramount didn't even hit 5%. Pathetic!

[crackedknee]

Originally Posted by echopulse

Nobody wants UV to "die" from what I read. We just want the remaining studios and retailers to join MA to make it a better system, where everyone can have all of their movies, and TV shows in a single system, so they don't lose them when a provider shuts down. UV shutting down might be a side-effect of that happening, but we don't want that to happen until after MA adds the missing features that UV has, like TV shows, better management, and hopefully it's own disc to digital program. We should put pressure on VUDU to develop it's own sharing feature as well. The writing is on the wall as far as UV being a long term system. It was a great idea, but they just couldn't get the players to co-operate to really build it up to what it needed to be to sustain itself. They are literally down to two streaming providers, and two studios, who haven't even had many blockbusters in the last few years. Paramount and Lionsgate combined hasn't even hit double digits for marketshare this year, and last year Paramount didn't even hit 5%. Pathetic!

If they couldn't cooperate efficiently with UV, why would they with MA? With current MA problems (and no UHD in MD), I don't see any signs of any "better management" given the complaints about MA.

There is no reasoning here, only one financial entity (led by Disney) attempting to dominate this side of the market and end another (and previous) system.

It's not about service for the customer, period. It's about what can the market bear (or how little service can the market bear) vs complaints/usage etc. The MA system represents what they view as greater income generation.

UV worked fine (with glitches, yes, but not more than MA), if/when it was being supported. In fact it works now. So that might change to a new system, that's fine, why not? And yes, maybe Vudu could add a sharing system like profiles in MA, but that we supposedly had with Vudu with their UV sharing system (maybe in the end, Vudu is to blame for all of this; this form of sharing eventually irked enough studios that they jumped the UV ship)

MA does have the advantage of more services (Amazon, GP, MA, Vudu, FN) now, with UV down to Vudu and FN (mainly), and invitations to UV share long gone. It would be nice to get TV into MA in some way.

But ultimately it boils down to the real question: do people feel that their collections are stable and secure? If there's a change (e.g. UV to MA) will people retain their collection? Or does existence of both make people feel more secure about their collection?

[crackedknee]

Here's an interesting note regarding UV:
I had one Fox code that I had forgotten, Birth of a Nation. I entered it in while UV was still active for it, used Vudu.

Movie ended up in my UV locker and sub-accounts (friends/family). And in fact is still in my UV locker now (with all other Fox).

And when I load my UV list in FN, that movie pops up there, and has the UV listing. So Vudu was compelled to drop UV from those Fox titles. But Fox, apparently, still has licencing contracts in place that maintains their (previously) UV titles in the UV system.

[echopulse]

You left out Apple. There are 800 million iTunes account holders. That's 4 major retailers and two minor ones once Microsoft Movies joins. UV management was never able to convince them that their system was good enough. But Disney did it in two years, and convinced 4 major studios as well. I'd say that their management success is well documented.

[steve_dave]

Originally Posted by crackedknee

Here's an interesting note regarding UV:
I had one Fox code that I had forgotten, Birth of a Nation. I entered it in while UV was still active for it, used Vudu.

Movie ended up in my UV locker and sub-accounts (friends/family). And in fact is still in my UV locker now (with all other Fox).

And when I load my UV list in FN, that movie pops up there, and has the UV listing. So Vudu was compelled to drop UV from those Fox titles. But Fox, apparently, still has licencing contracts in place that maintains their (previously) UV titles in the UV system.

When a movie loses UV status, as long you own it before the loss, you still keep Uv rights. This happened with Relativity titles like The November Man.

A studio can have movies removed completely from Ultraviolet and Ultraviolet libraries as was done when MA first launched. However, its easier to just leave it as be. I bought Roman J. Israel UHD from FandangoNow before they joined MA and it still resides in my UV account and subaccounts.

[1blufan]

What a frustrating thread filled with comments that are just not true at all. Enjoy your back and forth.

[crackedknee]

Originally Posted by steve_dave

When a movie loses UV status, as long you own it before the loss, you still keep Uv rights. This happened with Relativity titles like The November Man.

A studio can have movies removed completely from Ultraviolet and Ultraviolet libraries as was done when MA first launched. However, its easier to just leave it as be. I bought Roman J. Israel UHD from FandangoNow before they joined MA and it still resides in my UV account and subaccounts.

Yeah, there were a few Relativity titles like that when they wend under.

I agree, it will infuriate too many users if they were to drop items from UV lockers, and easier, less hassle to leave it as is.

A very few items that I had that were UV and had UV dropped still exist in Vudu sub-accounts as owned. And Vudu took over most (all?) of the Flixster only UV items after its demise, so there was some effort, at least, to maintain titles people had already bought/owned.