UltraViolet Shutting Down on July 31, 2019

[18xwn]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

Yeah, I have several UV titles in FandangoNow that either had UHD or HD status, but has now been overwritten as HD or SD by MA.

I'm not reconnecting MA back until they finish their transition.

Looks like it finally happened, just checked my FandangoNow App out of habit and refreshed and my Ultraviolet section disappeared, I checked in my main library and most of my Ultraviolet movies have now been added to the main library but some glaring, but not surprising, omissions include the titles that were previously unplayable because they weren't matching up properly with the FandangoNow store version.

[sea2000]

I just looked. The UV page is gone, but almost all my UV movies did not make it to my FandangoNow Library page. However, when I search for the movies, I'm shown as owning them on their pages. Very irritating.

[18xwn]

Originally Posted by sea2000

I just looked. The UV page is gone, but almost all my UV movies did not make it to my FandangoNow Library page. However, when I search for the movies, I'm shown as owning them on their pages. Very irritating.

At least you can still play them. I have missing movies and when I look them up in search, it asks me to repurchase, even though previously they already showed me owning them. After countless attempts to get a hold of FandangoNow support, I finally got a very rude rep who told me some nonsense about licensing expiring and theres nothing you can do anymore because you would have had to contact UV prior to July 31st. I informed him that my movies played just fine prior to them moving to the main library section, so there was absolutely no need to Contact UV since this was now on Fandango to sort out. And he just flat out tells me oh well theres nothing they can do about it now, because the movies weren't purchased through Fandango and they do not delete movies, so if I don't see one in my library anymore its because they don't have a license for it and its gone, good day. So then I had to try their online chat which, and they created a ticket and say they'll reach out via email in the next few days.

[sea2000]

Originally Posted by 18xwn

At least you can still play them. I have missing movies and when I look them up in search, it asks me to repurchase, even though previously they already showed me owning them. After countless attempts to get a hold of FandangoNow support, I finally got a very rude rep who told me some nonsense about licensing expiring and theres nothing you can do anymore because you would have had to contact UV prior to July 31st. I informed him that my movies played just fine prior to them moving to the main library section, so there was absolutely no need to Contact UV since this was now on Fandango to sort out. And he just flat out tells me oh well theres nothing they can do about it now, because the movies weren't purchased through Fandango and they do not delete movies, so if I don't see one in my library anymore its because they don't have a license for it and its gone, good day. So then I had to try their online chat which, and they created a ticket and say they'll reach out via email in the next few days.

That's terrible. I've only gotten run-arounds from their live chat in the past, so I'm not holding my breath this time.

This latest rep asked me to take a survey after the chat. I told her I wanted to wait until I could confirm they had fixed the problem!

[18xwn]

Originally Posted by sea2000

That's terrible. I've only gotten run-arounds from their live chat in the past, so I'm not holding my breath this time.

This latest rep asked me to take a survey after the chat. I told her I wanted to wait until I could confirm they had fixed the problem!

I've gotten the run around from all their contact support channels, phone, chat or email. I'm not holding my breath either, but I am going to continue harassing them, sending email after email until they find it so annoying they'd rather just solve my problem once and for all. I always take their surveys, to leave honest reviews of my dissatisfaction so they know they've got to do better.

[DaBargainHunta]

FandangoNow is hot garbage and won't be around in five years IMO, so stressing about about their abysmal customer service and even worse UV support is like tilting at windmills. With that said, I completely understand the aggravation. I'm going to spare myself from it though and not even check which UV movies of mine transferred and which didn't, because half of them never worked on FN in the first place.

[18xwn]

Originally Posted by DaBargainHunta

FandangoNow is hot garbage and won't be around in five years IMO, so stressing about about their abysmal customer service and even worse UV support is like tilting at windmills. With that said, I completely understand the aggravation. I'm going to spare myself from it though and not even check which UV movies of mine transferred and which didn't, because half of them never worked on FN in the first place.

I agree, Fandango is no longer a top contender (if they ever were). Their recent changes are too little too late, like sorting which is only in the mobile app, and still limited to only alphabetical, which is even more of a headache, considering some times include the A or The in the title sorting, so they're not where you would expect to look for them.

I don't know anyone who still uses Fandango to buy movie tickets, and the only other thing FN had going for it was the fact that it was the only other major UV retailer still in service apart from the Far Superior Vudu. now that UV is dead, they've lost that advantage.

My only reasoning for wanting all my UV movies on FN is wanting them in as many places as possible for instances like this where a service shuts down and for the rare instance when Vudu is down.

I think the only reason FN still exists is the fact that it Is a MA retailer. So if someone has a Fandango Coupon or FN has a sale, or in some cases someone wants the 4K version of a title available exclusively on FN, then FN is an option simply for purchasing. but I doubt many people actually watch the movie on FN, simply a means to transfer in movie to MA. previously with UV, UV titles would have this same benefit, with movies flowing into Vudu at least.

I do believe that out of all of the MA retailers, if any, FN will be the first to go, unless they make big changes Fast!

[spider-neil]

Ultraviolet an utter waste of everyone's time.
I didn't bother redeeming one UV voucher. If the vouchers in Blu rays was iTunes rather than UV my iTunes library would probably number in the thousands by now.
As it is I bought Blu rays and iTunes copies of the same movie because I knew UV woould be a waste of time.

[ocdtrekkie]

Originally Posted by spider-neil

Ultraviolet an utter waste of everyone's time.
I didn't bother redeeming one UV voucher. If the vouchers in Blu rays was iTunes rather than UV my iTunes library would probably number in the thousands by now.
As it is I bought Blu rays and iTunes copies of the same movie because I knew UV woould be a waste of time.

Since most of my UV copies synced to iTunes via Movies Anywhere, my guess is you literally set a very large pile of money on fire.

[The_Donster]

Yep, I just redeem UV in either MA or VUDU, depending on the studio, and they port to my other services.

[18xwn]

Originally Posted by ocdtrekkie

Since most of my UV copies synced to iTunes via Movies Anywhere, my guess is you literally set a very large pile of money on fire.

You're forgetting though, that Ultraviolet has been in place since 2011 and at the time was hailed as Hollywoods digital movie rights holder by most studios besides Disney.

In the case of some studios, mainly Sony and Warner, once they adopted UV, they did away with including an iTunes code/file. meaning for the time between 2011 and 2017 (when MA launched), movies that included a UV file, but not an iTunes one, had no way of giving you an iTunes copy of the film, without you purchasing through iTunes separately.

Being that UV was seen as the future back then, there was no way to anticipate other studios joining Disneys bandwagon instead. not to mention, some studios still don't support MA, and not all of their titles come with iTunes digital copies.

[ocdtrekkie]

Originally Posted by 18xwn

Being that UV was seen as the future back then, there was no way to anticipate other studios joining Disneys bandwagon instead. not to mention, some studios still don't support MA, and not all of their titles come with iTunes digital copies.

Since there's no way to know the future: Your best case is to redeem everything you can for free on whenever you can. And then someday discover how handy that ended up being.

[dublinbluray108]

There appears to be some confirmation from WB Digital Support that the transfer of people's digital libraries from Flixster Video to Google Play has not gone smoothly. WB Digital Support have been sending support ticket replies to people to say that there was regret in not having titles which remain unavailable for migration from Flixster Video to Google Play in which they said is down to a 'technical problem'.

If you are hearing or reading this reply from them; you would probably agree with my own thinking that it is a official stock reply coming out from the people who run the service in WB. The good news from WB's point of view is that it won't mean people's titles would disappear for good or eventually get taken away from this migration process. WB have said that they will rectify this 'technical problem' by way of an email which is sent to people's email addresses linked with Flixster Video. That email would outline the titles available to you for migration to Google Play once the issue is completely fixed.

Here's that stock reply from someone that I copied off Disqus which had outlined this technical issue.

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out.

We regret that some titles in your Flixster Video collection are not available for migration to Google Play.

We have had some technical problems with some titles listed below in your collection that are listed as unavailable, and we are currently working on making these titles available for migration to Google Play and fixing any related technical issues. We will provide you a notice by E-mail when these additional titles become available for migration, so that you can return to your collection and migrate them to Google Play. Please stay tuned.

Thank you.

I got a smaller stock reply from WB Digital Support 8 days ago in which they said they are researching the issue, about my two Flixster Video titles not porting over to Google Play, that I had reported through my support ticket to them. They said they will contact me soon with further support with a thank you note attached.

What do you think of this reply from them. Will all of that work be doable by December 18th?

[sea2000]

Originally Posted by sea2000

I just looked. The UV page is gone, but almost all my UV movies did not make it to my FandangoNow Library page. However, when I search for the movies, I'm shown as owning them on their pages. Very irritating.

To give FandangoNow some credit: I had to do some of the work -- give them a list of the UV movies they didn't put in my library -- but they did manage to add them. All, that is, except for "The Brothers Bloom," which apparently they don't have in their system.

[Alan Gordon]

So, before the UV shutdown, I connected three U.S. UV accounts to Flixster Video.

Primarily, I did this so that I could have yet another backup of my collection in case something got deleted during the shutdown, and in the hope that one specific title in my UV account stuck in SD in my MA account could somehow be redeemed on my U.S. Google account and port to my MA account.

This one New Line title is not (currently) migrateable from Flixster Video Canada, or the U.K., but I had heard that all titles redeemed in HD, even when you owned SD in UV, so I tried redeeming the one migratable SD title ("Blow") I owned available to migrate in Canada, and instead of upgrading my SD copy in Google Play to HD and port out to MA as such, it added a second HD copy that is apparently not MA enabled.


Since MA does not currently support TV content, I also planned on redeeming any TV content for backup as well. I haven't finished all this yet, but I did do MOST of my HBO content, and found that any show (not just HBO) I redeemed (so far) seemed to add a secondary listing in my TV content (I owned several first episodes of some of the shows I redeemed). "True Blood" however was the most frustrating as some of the shows redeemed as episodes of "The Complete Series" and others redeemed as episodes from their respective seasons.

It'll be nice having some of this content in another place, but I'm definitely making a mess of my GP library.

[AZBrowncoat]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

It'll be nice having some of this content in another place, but I'm definitely making a mess of my GP library.

The Flixster/GPlay migration has been a total cluster....

Only half of batman (1966) Season 2 imported for me, so I have S1, 1/2 of S2 + S3

[J.P. Samson]

Originally Posted by Alan Gordon

This one New Line title is not (currently) migrateable from Flixster Video Canada, or the U.K., but I had heard that all titles redeemed in HD, even when you owned SD in UV, so I tried redeeming the one migratable SD title ("Blow") I owned available to migrate in Canada, and instead of upgrading my SD copy in Google Play to HD and port out to MA as such, it added a second HD copy that is apparently not MA enabled.

I'd guess that Blow has a different distributor in Canada versus the U.S., so that means there are different country-specific versions of the film in Google Play.

Google Play, in the movie information, will explicitly state whether it ports to Movies Anywhere. If that information is missing, then it won't port.

JP

[Melgar]

Originally Posted by AZBrowncoat

The Flixster/GPlay migration has been a total cluster....

Only half of batman (1966) Season 2 imported for me, so I have S1, 1/2 of S2 + S3

All 60 of my season 2 episodes migrated, however on Google Play some are found in "Season 2 Part 1", some are in "Season 2 Part 2", and some are in "Complete Series".

Season 2 Part 1 (17 season 2 episodes)
Season 2 Part 2 (16 season 2 episodes)
Complete Series (27 season 2 episodes)

[dublinbluray108]

I got an update from WB Digital support. They replied to my support ticket that the issues with my two missing titles that I asked to redeem again had apparently been resolved in my Flixster Video account.

Here is what happened.

The Monuments Men got redeemed in Google Play without issue tonight. Hooray. At long last!

Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters has not been available to be redeemed yet. No explanation was available in their reply as to why it was not there to be redeemed in my Google Play account. I had no choice now but to send another reply to WB DS asking whether they do have the streaming rights to this movie. I will be waiting to see what will happen with this outcome.

I thought the reply back was pretty poor tbh with the way they constructed it. Here is what they said to me.

Hi,

We have some news regarding your Flixster video account!

Thank you for your patience as we worked to resolve the issues with migrating your Flixster Video collection to Google Play. We were able to resolve many of the issues so you can now move your collection to Google Play. So please log back into your Flixster account and migrate any videos that you were unable to previously.

Thank you.

The Flixster Video team

(CS name omitted)

Is anyone else getting similar replies? What is your opinion on it?

[AZBrowncoat]

Originally Posted by Melgar

All 60 of my season 2 episodes migrated, however on Google Play some are found in "Season 2 Part 1", some are in "Season 2 Part 2", and some are in "Complete Series".

Season 2 Part 1 (17 season 2 episodes)
Season 2 Part 2 (16 season 2 episodes)
Complete Series (27 season 2 episodes)

Thank you, thank you! ...I think this is what happened to me as well.

Wonder if you contact GPlay if they will fix it?