Which Studios have Signed up to UltraViolet?
This is the good news! Usually when these sort of devices become available, you find that one company goes in one direction while everyone else goes the other. Take Blu-ray and HD-DVD for example; Sony went to Blu-ray while Toshiba wanted the HD-DVD option. In the end we all know Sony won that battle when Toshiba dropped out but with UV, pretty much all he major studios including Warner Bros., Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, NBC – Universal and Sony Pictures have all become part of the huge list of companies pushing this forward. A full list of them can be seen on the UV website. You’ll also see a list there which includes many of the world’s leading hardware manufacturers which is also a good sign for the longevity of the system.
Now I said, most, you may notice that a certain mouse-eared company is missing from the list. Disney have decided that they want to invest in their own form of digital content delivery service and have created something called Keychest. It’s currently in development and little is know about it. I’ve asked Disney for more information on the product and as yet they’re unable to give me anything as it’s all under wraps but Wikipedia give us a little more info which makes it look very similar to that of UltraViolet and was announced 12 months after UV:
Keychest is a video-on-demand (VOD) service currently under development by The Walt Disney Company, with a goal of providing digital media to customers through any internet-enabled device. It was announced October 21, 2009, but currently, there is no release date set.
It may end up competing for service with the “UltraViolet” system from the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem group that was announced nearly a year before Keychest.
Architecture
A server allows streaming access to the content, using a similar cloud computing concept to Google Apps and Zoho Office. Purchasing content, either online or through physical media, creates a unique key stored in a digital rights locker that unlocks the ability to stream the content to any electronic device capable of playing it. Because the actual content remains on the servers as opposed to being downloaded and played locally, the manufacturers retain control of access to the files.
Piracy Prevention
This is the big question for the studios and all these video on demand devices will rely on the security of their assets be paramount. Earlier today, I signed up to the UV website and the password I had to choose was rather extensive and took me 4 or 5 attempts before I found one that suited the system.
The Perks of UltraViolet
After signing up to UltraViolet, I was astonished to see that I am able to add 5 extra people to my account. This means they are able to stream the movies that I have in my account to their devices! How cool is that! Never thought I’d see the day when we could legally share movies, especially across the internet.
Furthermore, when setting up the accounts, you are able to set them up using specific ratings from the British Board of Film Classification.Say for example you want to add your 12 year old son to your account but you’re worried about him watching anything over a 12a rated movie, fear not as you can lock his account down to anything 12a rated or below. Lovely!
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