Ultraviolet digital movie service shutting down.
- Thread starter Flibster
- Start date
Caporegime
I remember when that was being touted as the future of home movie collections. What happened there?
Commissario
I think what happened was that it cost money to maintain, and none of the companies involved wanted to pay for that past the initial marketing period.
IIRC Flikster who were one of the companies that supplied the end user streaming separated into two parts, a rental service and the remnent (presumably unfunded) UV streaming, a couple of the other companies providing the service also shut down/limited what they were doing.
I gave up with Flikster when their service kept deciding my password was invalid (quite how, when after the second time I was cut and pasting from a text file), then on about the 5th time it would send me a password reset link to my email, which would work to bring up the password reset screen, but then give an error code about the account not existing...
I spent about a month and something like a dozen messages to their support which I'm not sure actually involved a human, or at least one that was reading the messages (they kept directing me to the password reset, despite the fact I stated clearly what the problem was and the full error code/message), before giving up on it.
It's one of the key reasons I still buy physical media, it means I'm not losing access to my purchases because a company goes bust, or decides to shut down part of it's services (IIRC Itunes has "lost the rights" to some films, and looks like they didn't get a contract that allowed them to keep providing access to people that "bought" the films rather than renting them so have when pushed offered a rental voucher for another film for each one people lost access to).
IIRC Flikster who were one of the companies that supplied the end user streaming separated into two parts, a rental service and the remnent (presumably unfunded) UV streaming, a couple of the other companies providing the service also shut down/limited what they were doing.
I gave up with Flikster when their service kept deciding my password was invalid (quite how, when after the second time I was cut and pasting from a text file), then on about the 5th time it would send me a password reset link to my email, which would work to bring up the password reset screen, but then give an error code about the account not existing...
I spent about a month and something like a dozen messages to their support which I'm not sure actually involved a human, or at least one that was reading the messages (they kept directing me to the password reset, despite the fact I stated clearly what the problem was and the full error code/message), before giving up on it.
It's one of the key reasons I still buy physical media, it means I'm not losing access to my purchases because a company goes bust, or decides to shut down part of it's services (IIRC Itunes has "lost the rights" to some films, and looks like they didn't get a contract that allowed them to keep providing access to people that "bought" the films rather than renting them so have when pushed offered a rental voucher for another film for each one people lost access to).
Man of Honour
Just got a email from Flixster that they are closing down on 31st October 2019 but your collection can be migrated to Google Play with some exceptions. More details will follow in July. I am not particularly happy that Google is just about the only choice left and how long Google will keep them going is anybodies guess as these services seem to be drying up fast. I am so glad that my collection are just digital copies of actual discs that I own and not my only film library.
Caporegime
And people think I'm weird with my physical collection
Commissario
Yup
It's one of the two primary reasons I like my physical collection and try to keep a "local" copy of anything I have in the "cloud".
Between services shutting down and the times when the service or internet connection is down I don't like the idea of paying for digital services for films/tv/music without a backup I can access when they go.
Add to that, streaming service changing what they have available weekly due to licensing agreements and even worse, things being pulled in order to put them on the companies own stream service *cough* Disney *cough*... Just because it's available to stream this week, doesn't mean it will be next week.
Disney launching their own service for the family friendly things and using (now Disney owned) Fox owned Hulu for the more adult orientated things is a interesting possibility. Shame Hulu is currently unavailable outside the US. What's the betting that Disney's own service won't be available outside the US too? So them pulling all their IP from Netflix is really going to limit the audience.
Soldato
UV is shutting down as Movies Anywhere in the US has made the service obsolete.
Flixster has it's migration system up and running to move your collections over to Google Play
I've got some weird things going on. Generally everything is going across except a couple of movies and oddly, 4 episodes of Breaking Bad, 3 from season 5 and 1 from season 4. Other episodes went through fine...
I've got some weird things going on. Generally everything is going across except a couple of movies and oddly, 4 episodes of Breaking Bad, 3 from season 5 and 1 from season 4. Other episodes went through fine...
Commissario
I, and several others seem to have the same issue with the BB sets, did you have the individual seasons or the complete series?
At the moment it seems like there are some glitches, as I've seen someone with the exact same set I've got report they got all the episodes, whilst others are reporting the same problem.
It also only transferred 1 of the 4 Madmax films from the anthology set.
I feel sorry for the people that have huge collections as you have to do it one title at a time, and there is a guy on another forum with something like 2000 in his collection (even at 1 every 30 seconds that's about 17 hours solid.
At the moment it seems like there are some glitches, as I've seen someone with the exact same set I've got report they got all the episodes, whilst others are reporting the same problem.
It also only transferred 1 of the 4 Madmax films from the anthology set.
I feel sorry for the people that have huge collections as you have to do it one title at a time, and there is a guy on another forum with something like 2000 in his collection (even at 1 every 30 seconds that's about 17 hours solid.
Good i despise ultraviolet all it was is an overselling scam. So i have this new 4k movie you want, But guess what? I am not going to let you buy it unless you fork over some extra for the Bluray, And the ultraviolet.
Hopefully this kickstarts a change i am throwing out all my ultraviolet and casing i basically take out the 4k UHD disc and put the rest in the black bin for landfill.
Hopefully this kickstarts a change i am throwing out all my ultraviolet and casing i basically take out the 4k UHD disc and put the rest in the black bin for landfill.
Caporegime
I had already linked Movies Anywhere to my Google account and just linked Flixtser and now I have two copies of most movies but no way to delete the duplicates 
Commissario
Re the Blu-ray disk included with the 4k ones, I've seen it mentioned by people in the industry that the BD with 4k, or DVD with BD was actually cheaper to do, and favoured by retailers than doing two stock items, and often preferred by buyers when asked.
Basically it costs money to run two stock items of the same basic product, both in managing the stocks (SKU's, ordering replacements, replication of different packages) and simply transporting them (then shelf space etc), so retailers would really rather one item that will sell regardless of what the buyer has in terms of hardware than two or more.
There is/was also the argument that people liked having the best version to watch on their main TV, but also like being able to play it on their older sets (say the bedroom, or the kids room).
Sadly yes cheaper for them and more expensive for me and the earth. I know i am in a minority when i say i only want the best copy, So thats a UHD but i want the option to buy it in a enviromentally friendly and degradable packaging. Im basically being forced to buy ultraviolet bluray and packaging because its some kind of money saver and job loss preventer. Exactly the opposite of where it should be going.
I have the complete Blu-ray boxset (the one in the tin), same problem as others with some episodes being split off (rather than full seasons) and showing as not available on Google Play. 3 random episodes in Season 5 apparently can't be redeemed...that's helpful.
Commissario
Aye same here, I think most of the update happened about a week ago at least for the TV stuff, so hopefully everything is done now
The only annoyance is that the googleplay versions of everything seem to be SD.
The only annoyance is that the googleplay versions of everything seem to be SD.
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Soldato
Aye same here, I think most of the update happened about a week ago at least for the TV stuff, so hopefully everything is done now
The only annoyance is, that the googleplay versions of everything seem to be SD.
On my Android TV the picture is better than 1080p. More like 4K HDR
Commissario
ah in that case i'll have to try it on the TV app
I was going by what it's shown when I was running it in the browser (where it was playing at something less than 720p).
I was going by what it's shown when I was running it in the browser (where it was playing at something less than 720p).