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What can UltraViolet do to compete with iTunes and DMA? (1 Viewer)

Walter-S_NC

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justinNeal said:
You can use iTunes on any PC and stream that to a TV, allowing iTunes playback on more than just Apple TVs and iOS devices....

Disney has pretty heavily alligned themselves with Apple as well, and when it comes to home video, Disney is a big time player. It makes sense that companies don't want to align themselves with only one company, that's just a poor business decision....but comparing to the logo's on the box at the video store is not the only comparison...I don't purchase physical discs anymore, I just buy movies directly on iTunes (or buy codes on the forum) therefor I don't care which copy the disc comes with, I'm buying mine straight digital. I've yet to see a new movie I can't buy on iTunes...in fact, many new movies are available on iTunes weeks before they hit the shelf.

I don't know that Apple needs to have the majority market share...while they would like it, they are more heavily supported by longterm, full blown Apple customers (I have an iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro, Apple TV, etc) and love the fact that everything is right there tied together on all my devices. I know not everyone is an Apple fan, and that's fine, I don't expect them to be...but I also don't consider Apple out of the game, especially on the digital media front.
I have an iPhone 5s. In am writing this on an iPad. I also have an AppleTV at home. My wife has two Mac books, an iPhone and an iPad. My two sons both tote around repurposed iPhone 4's used as iPods and my youngest has an iPad mini.

Cupertino slick is no doubt a value add.

However, if I were to have my library in iTunes, it would of cost me a fortune. Using D2D, it cost a fraction.

LINK:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1usgZis7-4FBDAfbZynroRIqPwDyHEgQ3fBgEXFUekzo/edit?usp=sharing
 

Sam Posten

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I thought we already established that title availability is a vapid metric? Good going, you have movies encoded digitally that are not going to sell in volume on expensive plastic platters but can easily and cheaply be put up on existing, wordlwide plethora of services where it doesn't matter if you sell 1 copy or a billion. What matters is sales and nobody is giving concrete numbers on that.
 

Walter-S_NC

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It does matter. I respectfully disagree.I remember going to Walt Disney World as a child. A new technology was introduced called Laser Disc. Something the size of an LP contained a movie.I went home, waiting for the new technology. It was released, but few titles were ever available.How you can summarily dismiss 12k titles available in a format is beyond me.
 

justinNeal

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I would love if someday they would offer a couple dollar per movie convert your disc to iTunes offer.....I patiently and optimistically await...
 

justinNeal

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Hell, I would just like one device that let's me play from all of my sources (iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, etc).....

It is very annoying you have to choose which provider you are going to go with, and just try and stick with that rather than to just have an open medium of digital videos....
 

Sam Posten

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Walter-S_NC said:
How you can summarily dismiss 12k titles available in a format is beyond me.
It's nice. It doesn't differentiate between digital storefronts tho. It's not going to convince new subscribers that one system is any better than another. Most people are going to watch a couple hundred movies a year max, often much less. Having 12000 is just noise at that level, making discovery even harder.

http://www.experian.com/blogs/marketing-forward/2010/02/20/2010-american-movie-goer-consumer-report/
http://mashable.com/2011/06/15/nielsen-video-study/
 

Walter-S_NC

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Thx for the links.I believe the goal is to have every movie ever made available from your fingertips from any TV in your home or mobile device and kept in pristine quality for perpetuity.I do not know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.Long term, the foundation set by DECE is clearly going to be the tide that lifts all boats as acceptance of streamed media continues to replace physical media. iTunes just does not have the breath & scope necessary.So to the thread topic, ten years from now IMHO, iTunes will be a foot note and end up in business school marketing text books as a case study on how a company let a market evaporate in front of their eyes while they stood blinded by arrogance. Mean while, the Nustar data store run by the vendor agnostic DECE consortium is where we will retain out title libraries.
 

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I know I missed a good portion of the discussion, but I just wanted to post a few studies that clearly demonstrate the popularity, and superiority of the UV ecosystem.

82% of UV users are satisfied with the experience.

70% of users will continue to buy UV titles

Even 78% indicate that the registration process was easy!

60% of users who hadn't signed up said they would be interested in the UV service.

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/the-npd-group-early-consumer-reviews-of-ultraviolet-video-system-%20are-positive/

50% of UV users have bought a movie digitally, compared with 11% of the general population.

14% of EST purchases are made by UV users. (This needs to increase, but it suggests it is growing rapidly since 2 years ago.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/research/npd-ultraviolet-users-buy-more-digital-content-33908

61% of UV users have veiwed their UV movies on a Smart TV or box like a Roku or Gamin system, so UV is not just for mobile devices.

This survey, taken a year later than the first one I mentioned says that 90% of UV users are satisfied with the experience, and 82% plan to continue to add titles to their library.

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/npd-cloud-based-ultraviolet-enabling-broader-device-interoperability-for-digital-movies/

What all this says to me is that the UV system will continue to grow, that it will not be a niche product for much longer and that soon everyone will be buying movies electronically. Right now, consumer awareness is still pretty low. Soon, Amazon will launch UV capability, the CFF will be rolled out, and the advertising campaign will start, . That will be what they consider a hard launch, and then as consumer awareness increases, so will the adoption rate. I predict there will be 35-40 million users by the end of 2015. At that point, Disney will finally join DECE.

And by the way, Walter, Welcome to the HTF. I have missed your posts on the vudu forum.
I guess you know who I am!
 

Ejanss

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Walter-S_NC said:
I believe the goal is to have every movie ever made available from your fingertips from any TV in your home or mobile device and kept in pristine quality for perpetuity.I do not know about you, but that sounds pretty good to me.
Would sound good to me too, if it worked.
Problem is, those on Netflix and Warner Instant Archive are having a little problem right now with the "In perpetuity" part. Also working the bugs out of the "Every movie ever made" part, especially with neurotic studios' tunnel-visioned ideas about customer back-catalog interest.
As far as "Every mobile device", they're working on that one, too.
 

Joshua Clinard

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Sam Posten said:
My dream is even deeper, Justin. A universal, consumer friendly system that allows your purchases to follow you between devices and doesn't tattle on you to marketers. Unfortunately that ain't whats on offer. From anyone.
That is the goal of UltraViolet, Sam. It's not quite there yet, but it's getting closer. It will happen eventually.
 

t2smith

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I am happy with UltraViolet and especially like the ability to share with other users. Vudu is the main reason I like it since it is available on the Roku and every Blu-ray player I own. Without Vudu, it wouldn't be as good since many other services don't have as high a quality of HD or make as much content available in HD as Vudu does. As for iTunes movies, I have nothing in my house right now that allows me to watch them on my HD televisions. I also doubt that I can watch them on my Android phone, but haven't checked into it. My one complaint is that the Vudu app won't install on my version of Android, but an easy work around was installing Flixster on my phone which gives me access to all my UV movies except for one.
 

Walter-S_NC

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justinNeal said:
Depends where the money is at...,better doesn't always equal what prevails.
You are correct.What matters is the people making the content are in the DECE camp. The rest will sort itself out.
 

Sam Posten

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You seem to be stuck on DECE. What's up with that? The past is littered with trade groups who failed and whose products didn't align with what consumers actually wanted. What is so magical about these guys for you? So far they haven't been bastions of consumer joy.
 

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I Think Apple has just, kinda missed the boat on this one. Lets face it, most of the UV stores are pretty lousy. Vudu is a huge step up from the others but, a well known storefront like itunes could have creamed the competition and owned the digital market till doomsday. Itunes could be in every home in america, instead they continue to lose market share trying to keep everyone within their walls.
I predict Apple will join DECE, just like they eventually made large screen phones and eventually adopted NFC, they will just be the last to do it, which is how they have operated the last few years.
 

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I don't think "Apple is doing it wrong"....but consumers aren't always big on jumping on new ideas. I think digital copies of movies is a hard pill for a LOT of people to swallow. in the first few years of itunes, I think it was a pretty narrow customer base, but I'd say now a days they do just fine.

Another trick about Apple, they do things late sometimes, but they tend to do them really really well. The NFC, other companies had tried to implement NFC and it's just never caught on that well. They've tried digital pay systems and they never caught on....but look at Apple Pay. I'm not saying it'll last, or be the eventual best, but look at EVERYONE backing it. They got tons of banks and businesses on board, so when they launched it wasn't a half-way attempt that sucked and people forgot about. I don't think enough people are ready to switch to just an on demand system for their home entertainment.

Forums are also a tricky place for this info. Everyone using a Vudu forum probably really likes and uses Vudu, so bam, it looks like everyone loves it (and they all do). But take a random sampling off the street, or in Best Buy, or at your Thanksgiving dinner, and unless you've really helped out your family in learning about technology, I'm going to guess most people there won't know what you're talking about....
 

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justinNeal said:
I don't think "Apple is doing it wrong"....but consumers aren't always big on jumping on new ideas. I think digital copies of movies is a hard pill for a LOT of people to swallow. in the first few years of itunes, I think it was a pretty narrow customer base, but I'd say now a days they do just fine.

Another trick about Apple, they do things late sometimes, but they tend to do them really really well. The NFC, other companies had tried to implement NFC and it's just never caught on that well. They've tried digital pay systems and they never caught on....but look at Apple Pay. I'm not saying it'll last, or be the eventual best, but look at EVERYONE backing it. They got tons of banks and businesses on board, so when they launched it wasn't a half-way attempt that sucked and people forgot about. I don't think enough people are ready to switch to just an on demand system for their home entertainment.

Forums are also a tricky place for this info. Everyone using a Vudu forum probably really likes and uses Vudu, so bam, it looks like everyone loves it (and they all do). But take a random sampling off the street, or in Best Buy, or at your Thanksgiving dinner, and unless you've really helped out your family in learning about technology, I'm going to guess most people there won't know what you're talking about....


Having everybody unified with NFC will certainly help get things moving but so you understand, the 200 and some thousand Apple pay locations they are getting set up, are already set up.....as Google wallet locations, makes it easy. Stores are being required to change their swipe machines next year and they will go ahead and get set up for Google wallet and Apple pay at the same time. Having Apple join the NFC movement just makes it easier to implement what was coming anyway by government mandate for chip and pin.
 

Todd Erwin

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One thing I've noticed that is particularly annoying/confusing is where Warner provides UV codes on their TV titles, but it seems that the only UV retailer that has those titles in their library (as UV-enabled) is Flixster, even though that series *may* be available on Vudu or CinemaNow. What is worse, is that I tried to Chromecast from Flixster episodes of Falling Skies, only to be told that "casting has been disabled for this title." Huh? What is the point of that, then?
 

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Todd Erwin said:
One thing I've noticed that is particularly annoying/confusing is where Warner provides UV codes on their TV titles, but it seems that the only UV retailer that has those titles in their library (as UV-enabled) is Flixster, even though that series *may* be available on Vudu or CinemaNow. What is worse, is that I tried to Chromecast from Flixster episodes of Falling Skies, only to be told that "casting has been disabled for this title." Huh? What is the point of that, then?
I'm not sure if it's just the titles I've gotten, but I've had no problem redeeming Warner UV titles through other retailers like Vudu - I just take the code and redeem it on Vudu. When I've checked my UV library later (or on the Flixster app), those Vudu-redeemed titles always show up. The only Vudu titles I have that are non-UV are the ones that were redeemed with Disney digital copy codes.
 

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