Ultraviolet: What do you like and not like about it? (3 Viewers)

[Sam Posten]

Ok, so to be clear: you work for Vudu customer support but are not authorized to speak officially for the service? And not 'just' a fan?

 

[MattAlbie60]

Based on my interactions with him yesterday, I can confirm that he's not just a fan.

And that he's a swell guy, to boot!

 

[Joshua Clinard]

I hope he helped fix your issue. I am having an issue with my account staying linked, but vudu engineers are working on it, and they do care about their customers.

I just found out that PowerDVD will support UltraViolet playback with the launch of the CFF, so that is great news for those who don't like proprietary apps.

 

[MattAlbie60]

By definition wouldn't everything kind of technically support Ultraviolet with the launch of the CFF? Software wise, I mean.

 

[mitch_vudu]

Ok, so to be clear: you work for Vudu customer support but are not authorized to speak officially for the service? And not 'just' a fan?

I do work at VUDU (although not in Customer Care). When I say i'm not an official rep, I just mean I'm here on my own accord and will try to contribute as much as I can. If I don't know the answer to something, I can probably find someone here who does

 

[Sam Posten]

Great, thanks!

 

[Joshua Clinard]

No, not everything will support UV CFF, as far as I know. The software will have to build in functionality to authorize your account, similar to how iTunes authorizes a computer to your iTunes account.

 

[MattAlbie60]

Oh, gotcha.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

For those of you who put so much faith in iTunes, they have started removing digital copies from some people's icloud accounts.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=212423

 

[MattAlbie60]

Come on, Josh. The thirteenth post in that very thread (which is from January, by the way) is the original poster stating "Everything that disappeared is now back."

It was a glitch in that specific person's case. Nothing more, nothing less.

And even if it wasn't, that isn't an iTunes thing. It's something that you're subject to with any cloud-based service like that.

If anything, that thread should make you go "Wow. If it can happen to something as big as iTunes, there's definitely a chance it can happen to Ultraviolet, too."

 

[Joshua Clinard]

There were several people that reported movies were removed, and maybe all of them got their movies back, maybe they didn't. Who knows. The point is that it happened, which means that iTunes isn't a perfect system. My point is that it is absurd to to claim that only iTunes should be trusted with my movie collection.

 

[MattAlbie60]

Not a single person has ever claimed that only iTunes should be trusted with your movie collection.

 

[Sam Posten]

My point is that it is absurd to to claim that only iTunes should be trusted with my movie collection.

See it's this kind of irrational thinking that seriously awes me about fandom. You've worked yourself up into some kind of fervor that you really do believe someone here actually believes this? Or has said that?

 

[TonyD]

Anyone have a Vudu account.I read that their offices were broken into and several hard drives were stolen.

 

[AlexF]

Discussion on that here.

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Not irrational at all. I've read many very hateful blog posts on internet forums such as this one, Amazon discussion forums, and other tech blogs.I've heard comments like, I hate UltraViolet, You should boycott it, I hope it fails, I hope it goes out of buisiness, and other similar comments. Even someone on here said that he hopes that it fails just so I will lose my collection, just to spite me.

See it's this kind of irrational thinking that seriously awes me about fandom. You've worked yourself up into some kind of fervor that you really do believe someone here actually believes this? Or has said that?

 

[MattAlbie60]

I think that was me, actually, if memory serves.

And in all fairness, I believe I said something like "I hope it fails so that you'll be sad," not that I hoped you'd lose your collection. The context of the statement was "based on the way that you're acting on the forum, I almost hope Ultraviolet fails just so that you'll be sad." Because those were back in your "Ultraviolet is obviously way better than physical media because I save so much money on shelves!" days.

And in quadruple fairness, I was obviously kidding. That's not a statement that someone makes with any kind of sincerity. Or at least I don't. The joke from my perspective (that, again, I thought was clear) was "that's a bizarrely specific reason to want an entire industry to go belly up."

If it wasn't obvious then, let me set it straight: I was joking. I don't want you to be sad, Josh. We're pals.

Look, I'll even end this with a smiley face:


Just for the sake of looking at both sides of the same coin, none of the statements you referenced are "You should only trust iTunes", which is what Sam was referring to. Do you understand how those are different?

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Matt,

I am sorry I misread your intention, but I didn't know that was a joke. Sometimes I'm too serious. I'm glad you cleared that up. No hard feelings.

On a side note, all 6 of my itunes movies were removed from my iCloud for some reason. And I pay for iTunes match. My music is still there. That's one other reason I like UV. You own it, and they put it in writing. iTunes does no such thing. That I'm aware of.

 

[MattAlbie60]

Well, I'm not Sam, but that's okay, too

No hard feelings on my end. We're all friends here, even if it gets a little heated sometimes. But that's the fun of it.

 

[Sam Posten]

Josh: To be clear, as someone who has been burned by tech in the past I absolutely do not want any consumer to lose their purchases. That would suck.

But I do want UV to not suck in the many ways that it currently does. I've listed my many complaints before so no need to rehash them. Chief among them is the need to either figure out a way to get a single sign on for all purchases. If they can't fix that then yes, I would be happy for the tech to die so long as consumers are given either DRM free copies of the media they purchased or a competing mainstream format. Doesn't have to be iTunes but that would work for me. Evolutionary tech dies off all the time, it's for the best in the long run even if it hurts at the time.

Yes I do recommend everyone eschew UV until they fix it or die. I don't apologize for that. The way UV marketing works if you ever redeem any code you are always a statistic representing a happy consumer who loves UV. No thanks. And I recommend others avoid it because of that and the other problems with the scheme. There are millions of people who will never have an iTunes account because of the Apple taint, that's there prerogative and I encourage them to tell their friends to boycott Apple if it makes them happy.

Here's a thread to help you get your iCloud purchases to show again. I guarantee you have not permanently lost anything.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1510540