It’s been talked about for so long that it was beginning to feel like an impossible dream.
On Wednesday, the two and half year journey to make "video anywhere" a reality moved several important steps closer to completion. In particular, UltraViolet -- the digital rights locker created in partnership between over 60 major media and technology companies from Sony, Paramount and Fox to Microsoft, Best Buy and Toshiba -- is finally ready for its close-up.
A rights locker has become en vogue among content creators as they look for fresh ways to bolster sagging home entertainment sales. In essence, it allows users who purchase video content from one site in one format to store that content in a cloud-based account. In return, they can access that content on any compliant device they own.
Though there's no specific launch date, the UltraViolet label will begin appearing within the next six months on Blu-rays and DVDs, as well as players, tablets and computers, DECE, the entertainment consortium backing the initiative, announced on the eve of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.
Read also: Hollywood Unveils 'UltraViolet' -- the All-Platform Video Player
DECE says UltraViolet will be available in the U.K. and Canada later this year, as well.
“This is going to completly change the way people collect and watch movies forever. This is disruptive and transformative,” Mitch Singer, DECE president and chief technology officer of Sony Pictures Entertainment, told TheWrap.
Other companies involved in UltraViolet include IBM, Cox Communications, Panasonic, Motorola and NBC Universal.
Once studios, retailers and DVD and Blu-ray makers adopt the new universal file format that the major players have agreed to, consumers -- and even family members in different cities -- will be able to watch films purchased through an UltraViolet retailer such as Best Buy on a wide variety of registered devices.
“Today’s announcement that UltraViolet is ready shows that the entertainment and technology communities have made good on their promise to give the world a new, user-friendly digital standard for collecting movies and TV shows in the digital age,” said Mark Teitell, general manager of DECE.
Though the litany of Fortune 500 companies is impressive -- bridging Hollywood and Silicon Valley -- there are two big holdouts: Apple and Disney, which is pursuing its own digital rights locker. All the other major studios and Lionsgate are participating.
In the short term, Singer says that users can get around that hurdle by streaming movies through a participating service such as Netflix onto their iPads or iPods.
“Content that is purchased on iTunes won’t be availble on UltraViolet, but our hope is that over time as we have more and more success, it will be a no brainer for Apple to say, 'we want people who like our devices and who like shopping here to be able to play this on other platforms we don’t sell,'” Singer said. “There’s plenty of time to grow our membership.”
Planting a flag in mid-2011 might not seem terribly specific, but it's a lot more definitive than previous announcements.
