To DIsney, Apple, Hulu, Ultraviolet and the rest of you:
Please, please stop the madness. All of us folks on the Internet are glad that we're finally seeing ways to get and access movies online and then watch them across PC, smartphones, tablets and sometimes connected TVs. It looks like the industry is generally heading towards the model of a video locker, which stores the set of movies I'm entitled to and then allows me to access that locker across a set of devices. The problem is, the various studios and digital providers are driving towards increasing fragmentation so that I cannot have just one locker. I need lots of them.
Please, please stop the madness. All of us folks on the Internet are glad that we're finally seeing ways to get and access movies online and then watch them across PC, smartphones, tablets and sometimes connected TVs. It looks like the industry is generally heading towards the model of a video locker, which stores the set of movies I'm entitled to and then allows me to access that locker across a set of devices. The problem is, the various studios and digital providers are driving towards increasing fragmentation so that I cannot have just one locker. I need lots of them.
First there was iTunes, the grand-daddy of digital lockers. When you'd buy a movie, it would sometimes come with an iTunes unlock code and you could add the movie to your iTunes library. Then, Ultraviolet came along. Some, but not all, of the movie studios signed up with Ultraviolet and the fragmentation started. Some movies would come with Ultraviolet digital. Others with iTunes. Some, with both. Ultraviolet itself is fragmented; there is the backend locker service (which is Ultraviolet), and then you need to link your Ultraviolet account to OTHER services which could access and stream it for you. I linked mine to Flixter. As time went on, we saw more and more front ends show up, and when you'd buy a movie they would prefer one over another. I got some movies at Target, and Target has their own front end (Target Ticket), so I ended up with an account there and now that one is also linked to Ultraviolet. Then Disney decided to do their own movie locker (Disney Movies Anywhere), and their movies show up there, but not Ultraviolet. You can link iTunes to Disney Movies Anywhere now, so *some* movies in iTunes show up in Disney Movies Anywhere and vice a versa, but not all. Confused yet? The final piece of madness I noticed is this - Target Ticket ran an incentive which gave me 10 free movies if I gave them my credit card number. Figuring by now they've got their security in order, I did that and got ten movies that went into Ultraviolet, which is good. One of them, Officespace, shows up in Ultraviolet, but apparently can only be played in Target Ticket and not Flixter! So now we're seeing fragmentation of Ultraviolet content across front ends. Of course, each locker and service has their own ways of viewing the content; some support Chromecast (Flixter) and not others (Disney Movies Anywhere).
Its MADNESS.
And so, my plea. For the good of the users, can we please have the following:
1. Users can choose any locker service they desire.
2. When you buy a physical or digital movie, you can add it to any digital locker service you prefer.
3. You can transfer your content between digital locker services so you don't get trapped.
4. Every locker service offers, at a minimum, PC/Mac streaming and download, IOS, Android streaming and download, and support for Chromecast. Others are optional.
And then let the locker services compete with each other for ease of use, marketplace, speed, and additional services. I personally would pay a nominal monthly fee for a locker service with these properties.
Yours truly,
A Frustrated Digital User
Its MADNESS.
And so, my plea. For the good of the users, can we please have the following:
1. Users can choose any locker service they desire.
2. When you buy a physical or digital movie, you can add it to any digital locker service you prefer.
3. You can transfer your content between digital locker services so you don't get trapped.
4. Every locker service offers, at a minimum, PC/Mac streaming and download, IOS, Android streaming and download, and support for Chromecast. Others are optional.
And then let the locker services compete with each other for ease of use, marketplace, speed, and additional services. I personally would pay a nominal monthly fee for a locker service with these properties.
Yours truly,
A Frustrated Digital User
RSS Feed