First of all, if you want to view your Sony 4K digital copies, you can currently redeem them at Movies Anywhere and have access to the UHD/4k versions on Google and Amazon. I did this for 'Crouching Tiger' and 'Starship Troopers', both titles not availble on Vudu in UHD.
Now, regadring the Sony 4K UHD titles in our Ultraviolet lockers, I contacted Movies Anywhere chat. I was looking for a way to get those licenses out and over to the MA partners. For reference, the movies are 'The Fifth Element', 'Bram Stokers Dracula', 'Life (2017)', and the 'Close Encounters' three pack.
The rep on the Movies Anywhere chat did some research and sent a follow up email. Here is my exchange:
MA - Thank you for connecting with Movies Anywhere (MA)! We are sending you this email as a follow up to the situation you are experiencing. After discussing this situation with a specialist, we have found that as long as UV is connected to the VUDU account, the movies should port over to MA as the format seen on UV, as long as VUDU accepts the format UV is porting through.
So, simply put:
UHD Movie > UV > (if VUDU accepts the UHD format) UHD > VUDU > MA > other retailers.
UHD Movie > UV > (if VUDU does not accept the UHD format) HD > VUDU > MA > other retailers
As always, please refer to the back of the physical case of the movie and redemption slips for details of how the formats will be redeemed and ported with other retailers as studios have conditions and restrictions.
If you have any questions or see any descripencies to this, please let us know.
ME - Thank you. I have a follow up question. When a title I have as UHD UV, that does not have a Vudu UHD release gets a Vudu UHD, will it automatically update my MA account? Is it expected there will be a time where MA stops transferring UV license through Vudu? I just would hate for them to not transfer in the future when Vudu gets the UHD versions.
MA - For the first question, when/if a movie in UV becomes UHD then VUDU allows the porting of this movie to be UHD, we are unable to guarantee that it will automatically port into MA as such. Since UV is a "third-party" locker, we are unable to guarantee the services that come from them. We do know that if UV is connected to VUDU and VUDU is connected to MA the movie will port over if it is from a supported film studio.
We do not have information in regards to the services between UV and MA. If something were to change the information will be shared with the users through the app or website.
If you have any further questions, please let us know and we will gladly assist you.
So...it seems that if you want be able to watch your Sony 4K digital copies, they need to be redeemed at Movies Anywhere and watched over at Amazon or Youtube. The format we get at MA from our UV library is dependant on what VUDU offers...so if I read this right, going forward, if you own the UHD version of a movie and Vudu only offers the SD version, MA will only give you the SD version. Since we have no word from Vudu on when we will have access to Sony UHD UV titles, and that MAY happen after Movies Anywhere stops porting Ultraviolet titles from Vudu (nobody said it would last forever), we may never get your Sony UHD titles out of our Ultraviolet locker and onto a playable platform. If you have the codes and you want to watch them, it seems the only option is to say "forget you" to Vudu and use Google and Amazon for your 4K MA playback.
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