Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

[MoWeb]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

What are the possibilities that Disney becomes a streaming vendor for UV without sharing their own DMA library? I know this is the opposite direction most of us would prefer. But it seems it would offer the one stop shop most of us are looking for (as long as DMA apps become more ubiquitous). Count me in the camp that doesn't see Disney joining UV wholesale any time soon - sharing (as mentioned above) being the primary impediment. If I'm talking out of my a$$... wouldn't be the first time .

What a great thought and hope. I'm pretty sure this would never happen because what studio in their right mind would let Disney stream their library. Disney certainly wouldn't pay for rights to do it. Paramount, Sony, Universal, stream their content but not any other.

[jp62278]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

What are the possibilities that Disney becomes a streaming vendor for UV without sharing their own DMA library? I know this is the opposite direction most of us would prefer. But it seems it would offer the one stop shop most of us are looking for (as long as DMA apps become more ubiquitous). Count me in the camp that doesn't see Disney joining UV wholesale any time soon - sharing (as mentioned above) being the primary impediment. If I'm talking out of my a$$... wouldn't be the first time .

[terpfan1980]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

Throwing a bit more water in some directions here...

Look, realistically all I care about as someone that wants to be able to see the Disney movies that I love, is that I can get to them in some way that is easy and can be used pretty much anywhere I go.

For now, the best approach for me seems to be to request redemption of the digital copies via Vudu. In the case of Thor 2, it seems that even having done that, once I plugged the code at DisneyMovieRewards, that it wound up telling DisneyMoviesAnywhere that I should have Thor 2 in my library. In effect, I got the film both on Vudu (which I definitely want) and on iTunes and DisneyMoviesAnywhere (which I'm happy about).

If that continues to work then I'm happy. If it stops working, then I've got a decision to make as to whether or not I'd want to continue to redeem first at Vudu versus any other provider or the DisneyMoviesAnywhere choice.

Given some serious frustrations I have with the Vudu app on the iPad (for example) where searching is not possible and scrolling through movies to find them based on when they were added to my library won't work very well (not with 700+ movies in my collection) along with frustrations with the app for the android tablets I have (it isn't very good on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 that I have, but that also relates to the firmware there being stuck back in prior versions of Androids, thanks to VZW) and the lack of an App at all for the Windows 8.1 tablet I have (Dell Venue 8 Pro) I can't at all claim to be happy with the ability to consume Vudu content when I'm mobile.

The iPad makes it easy to get content from my iTunes library and the link between DMA and iTunes helps there as well. On that side, well, I'm much more limited in which devices I can access the content on when I want to see it on my big screens (TVs) but it isn't like there aren't some magical devices available that work relatively well for that. In fact, well, I have a few of those at home as well.

Will I be happy when there is a single standard to work with? If it ever comes to pass sure, but I do not have the optimistic vision of the future that some other people here seem to have. It seems that we are far more likely to have to deal with multiple standards for at least a good while to come. I wish I could say otherwise, but I just don't see everyone sitting around the campfire singing songs of peace and love. These providers don't trust each other and they all want to or seem to want to maintain control so they can also reap more of the profits (which is something that is happening more and more often in the world of professional sports )

[MoWeb]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

Without question, the UltraViolet / DECE initiative has been the most widely and fasted accepted distribution standard in the motion picture industry history for in-home media. You mention some titles unavailable. True. However, the ramp gradient for UV has been much higher then for VHS, DVD, or Bluray Disc. Bluray has been available for over a decade and there are still titles I can not get in that medium.

I do think you believe Disney is too powerful to accept DECE terms should they find it not in their interest and instead perpetually go it alone with a silo'ed version of digital distribution. IMHO, that is not the nature of the technology market. A new technology comes out. It goes through a process to see if it gains consumer acceptance. If so, there are standards adopted and it goes from there onto a level playing field.

I do not think anyone would suggest in-home streaming of digital content has become something soon to go away. On the contrary, it is becoming status quo. As such, the market is now into adopting a standard to distribute MPAA content in this medium. UV is the only vendor agnostic option.

sincerely,

I'm not nearly nor do I pretend to be as knowledgeable on DECE than you. However, doesn't it make you wonder why Disney is still trying to find yet another method of digital streaming/licensing than UV. With the creation of DMA and they opened the door to other "Digital Distributors" this effectively makes DMA the UV of Disney. They don't need UV in this case especially if they add Vudu (and others) as a "Digital Distributor" the DMA website will never close shop. Disney is not only the content creator they are also a streaming provider now. Why would they spend money on this venture if this is not their future? The DMA site steers you to other Disney sites/products. Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money...

Last I checked Disney is a well run company just like Apple.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

MattO made some very good points about Ultraviolet. When you really think about it without any bias, it's still in such a uncontrolled lack of consistency mess. I personally love Ultraviolet and the idea behind it, but I'm really getting tired of things like I can stream a movie on my Roku but not on a Tablet or PC. Having some blockbuster movies available on UV but others like Titanic are not and Paramount is a UV participant. If Ultraviolet content partners decided this is the future and actually went all in this would be a good start.

I hope in the near future things progress but I'm actually starting to lose hope because I've gone through well over one year of UV problems that still exist. A customer service upgrade at Ultraviolet couldn't hurt.

DMA, I think is here to stay.

The opinions expressed here do not reflect the positions of Disney, Microsoft, Vudu, Ultraviolet, or its partners.

Without question, the UltraViolet / DECE initiative has been the most widely and fasted accepted distribution standard in the motion picture industry history for in-home media. You mention some titles unavailable. True. However, the ramp gradient for UV has been much higher then for VHS, DVD, or Bluray Disc. Bluray has been available for over a decade and there are still titles I can not get in that medium.

I do think you believe Disney is too powerful to accept DECE terms should they find it not in their interest and instead perpetually go it alone with a silo'ed version of digital distribution. IMHO, that is not the nature of the technology market. A new technology comes out. It goes through a process to see if it gains consumer acceptance. If so, there are standards adopted and it goes from there onto a level playing field.

I do not think anyone would suggest in-home streaming of digital content has become something soon to go away. On the contrary, it is becoming status quo. As such, the market is now into adopting a standard to distribute MPAA content in this medium. UV is the only vendor agnostic option.

sincerely,

[MoWeb]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

Good points. DECE has 85 industry members though. When a consortium is formed to develop a standard, it is often like hearding cats. In the case of DECE, a backend Nustar data store was necessary which meant members needed to foot the bill to support the cost of the systems.

A similar consortium was formed around the technology which came to be known as Bluray.

LINK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

The DECE consortium has out of the gate, much more industry member support then the BRDA.

You could argue that Microsoft too had no need to add a Bluray player to their xbox one console. Yet, there it is.

I get what you're saying and your comments are always very intelligent and well thought out for the most part. With your Microsoft analogy were talking hardware here. It's obvious they had to use blu ray because there's no other optical drive in existence with that kind of capacity. They were also trying to avoid paying license fees to a competitor which is an understandable business decision. Digital content is a totally different animal because encoding isn't really a standard and anyone can have or create their own method.

You don't see the driving force of incentive for Disney to abandon their own efforts...Money/Profits and complete control. For one, Disney would never allow library sharing because that would drastically cut into the ridiculous profits they enjoy on their content. Just look at their blu ray sale prices. They are by far in some cases more expensive than anyone. I Am Number Four sells for $35.00 with DC at some retailers. Even their digital prices are in some cases much higher than other studios. They just raised prices again at Disney World, see a trend? Like Apple people pay what Disney wants and they don't even flinch. Joining Ultraviolet would mean they would lose some of those profits on their content as well as complete control because it's UV that holds your license for verification.

MattO made some very good points about Ultraviolet. When you really think about it without any bias, it's still in such a uncontrolled lack of consistency mess. I personally love Ultraviolet and the idea behind it, but I'm really getting tired of things like I can stream a movie on my Roku but not on a Tablet or PC. Having some blockbuster movies available on UV but others like Titanic are not and Paramount is a UV participant. If Ultraviolet content partners decided this is the future and actually went all in this would be a good start.

Redeeming UV codes should actually be done at Ultraviolet (since they handle the licences) instead of a multitude of streaming providers. This would eliminate the helter skelter confusion and problems redeeming codes (see Breaking Bad, yeah I know Sony's fault). Ultraviolet can't even properly handle accounts with large libraries let alone make Disney feel comfortable about the handling their digital content licenses.

I hope in the near future things progress but I'm actually starting to lose hope because I've gone through well over one year of UV problems that still exist. A customer service upgrade at Ultraviolet couldn't hurt.

DMA, I think is here to stay.

The opinions expressed here do not reflect the positions of Disney, Microsoft, Vudu, Ultraviolet, or its partners.

[jp62278]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

Does anyone see any logic to what movies are available to stream? I don't use iTunes, but from what I can see from the DMR web interface (and relatively small sample set) it seems kinda random. In addition to what I've already been able to redeem through vudu, they added Toy Story 3 but not 1 or 2. Tron legacy, which I think came after TS3 (could be wrong) wasn't added either.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

Disney is effectively building a parallel "vendor agnostic digital rights locker", at least as far as the consumer is concerned. Nothing prevents them from doing library sharing down the road, and I bet that's a fringe use case. As far as I can tell, consumers don't find anything about UV "unified" so far - large gaps in content availability, widely differing redemption methods, flaky D2D programs, etc. And the very last thing Disney needs to worry about is brand awareness.

I'm telling you, once they roll this out to several vendors and their quasi D2D services are matured, the public won't care at all that it's not UV. Yes, there are good reasons to consolidate to a single standard, but consumer pressure isn't really going to be one of them. With this move (or at least as they describe their plans), Disney can hold out for a good, long time.

Good points. DECE has 85 industry members though. When a consortium is formed to develop a standard, it is often like hearding cats. In the case of DECE, a backend Nustar data store was necessary which meant members needed to foot the bill to support the cost of the systems.

A similar consortium was formed around the technology which came to be known as Bluray.

LINK:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

The DECE consortium has out of the gate, much more industry member support then the BRDA.

You could argue that Microsoft too had no need to add a Bluray player to their xbox one console. Yet, there it is.

[MattO]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

1. Vendor agnostic digital rights locker
2. Library sharing
3. Unified digital distribution methodology
4. Unified brand awareness

Disney is effectively building a parallel "vendor agnostic digital rights locker", at least as far as the consumer is concerned. Nothing prevents them from doing library sharing down the road, and I bet that's a fringe use case. As far as I can tell, consumers don't find anything about UV "unified" so far - large gaps in content availability, widely differing redemption methods, flaky D2D programs, etc. And the very last thing Disney needs to worry about is brand awareness.

I'm telling you, once they roll this out to several vendors and their quasi D2D services are matured, the public won't care at all that it's not UV. Yes, there are good reasons to consolidate to a single standard, but consumer pressure isn't really going to be one of them. With this move (or at least as they describe their plans), Disney can hold out for a good, long time.

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

I really love your optimism here Walter but Disney will never join DECE..

...and Microsoft will NEVER put a Bluray player into an xbox.

Oh wait...

[Walter-S_North_Carolina]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

And, no, I think that once they've added some more partners the pressure to make their titles UV is basically going to evaporate. People will have their content on their devices of choice and in the apps they're used to using. Nobody really cares that much about the rest.

1. Vendor agnostic digital rights locker
2. Library sharing
3. Unified digital distribution methodology
4. Unified brand awareness

Vudu holds none of these. Nor iTunes. Nor Amazon Instant Video. Each is a vendor specific service with individual brand awareness. None has library sharing and each has their own digital distribution methodology.

Ultraviolet / DECE was founded as a non-for-profit consortium for a very specific set of market needs.

In five years, we will not even be able to remember this fumble by Disney Studios. Digital distribution will be via DECE standards. I do not think there is any question at this point. There is only one studio holdout and they are scrambling to save face.

As an example, about twenty years ago there was a new productivity technology for businesses called client/server. It relied on a LAN, but there were competing LAN network protocol standards. The three were token ring, TCP/IP via Ethernet, and IPX/SPX via Ethernet.

Token ring held out for awhile. IPX/SPX fell first. Today, we only know of TCP/IP. The need for a standard ended any arguments.

So too will occur with MPAA digital distribution. With well over eighty percent of the studios by market share DECE members and only one hold out, the decision has been made and it is simply a matter of time for it to be 100%.

Very much like IBM thinking their market dominance would reverse the trend and their backed token ring would become the standard. The last token ring network card was made well over a decade ago.

[echopulse]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

I'd be really sad if public demand for UV evaporates. UV has a lot of advantages that DisneyMoviesAnywhere, even with a vudu link wouldn't have. UV has member sharing, Common File Format downloads, D2D upgrades, and other features that iTunes doesn't have.

[MattO]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

It's a V1 public release of a new service with some tricky legal and technical integration bits. I get it. I'm happy they did it and I'm confident that they understand the need to roll it out into additional platforms, them being a business and all.

So, like Singer, I see this as a positive step that indicates corporate interest in the digital world. I'm going to write their customer service and say "this looks really cool - I'd love to see this for Vudu since that's what we use". It would be good for them to hear it in that way, I'd think. I'd think that Vudu would have plenty of motivation to make this happen from their end, so I'm not sure communicating to them would help much.

And, no, I think that once they've added some more partners the pressure to make their titles UV is basically going to evaporate. People will have their content on their devices of choice and in the apps they're used to using. Nobody really cares that much about the rest.

[huskerbear]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

"Disney Movies Anywhere" As long as its on an apple device or itunes.......this isn't 5 years ago...step backwards for disney!

[MoWeb]

Re: Plans for "Disney Movies Anywhere" to link to Vudu?

thx for the link.

It seems clear that the decision makers at Disney Studios are exploring to see if they can make their way without joining DECE. They have business reason to attempt to, but I do think time will run out and they will need to become official DECE members. Them being the sole domestic studio who has not done so is going to start to erode their brand and become increasingly difficult to explain to their consumers.

I personally believe it will occur this year. Q4 to be exact.

I really love your optimism here Walter but Disney will never join DECE. This move by Disney has really renewed interest in that other service from UV loyalists (I've been watching). Everyone is scrambling to get DC's of Disney movies to add to DMA. Hopefully Disney follows through with the terms and conditions about adding other "Digital Distributors" to DMA. The thing I hate is they totally leave the door open to remove "Digital Distributors". Once again they wield all of the power here because of their much desired library of content.