Vudu Dropping UV from All MA Eligible Fox Titles... And now Universal

[B2Net]

This is not surprising and expect it to come for all MA participating studios soon - so don't wait for 'no warning'. This is the warning. Get what you need in UV NOW because MA studios are not going to be paying for UV redemptions / purchases for much longer. I do not know if studios pay for MA redemptions but they certainly do for UV - and it is shared between the retailer as well - I think it is something like 50 cents total per UV film split between studio and retailer (Vudu in this case).

UV in general WILL be going away I imagine a final phase out happening by the end of this year. So get ready folks, UV Winter is coming.

I hope that MA will up their game in the areas where UV is still better.

Features of myUV that are supeior to MA are
1- When clicking a TV Series or Movie, whether the title is supposed to be SD, HD, or UHD
2- When clicking a TV Series or Movie, view when a title was obtained
3- When viewing collection, filter by movies vs TV (This helps to see movie titles only)
4- When viewing collection, filter by genre (might be useful)
5- When viewing collection, filter by rating (not sure I'd use that)
6- D2D (and M2D) Disc to Digital and Mobile to Digital
7- When viewing collection, filter by Retailer
8- When viewing collection, sort by Recently Added Least Recent to Most Recent (MA is Most Recent to Least Recent) (myUV has selections but is broken both ways)
9- TV Shows and Series are available
10- When clicking a TV Series or Movie, view from which Retailer it was obtained
11- There are still Studios and Titles not available in MA

For 1, 2, 7, and 10 above, I realize we have "Transaction History" in MA which is helpful for sure, but myUV is much better to check title by title.
For 3, MA does not have TV yet.
For 6, I hope that doesn't go away if/when UV goes away. Right now a UV account is required to do D2D/M2D.
For 11, I hope that MA will get ALL content previous and current from All studios that are/were UV, etc so everything that is Locker available will be included.

[danglin709]

If you have ever redeemed a Fox title (or any title) that is UV and MA, and you redeemed it via MA, it will show you own UV rights, but you won't have them. Just a little FYI for those who weren't aware.

that has been the case since day one of MA though.

[Wasteland]

that has been the case since day one of MA though.

But some people still don't understand it lol

[B2Net]

Just redeemed a former UV/MA fox title and it is indeed only MA now. If the rumors I'm hearing about Lionsgate no longer supporting UV even for titles labeled UV, there are even more warning bells for UV's demise. While WB titles are still UV/MA, the packaging of new releases only states MA.

[TheBDougherty]

I am refusing to purchase any movie that doesn't give UV rights. MA is trash. If studios want my money, they can reinstate UV rights.

[gamescan]

I am refusing to purchase any movie that doesn't give UV rights. MA is trash. If studios want my money, they can reinstate UV rights.

You'll probably find yourself in the minority here. These days UV essentially means you're locked into Vudu.

MA offers a choice of multiple retailers. And almost every other major MA retailer (Amazon, Google, iTunes) offers family sharing.

MA also has dedicated support that is responsive and fixes issues in minutes, versus the weeks that it can take to get a response from Vudu CS when there is a code issue. Just look at the forum to see the number of threads with UV issues, vs the number of threads with MA issues.

MA doesn't have TV (which it does need), but it is otherwise a much more appealing offering than UV.

[RBBrittain]

IMO, the writing has been on the wall for UV since the day Disney Movies Anywhere became MA. UV is now little more than Paramount plus the TV sides of WB, HBO & Sony (and that only because MA doesn't do TV), plus those few still devoted to unique UV features like family sharing, the 4K ULTRA app for Sony 4K TVs (works thru Sony Pictures Store, thus UV-only), and WB Movies All Access (WB's second-screen app built on the ruins of Flixster Video, may itself be dying). Lionsgate & MGM never paid more than lip service to UV anyway, and with Fox leaving UV entirely it's unclear to me if MGM's few UV titles are still supported since those went thru Fox.

In the long run MA is better for film collectors than UV, because (a) its retail partners are more stable as a whole (Vudu of course is in both, but the other DMA/MA vendors have all survived while most of the other UV vendors didn't), and (b) its business rules are more consumer-friendly as a whole (UV titles generally disappear from retailers when you unlink them from UV, but MA titles do not). There's still some permanency issues (the Prep & Landing debacle, Disney Vault reissues treated as different movies from the original DMA/MA release), but none potentially as serious as UV's hidden "five-year rule" that allowed UV retailers to ignore licenses acquired at other retailers more than five years ago; MA doesn't have that, and I'm pretty sure Vudu doesn't follow it even for UV-only titles. (It certainly couldn't for dual UV/MA titles as Vudu is literally THE migration path from UV to MA.)

The best I can foresee for UV is if the entities behind it & MA merge (probably with DECE as the survivor but licensing MA's KeyChest technology from Disney; Movies Anywhere LLC is a Disney subsidiary), with UV business rules conformed to MA (not just in permanency, but also to complete the deep-sixing of UV's Common File Format -- it was a good idea but was a bridge too far that drove hardware vendors to DMA/MA, and proved unnecessary as streaming & temporary storage became the norm), all non-TV licenses moved to MA, and UV essentially becoming the TV side of MA.

[Navigator]

I am refusing to purchase any movie that doesn't give UV rights. MA is trash. If studios want my money, they can reinstate UV rights.

I guess at some point soon, you won't be buying movies at all anymore then.

[RogerJ]

IMO, the writing has been on the wall for UV since the day Disney Movies Anywhere became MA. UV is now little more than Paramount plus the TV sides of WB, HBO & Sony (and that only because MA doesn't do TV), plus those few still devoted to unique UV features like family sharing, the 4K ULTRA app for Sony 4K TVs (works thru Sony Pictures Store, thus UV-only), and WB Movies All Access (WB's second-screen app built on the ruins of Flixster Video, may itself be dying). Lionsgate & MGM never paid more than lip service to UV anyway, and with Fox leaving UV entirely it's unclear to me if MGM's few UV titles are still supported since those went thru Fox.

Just to clarify some of your points... Paramount, Lionsgate and HBO are all still exclusively UV, and for both TV and movies. WB and Sony are both UV and MA. Lionsgate has hardly just played lip service to UV. Their UV catalog is massive. MGM is barely UV, though. But although most of MGM's codes have been distributed by Fox, some have been distributed by Lionsgate and WB.

In the long run MA is better for film collectors than UV, because (a) its retail partners are more stable as a whole (Vudu of course is in both, but the other DMA/MA vendors have all survived while most of the other UV vendors didn't), and (b) its business rules are more consumer-friendly as a whole (UV titles generally disappear from retailers when you unlink them from UV, but MA titles do not). There's still some permanency issues (the Prep & Landing debacle, Disney Vault reissues treated as different movies from the original DMA/MA release), but none potentially as serious as UV's hidden "five-year rule" that allowed UV retailers to ignore licenses acquired at other retailers more than five years ago; MA doesn't have that, and I'm pretty sure Vudu doesn't follow it even for UV-only titles. (It certainly couldn't for dual UV/MA titles as Vudu is literally THE migration path from UV to MA.)

MA has some benefits, retail partners being probably their best. But UV at it's best had less bugs and tons of features that blew MA out of the water in every other way. Sharing being the biggest. That's dead now of course as are many of the other features. But for those grandfathered in to UV sharing, that's still a pretty big deal. UV was just more consumer friendly, MA is more corporate friendly. If Vudu would just add account sharing or at least increase their device limit (or even just make device swapping easier), that would help a lot.

[CBrown]

[QUOTE=RogerJ;n468750]
Just to clarify some of your points... Paramount, Lionsgate and HBO are all still exclusively UV, and for both TV and movies. WB and Sony are both UV and MA. Lionsgate has hardly just played lip service to UV. Their UV catalog is massive. MGM is barely UV, though. But although most of MGM's codes have been distributed by Fox, some have been distributed by Lionsgate and WB.
/QUOTE]

Well, you are kinds right about Lionsgate not paying lip service to UV. They are stating that they no longer support UV on new titles since July 17th so there isn't any service of any kind being paid.

[xxxsdesdexxx]

lionsgate.jpg

[RogerJ]

And now Universal is following in the footsteps of Fox with UV.
https://forum.vudu.com/forum/vudu/ge...ctive-09-04-18

At least we have barely more notice this time I guess.

[RogerJ]

Looks like Vudu predictably dropped UV from Universal titles earlier than they should have. At least we had more time than with Fox.

[QuiGonJ]

Yeah, it does mean the end of an era. What convinced my brother and me to buy digital movies was UV and the sharing feature. We live half a country apart, but this was a bonding experience as we would each buy at least one old movie and one current release per month, and between that and D2D, we have picked up over 1,100 movies each in the past 4 years, and about a 600 of that number are from the year 2000 and today.

The pool of movies we can buy keeps shrinking, so Vudu is making less money. No, just from us. I can't imagine we are unique in our experience, especially since that was the original selling point of digital movies. Can't do anything about it, but I can express my sadness here on the forum.