I have read a lot of complaints about the UV system, both here, and at other Home Entertainment forums. A lot of their complaints revolve around the idea that they might one day lose access to their films, because of the one year guarantee for streaming access. They think it means it will expire after one year.
They are also concerned that they cannot download a film once, and play it on multiple devices. They don't want to have to download it once on their computer, again on their iPad, again on their set top boxes that support downloads, and again on their gaming consoles. That is a lot of downloading, just to be able to play their collection on multiple devices. And an iPad can only hold about 4 to 8 movies, depending on the size. You would have to re-download the same movie if you wanted to watch it again later. iTunes ability to download once, and then move it to other computers, iPhones, iPads, back and forth, and to stream to Apple TV boxes is a big advantage iTunes has over UV.
When the Common File Format is deployed, and they are able to download a film once, and play it on common players, it will be a game changer, as long as long as enough players support it. We already know that PowerDVD will support it, and that is good, but that's not enough. We can speculate that Windows Media Player will support it, since Microsoft is a member of Dece, but we don't know for sure. We need to reach out to other players, such as Plex, XBMC, and others to encourage them to add support. People definitely want to be able to stream movies from their network to their TV.
UV success will also require some new providers to support UV. If Amazon Instant, Xbox video Store, LoveFilm, Google Play, or Sony Entertainment Network add support, then I would say at that point UV would be accepted by the mainstream consumer. Right now it is a niche format. Amazon and Xbox video store both have about 15% marketshare for EST. Vudu has less than 5%.
Take a look at these traffic graphs. They clearly show that vudu and other UV providers are not market leaders at this time. I have compared vudu traffic to Redbox, Blinkbox, Lovefilm, Redbox Instant, Netflix, and CinemaNow. I can't compare to Amazon Instant, or xBox video store because they don't have their own domain names. But we can compare vudu to Netflix, which we know has 30 million subscribers. The only other SVOD provider that get's more traffic than vudu is Lovefilm. UV would really take off in Europe if they launched UV.
Notice how vudu slowed way down around April the 20th. Still hasn't recovered yet.
They are also concerned that they cannot download a film once, and play it on multiple devices. They don't want to have to download it once on their computer, again on their iPad, again on their set top boxes that support downloads, and again on their gaming consoles. That is a lot of downloading, just to be able to play their collection on multiple devices. And an iPad can only hold about 4 to 8 movies, depending on the size. You would have to re-download the same movie if you wanted to watch it again later. iTunes ability to download once, and then move it to other computers, iPhones, iPads, back and forth, and to stream to Apple TV boxes is a big advantage iTunes has over UV.
When the Common File Format is deployed, and they are able to download a film once, and play it on common players, it will be a game changer, as long as long as enough players support it. We already know that PowerDVD will support it, and that is good, but that's not enough. We can speculate that Windows Media Player will support it, since Microsoft is a member of Dece, but we don't know for sure. We need to reach out to other players, such as Plex, XBMC, and others to encourage them to add support. People definitely want to be able to stream movies from their network to their TV.
UV success will also require some new providers to support UV. If Amazon Instant, Xbox video Store, LoveFilm, Google Play, or Sony Entertainment Network add support, then I would say at that point UV would be accepted by the mainstream consumer. Right now it is a niche format. Amazon and Xbox video store both have about 15% marketshare for EST. Vudu has less than 5%.
Take a look at these traffic graphs. They clearly show that vudu and other UV providers are not market leaders at this time. I have compared vudu traffic to Redbox, Blinkbox, Lovefilm, Redbox Instant, Netflix, and CinemaNow. I can't compare to Amazon Instant, or xBox video store because they don't have their own domain names. But we can compare vudu to Netflix, which we know has 30 million subscribers. The only other SVOD provider that get's more traffic than vudu is Lovefilm. UV would really take off in Europe if they launched UV.
Notice how vudu slowed way down around April the 20th. Still hasn't recovered yet.
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