A radical of Hollywood studios and technology companies has come up with a scheme for buying digital movies and TV show that ’s supposed to do away with the problem of contentedness being locked to a narrow set of devices by the company that sold it .
They say the system , called UltraViolet , will allow consumers to buy a videodisc or digital download and then watch it on almost any boob tube , computer or game console from any participating manufacturer , regardless of where it was corrupt .
It should also give people lifetime content possession rights , instead of get to repurchase the work if it gets lost or wears out , said Richard Doherty , an industry psychoanalyst with Envisioneering Group , in Seaford , New York .
A slide lays out plans for UltraViolet during a presentation at CES.
“ If it work , I wo n’t have to buy ‘ The White Album ’ eight times any more , ” he say .
The effort faces some big obstacle , let in getting consumer to understand it and buy into it . Some critics have complained that UltraViolet is just another form of DRM ( digital rights direction ) in disguise . And at least two liberal player — Apple and Walt Disney Studios — have wane to get on board .
But the exertion is backed by virtually every other major U.S. studio apartment , engineering giants like Microsoft , Hewlett - Packard and Sony as well as consumer electronics makers like Panasonic and Samsung .
After three years of study , the 60 companies behind the effort gave a timetable for its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Thursday . They plan to start twine it out in the U.S. in the middle of the class , followed by Canada and the U.K. before the end of 2011 .
A playground slide lays out plans for UltraViolet during a presentation at CES .
The studios see it as a way to boost drooping sales of their Cartesian product , which they cerebrate have slow because mass are fed up with buy digital content and feel like they do n’t really own it , because they ca n’t wreak it wherever they want .
“ consumer are n’t sure-footed they ’ll be able to watch content in the future on devices of their choice , so they ’ve contain collecting content , ” said Mitch Singer , CTO for Sony Pictures Entertainment .
Doherty said UltraViolet wo n’t replace the existing DRM systems , but that it will be a layer on top of them that provides the permissions for content to toy on various devices . It ’s been described as an phylogenesis of technology standards like Blu - light beam and DVD .
The organization is supposed to work like this : Starting this summertime , participate company like Netflix and Best Buy will start selling DVD and digital downloads cross out with the UltraViolet logo . Consumers are supposed to go home , set up a innocent UltraViolet business relationship online and cross-file their young purchase there , perhaps with a mathematical code .
That creates their UltraViolet “ digital storage locker ” — a post where information is put in about each creative work they own . Each household will be able to read up to six citizenry to a digital locker . They must also register up to 12 computer hardware devices where they will be able to play their UltraViolet picture show and TV show .
They ’ll then be able-bodied to watch that depicted object on any of those devices , as well as on any participate streaming metier and cable help , disregardless of where they bought the cognitive content . So if they bought a movie on videodisc from Best Buy , for illustration , they should be able-bodied to keep an eye on it pullulate to their Xbox console table once they have entered the code to show they own it in their digital cabinet .
They should also be able to watch their content off from home , in a hotel with a picture on demand servicing , for example . So if they bought the first series of “ Glee ” on Netflix , they ’ll be able to ascertain it while on holiday if the video on demand divine service at the hotel is an UltraViolet member .
The 12 - twist limit is likely to leaven some hackles , but Doherty says Apple and Microsoft limit people to five devices today for their iTunes and Zune services . Getting the film studios to agree to 12 gadget was a big grant on their part , he said .
The studios say people will be able-bodied to update those 12 devices over time , so when an old figurer dies they ’ll be able to remove it from the listing and register another one .
At the end of the year , UltraViolet plans to introduce a fresh file format . People will then be able-bodied to burn up movies they buy to a disk or USB stick and bring them on their other 12 devices , say Mark Teitell , general coach of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem , or DECE , the industry group formed to steer the effort .
The project has seen an unmatched horizontal surface of cooperation among those involve , according to Doherty . More engineer have worked on it than on the Blu - ray touchstone , he articulate .
If all goes as design , hardware God Almighty will stick in telly and Blu - beam players with the required chipset and firmware update for UltraViolet in 2012 , said Tae - Jin ( T.J. ) Kang , a senior vice prexy with Samsung Electronics . That may include things like build - in menu listings that let the great unwashed see their UltraViolet subject .
Doherty thinks it improbable that Apple will join the effort , at least for now , because its iTunes system is working well for it . But the studios claim not to be concerned . They say Apple user will still be able play UltraViolet content on Macintosh computers ,
“ So on the gimmick side it ’s not an event . On the services side , Apple has been fantastically successful , but just as we have fight with ca-ca digital ownership in video a big business , they have struggle too , ” enunciate JB Perrette , Chief Executive for Digital and Affiliate Distribution at NBC Universal , implying Apple will have some incentive to join .
Disney has its own competing technology , called Keychest , and it ’s unreadable of the company will give that up to link UltraViolet .
As well as laying out the timetable Thursday , DECE said it had finalized the technology specifications so that manufacturers and service providers startle work up UltraViolet products .
UltraViolet is n’t without precedent , and a Microsoft executive director at the launch case was reminded that his companionship tried and failed with a similar enterprise , called PlaysForSure , about a decade ago . He said PlaysForSure fail because Microsoft was n’t normative enough with its specifications to gimmick makers .
“ The difference here is the technology specifications have been set , ” said the administrator , Blair Westlake , embodied vice president of Microsoft ’s Media & Entertainment Group . “ It ’s been a very long and tedious process but that ’s where the rubber met the route . ”
