DRM sucks, there are no two ways about it. That’s why UltraViolet plans to set us free from DRM slavery within weeks in Australia, with several film studios gearing up for local content launches with UltraViolet support as early as 1 May.
More: What Is UltraViolet?
For those playing at home, UltraViolet is like a cloud-locker for your movies. When you purchase a Blu-ray title in-store, you can enter the code you get in the box on the UltraViolet service, which then associates that particular title with your account, allowing you to download and view that movie in almost any format from now until forever.
Because it lets you download a movie in almost any format or stream it to almost any device, it opens up a wonderful world where rights holders actually start trusting viewers to enjoy their content whenever and wherever they like. It’s a compliment to having a physical disc.
Warner Bros. has told us that it will be offering UltraViolet support for the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey from 1 May, and sources close to the launch have indicated that other studios will release titles on or near that date.
The only issue with the local launch of UltraViolet is that it won’t support all the nifty video-on-demand services currently available in the US, but seeing as how industry support for the product is already in the bag, it shouldn’t be too long before we get a bigger catalogue of entertainment available.
Local support for Flixster will also form part of the local UltraViolet launch.