And VUDU Makes Six

When VUDU joined the consortium of companies supporting UltraViolet, they became yet another online “retailer” where you needed to set up an account to access your UltraViolet purchases.

If you’re keeping track, that’s six separate accounts you need now if you’ve purchased content from each of the studios offering UltraViolet content. Oh wait…we’re keeping track. In fact, the table below gives you an idea of just how convoluted the online UltraViolet world is. For seven movies purchased with UltraViolet, here’s how you can (and can’t) access the films on each of the different online sites. This is just the online stuff—we haven’t even begun to address mobile and living room device access.

	Being John Malkovich	Cowboys & Aliens	Green Lantern	Harry Potter 7 II	The Hunger Games	The Ides of March	The Italian Job
UVVU
Flixster
Sony
Universal
Paramount
VUDU	X	X

Most sites let you see all of the films in your UltraViolet library, but not all of the sites do. Some sites let you stream movies from multiple studios—but not all of the sites do and those that do don’t let you stream from all of the studios. Some sites link you to other sites to watch certain titles, requiring you to log in again to the other site.

It’s a confusing mess, and it’s getting worse…not better. Fox joins the fray in October with Prometheus. If the DECE (the founding fathers and backers of UltraViolet) want to salvage this fledgling system, they’re going to have to clean this up. Every site should provide streaming of any content simply because you’ve linked the site to your UltraViolet account. Anything else is just going to confound consumers and undermine the supposed convenience of this system.