Ultraviolet – A New Approach to Bringing Together All of Your Digital Video
Nowadays, watching tv shows and movies on your computer is becoming increasingly common. With the advent of high-quality, speedy streaming video sites (both legal and illegal), more and more people are turning to their computers, laptops, and mobile devices to catch the latest episode of their favorite show, or to watch the latest release on a night in. Whether it be through a smartphone, television, or even gaming consoles, more television is being watched by viewers on their own terms - when and where they want.
For the growing number of people that access their video through different channels like this, fragmentation can be a nuisance. By media fragmentation, I mean having a few movies queued up in your Netflix account via your PlayStation 3, the latest season of your favorite TV show on your laptop's hard drive, and that old HBO comedy special on your iPad.
This is exactly the sort of problem that a new service, called Ultraviolet, will be tackling. They plan on creating an online library which will offer all of a user's digital media in an online account, to be accessed whenever and wherever they need it. Featuring 58 companies, including Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and Sony Pictures Entertainment, Microsoft Corporation, Samsung Electronics, and NBC Universal and Comcast Corp. Notable companies that are missing from the lineup include Disney and Apple, who are working on and already have similar services in their product lines, respectively.
Once a customer has an account, all they will have to do will be to register the different devices they wish to be able to access their media on, and it'll be off to the races.
If successful, Ultraviolet plans on expanding their supported media to music, games, and even ebooks.
Source: Gizmodo, Businessweek
