The major movie studios have a vision for digital video and, rather shockingly, it's not a bad one. If it works.
At CES today, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem announced more details of its "buy once, play anywhere" cloud-based authentication system for digital video content. The scheme, which was dubbed "UltraViolet" last year, will allow users to purchase video content from any participating retailer and then authenticate that content on any UltraViolet-compatible device.
UltraViolet will support six accounts per family, each of which can access the full set of family-owned video content, and it will support 12 unique devices per family. That might sound like plenty, but DECE envisions UltraViolet content being displayed on Internet-connected TVs, game consoles, smartphones, computers, Internet-connected Blu-ray players, tablets, and set-top boxes.
Neustar has already created the central UltraViolet authentication registry for DECE, and a common file format along with five approved DRM schemes have also been announced (Adobe Flash Access, CMLA-OMA V2, The Marlin DRM Open Standard, Microsoft PlayReady, and Widevine). In mid-2011, UltraViolet content should go on sale both as digital downloads and in the "digital copies" sometimes included on DVD or Blu-ray discs. Late 2011 should see UltraViolet apps for PCs, consoles, and smartphones, with UltraViolet-specific products ready by early 2012.
For consumers, the benefits are clear: buy a movie with one DRM scheme and watch it on any device (UltraViolet can deliver a purchased file in any of the various approved DRM "wrappers" and can do so in multiple resolutions). In addition, UltraViolet will eventually allow for streaming support as well, so that users with memory- and storage-constrained devices can instead simply stream a purchased piece of content over the Internet without needing a full download first.
For the industry, the benefits are also clear: they won't look like such morons. Apart from Apple's iTunes Store, selling digital video hasn't become the huge business it could be thanks in large part to interoperability concerns caused by DRM. For a decade now, it has been tough to get video onto different devices that support different screen sizes and DRM schemes. The industry knows it has already missed a huge opportunity, as one of DECE's 2008 presentation slides made clear:
The industry needs something like this to avoid giving iTunes too much power (like it gained over the music business), but Apple appears intent on holding on to its own ecosystem advantage. It has not joined DECE nor has it licensed FairPlay, meaning that UltraViolet videos won't play in iTunes (though they will work in third-party apps) nor will UltraViolet devices be able to play iTunes encrypted video.
Disney is the other major party not on board, but just about everyone else who is anyone else has joined. Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Fox, IBM, Adobe, Best Buy, Cox the list goes on and on.
DECE hasn't exactly been moving at "Internet speed" on this, though it takes time to line up so many different companies and technologies. DECE formed in late 2008, tried to stir up excitement at CES 2010 (specs are coming soon!), announced the UltraViolet name in mid-2010, and now says that actual, working UltraViolet video will be available in another six months or so.
All of this could have been accomplished years ago by just selling the video without DRM, like the music industry finally did, since anyone interested in pirating the content had no difficulty in doing so anyway. But DECE and UltraViolet look like a decent second option, and people have shown their willingness to put up with DRM when it doesn't get in their way (Kindle, iPhone apps, iTunes video, Xbox games).
At least in this case, the scheme could come with some user benefits if it really does handle different resolution and device formats, freeing consumers from the burden of figuring out transcode settings, and the streaming support works as advertised. Storage and backup concerns can be a thing of the past, no matter where you choose to purchase the content.
Still, we're quite curious to see how this works out in practice, especially without Apple's support. The paranoia that Hollywood has shown for so many years around tight DRM, broadcast flags, and more makes us suspect that UltraViolet will be locked down tightly enough to be annoying, despite DECE's many promises about openness. But we're willing to be surprised by sanity.
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