LOL.

For once, a bit of upbeat news for UltraViolet, the awful idea that Hollywood seems dead set on implementing: Amazon and Samsung are now on board.

That’s good news for the don’t-call-it-DRM newfangled DRM, which has been swimming in a sea of shit since it launched last year. 

Of course, the one name still not on board remains the most important: Apple. Wake me up when that happens — which given the customer response to UltraViolet seems unlikely anytime soon. 

So UltraViolet is a turd, this much we know. It’s the most surprising development of the year… to no one. Unless you run a Hollywood studio. 

But what’s really great is that UltraViolet is such a massive turd that the studios are being forced to give customers copies of their films on the staying-the-hell-away-from-UltraViolet Apple platform.

Ouch.

For quite some time, I’ve enjoyed making fun of UltraViolet, the new form of DRM wrapped in an extremely lame name (which calls to mind the shitty movie of the same name). But it was hard to know just how shitty it would be because it wasn’t out yet. Well, now it’s out. And apparently it’s even worse than I imagined.

As NewTeeVee points out, the Amazon reviews for the first discs featuring UltraViolet focus on the technology, calling it “awful”, “bogus”, and a “joke”. Even better is the review from a customer explaining what a nightmare it was to get it to work with Flixster, the supposed streaming partner. 

But the key remains what’s missing. Namely Apple. Writes Janko Roettgers:

Many consumers took issue with the fact that they couldn’t download the digital version onto their iPad.

There’s supposedly a way to get it to work on iOS machines with Flixster, but no one is going to do that. And well, see above. It also doesn’t play nice with Amazon’s soon-to-be-larger ecosystem. Disney is not on board either.

As I suspected, the system sounds like a total fucking nightmare. The fact that Hollywood thought this would work just shows how utterly clueless they are. 

It’s a complete TOA (turd on arrival). You can say you’re going to wrap a piece of shit in a pretty bow, but if the bow actually looks like shit, and the shit still smells like shit, you’re not going to fool anyone. 

I’m not sure how this post managed to skip over the one big hole in the plot, but it did. APPLE IS NOT ON BOARD.

Hollywood has a new version of DRM wrapped in a fancy name with some new (admittedly compelling) features such as the ability to transfer films between devices. Great. But without Apple’s devices on board, will anyone give a shit?

The answer is “no”. 

God I hope so. My 2TB hard drive is now almost stretched to the max due to movies and TV shows alone. The system as it stands is totally untenable. The more popular iTunes video content is, the less space people have for it. Unless the cloud enters the picture…

But article author Greg Sandoval forgets one important thing. He cites Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes as being open to the cloud idea because he’s bullish on Ultraviolet, a new form of DRM with studio/device involvement. 

But.

The only major player not involved with UV? Apple. If the studios did a cloud deal with Apple, it would seemingly undercut Ultraviolet.