Kudos MaxumisToo, finally a reasonable and objectionable response.
I am truly amazed at the number of people ranting about UV, whilst making horribly innacurate comments, because they don't want to be bothered with taking a second and actually looking into something.
The following items are some of the items that have well, just not been thought out, or lack the view of the bigger picture that's driving the content at the moment.
"Studios are stealing from us, because they only had UV on my purchase and no iTunes digital copy"
- The studio's not stealing from your pocket, you are actively throwing money at them if you bought a blu-ray with only UV and didn't want it. The digital/uv/streaming copies that is bundled with their physical purchases is NOT free, and you are actively spending money for the rights to use said digital content. When you buy a blu-ray that is bundled with a DVD/UV/Digital you are spending $3-6 more for that bundle then you would had you only bought the blu-ray. Don't spend extra money on a bundled set that comes only with UV, if you're not wanting a UV copy.
If there's one thing that I think everyone should understand is the reason that UltraViolet was brought about, and why the implementation has been rocky, a universal format will be a good thing in the years to come. A few studios started offering digital content on their discs, but it was limited to just a couple of them at first. Fast forward a bit, now every studio offers digital content on their physical media if you want to pay a few dollars extra. But every studio created their own proprietary software that was required to be installed if you wanted to access a digital copy, which was frustrating to majority of users and led to compatibility issues. At this time you were still stuck with having to download the entire file to every device you wanted it on, and/or transfer it between devices with physical media as there were no viable streaming options. Finally, we arrive at a time when streaming video content over the net becomes viable, with NetFlix/Hulu/etc paving the way. An outside vendor then came up with UltraViolet and sold it to the studios as they finally saw a need for a universal format/platform for the industry, rather than several proprietary platforms. Now, we arrive at the present where UV is still considered to be just coming out of infancy, but is solidifying it's place. Hopefully this gives some people a little more insight, rather than just wondering why the studios came up with UV.
We cannot place 100% of the blame on the studios for not offering both UV & digital copy with certain titles or from certain studios. iTunes is a proprietary platform, and has complete control over who can provide content and how much it will cost them to be allowed on to the iTunes store. The advent of a universal format allows for more competition, with more companies able to start/grow and take a share of the market. I believe we are going to have to see Apple begin to add support for UV in iTunes before you see the studios continue offering more and more formats on all their media. Think of this just like you would the previous format wars, where VHS won out over BetaMax, BluRay overcame HD-DVD. The industry will eventually sway more to one side and then it'll be a thing of the past. It's also not hard to believe that soon, Blu-Ray and other physical media are going to die out, just like the CD. We can already stream HD content to our freaking cellphones.
All in all, don't whine on the internet because you walked into McDonald's, bought a BigMac and couldn't believe it didn't come with a Whopper.
