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Movies Anywhere?

nomad07

Well-known member
UV has been discounted for 3 days now.

What’s the latest on turning on MA?

Wasn’t there supposed to be an announcement about now?
 
The one thing keeping be from buying more boxes and a LOT more movies is lack of a MA support.

I like to watch movies in UHD whenever I travel. So places I can’t travel with one of my K system, which is a LOT I’m forced to switch to the next best solution which is Vudu. Pre MA this was fine as there were few of my titles not available on either. Post UV shutdown I’m left with buying on Vudu, K, or on Disc and redeeming on Vudu. Vudu gives me access most anywhere. Disc allows me disc quality at home and Vudu everyone; both for about the same price and with the assurance that if MA / Vudu go down I still have discs, though can’t watch streaming. If I buy K store I can’t watch 4K elsewhere and I have no backup if K goes down since I also can’t redeem disc there. So I either buy each title twice for best flexibility, or I buy disc and Vudu.

I’d rather give all my money K for hundreds of movie purchases yearly, or prepandemic anyway, and for portable hardware I can easily travel and use on guest WiFi (or hotspot) if they were to offer it.

For now I use my K for pre MA legacy titles and disc (or Vudu when away from K) and have put a stop of K hardware and K store titles purchase. Which is a shame because they need all the support they can to keep development and expansion going.
 
I just don’t see it happening and I can’t see the benefit to K in being part of it.

Playing Devils Advocate here. Why should K employ a system that enables users to buy cheap and transfer in for free after they have invested in the infrastructure to provide a bit for bit movie experience. I don’t know the financial incentive or who makes money from MA but if they’re is an equitable split it can’t add up to much given the number of participating retailers. Then again given the number of people using the likes of Apple TV, perhaps it is financially viable for K just to get a share of the pie.

All purely my own opinion I have no inside knowledge, nor do I have any great desire for it to happen. I did have a number of library titles that would have transferred across, but couldn’t wait on it happening and “double dipped”.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If that’s the case why did they even sign up with UV in the first place, and stay signed up as well.

I’ve got 1500 titles from k store on my K system. Largely bought because I came I got tired of messing with disc and wanted something more polished and refined. I sold or donated all my disc, most older titles pre-UV codes and bought a Srato. Being that they were K was a small company and had some issues in the past there was a risk that what if they went under what would I do. The thing that was the convincing factor was that if they did I could open a UV account and get them on another service, say Vudu. You when I heard that UV was going under I created accounts with every UV partner and linked my library so that if one ever went down after the UV shutdown I still had access I still had access elsewhere. So I have all my UV titles, purchase from K store to support them, at all the remaining old UV partners. But without MA on K that which drew me to K for higher quality and comfort is done.

Besides K isn’t giving anything alway really. You have to remember their original systems were for ripping your discs and they only sold hardware. There was also the disc carousels and they only sold hardware. Sure “maybe” they make more off the K store now then the hardware. But keep in mind there’s a reason that WM was looking to sell Vudu for a long time. There’s a reason it too so long to find a buyer. There a reason that Targets UV store and sooo many other UV streamers closed up shop.

Who says it will people buying cheap. Instead of buying on say Vudu. K owners can buy of K Store and support them. It’s either the same money or slightly more on K store and people who buy K hardware are unlikely to argue over a couple bucks extra. When you spend $10K, $50K, or $100K on k hardware they’re not going to go care about a small price between between the Vudu store and the K store. They’re also not going to want to mess with two account, two interfaces, more polish K interface, not having to check if a title is MA on Vudu and on K store to make sure the rights transfer over, not having to switch from their K box to Vudu with also give less details than K store does. They’re time is more precious then all the head and work for a couple extra bucks. But people spending hi bucks want what they want. If K can’t be viewed on their phone / tablet while in an airport, if they can’t watch it on a handheld of compact hardware device that K doesn’t sell while staying at their 4 and 5 star hotels they’re not going to be happy and spend that incremental money elsewhere or look at something that does it all.

It’s also possible to set it up so that if you buy it on way Vudu you get it only in Vudu UHD equivalent on K equivalent; but if you buy on K store you get the higher K UHD quality and obviously only the lower standard quality UHD on Vudu. You built in an insensitive to buy K store but still allow accept to viewing in markets where K can’t or doesn’t want to compete, like say your kids cheap $50 tablet that they always loose or break.

There is a built in market and revenue opportunity here. K is leaving money on the table that with K could get by:

Offering MA connection but only giving disc quality streams to k store purchases. But reduced quality but standard MA quality stream to people who elsewhere.

Offering MA connection and a more compact Strato C that could more easily traveled with but needed to be registered to the same account.

Same as above but to make sure it was only used for travel of one owner it would be required to be connected to the same network as your Strato or Strato S at least say 9 out of 12 months to discourage people from not buying K hard drive components.

There are many ways to make this work that does “give anything away for free” and generates incremental profits to keep the company going, adding new products, and new features.

As someone who used to sell and install multi million dollar AV systems for decades to the rich & famous along with Fortune 500 companies I see a lot of opportunities for K left untap. That’s why I now work with major manufacturer to help take their AV offerings more in the higher end to offer an edge against their cookie cutter or half a**ed sell it and move on competitors.

I want to see K make more money and put back some of that into more and better products and features. There’s a lot more they could do but are being constrained by a number of factors.
 
Unless as I said they get a cut of the persons purchase from the other retailer, then yes they are giving something away for nothing and bear in mind the infrastructure required to deliver that content as just one piece of the pie. As someone pointed out in another discussion - there is a cost to K "everytime" a download is instigated. So no purchase from the store and a title transfers to K from MA = download of title = "cost to K"

I don't know why the joined UV, I've no idea of the incentives or benefits.

Of course there was a reason these other retailers got out of the business - perhaps there was no money to be made in UV dominated accounts - similar to the K scenario I painted above.

While a "premium" purchase, K isn't the domain of just wealthy people. I know of several users who, in anticiaption of K joining MA purchased a whole raft of titles in digital code form from other sites, awaiting the day K announced MA to transfer those titles. So yes some will be looking to buy cheap and use it to gain the higher quality transfer from K.

All very moot and perhaps not a discussion for this particular thread. Rather than de-rail this one why not start a new discussion. A more apt thread title might also illicit more insightful posts.
 
No “derailing” attempted. I had pulled up the Bring MA to K discussion thread but it appears that I must have somehow switched threads before posting and I delete it and move it unfortunately. Things happen, back to more relevant thread topics.
 
Think we need to separate the need vs. solution. If the need is mobility, then K could offer some type of solution that allowed us to watch K purchased movies on a mobile device. Maybe an enhancement of their current app vs. MA. Wonder it MA will end up in the same place as UV at some point. Also, IMHO folks purchasing on platforms like Vudu and then turning around and downloading on K just wasn’t a good idea and healthy for K. The only way to get the equivalent movie quality is by purchasing a physical disc. Not purchasing a lower res streaming version of a movie and then turning around and downloading a full K version. SJ
 
The need isn't just mobility though. It's backup and security for our purchases. This is an extremely volatile business. I've seen many EST providers come and go and we need security with our movie purchases.
 
Let's keep it friendly guys. I know it's a frustrating subject. I'll try to move these comments to the other thread shortly, but let's return to the original topic of this thread. Thank you!

Jim
 
The need isn't just mobility though. It's backup and security for our purchases. This is an extremely volatile business. I've seen many EST providers come and go and we need security with our movie purchases.
The only security one can have is buying the physical media. As you correctly write providers come and go, MA is not the solution either. Sorry for those who spent money buying lower res movies there with the hope to download a full K version one day, I don't think that it's going to happen. As per Cheena's post sometime ago, K is working on a solution so let's wait and see.

"I can assure you that we understand your desire for the portability of purchased titles across devices and services. I can also confirm that we're making progress albeit not as fast as you wish, and perhaps not exactly the way you want the problem solved."

In the meantime K did an amazing effort and gave the opportunity to many of the newer customers to bring their collections into the K ecosystem by providing d2d for all studios and massively reducing prices for most. On top of this many sales are happening and in many cases pricing is really low.

For the time being and for the movies I want to watch when I travel I buy cheap codes and redeem in Vudu. Otherwise between Netflix, HBO & Disney+, family and I have more than enough content to watch. For the security of our library I chose to take the risk and trust K but I acknowledge and respect that not everyone wants to do the same.
 
I would like K to join MA, in fact banking on it and buying exclusively on K store. I am open to some solution where purchases through K store provides access to MA and for purchases not through K incurs a nominal charge for downloads, maybe using credits.

In essence, if you buy through K store, you get free download credits, if not you have to buy download credits, similar to disc to digital or digital offers etc.

Regardless of whether MA lives or not, streaming is not going away and so studios will find a way to transfer rights somehow, With only K, there is lack of portability options and lack of s backup security.

So yeah, I would like K to join MA sooner than later.
 
Hmm going further on that thought. What if the MA purchases counted the same as having a disc in K and people could do Disc-to-Digital, or in this case "Digital-to-Digital" haha! So if you own a movie in HD or 4K in MA then you could pay the Digital Offer price to get it on K.
 
I think discs and any other "hard copy" concepts are going to fall off in the next few years. Disney already said they weren't planning on any future releases. Some companies have limited or stopped producing disc players. And studios would probably rather have control for copywrite purposes. I like that security too, and that very issue delayed me purchasing Kaleidescape until just after (large oops here) UV was disconnected from K.

I do still miss accessing my library when I'm away from home. Perhaps K could come up with a small storage system that can be used remotely, assuming you can at least log in via internet so they can verify. Maybe something small like Apple TV size?
 
I would buy exclusively from K if what I bought transferred out, I don't care about transferring in, K gets my money.... I get portability!!
 
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