A new way to buy movies may make DVD's and Blu-ray's obsolete


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SALT LAKE CITY -- Brace yourselves for another new word to get familiar with when it comes to home entertainment and entertainment on the go.

It's called "Ultraviolet", but it has nothing to do with sunlight or sunscreen.

It's merely a new way of buying movies and TV shows that could eventually make your DVDs and Blu-ray discs a thing of the past, starting this holiday shopping season.

Ultraviolet is a new cloud-based way of buying, storing and accessing content.

All of the major studios, with the exception of Disney, are on board.

"Green Lantern" will be among the first Ultraviolet offerings this fall.

When you buy it, either in a store or online, you'll have the option of it living in a virtual digital rights locker similar to the same way your money lives in an online bank account.

"Consumers will be able to access their collections wherever they are, and they'll be able to share with their family," says Mitch Singer, president of Digital Entertainment Content Eco-System.

That means being able to either download or stream that Ultraviolet content on a variety of devices, from computers to smart phones to gaming consoles.

"Consumers want choice and they want freedom," Singer says.

But with rentals outpacing movie sales for the first time since 2000, consumers may have already chosen.

"I think the market is moving in a different direction, and people aren't going to be as interested in owning a digital copy of a movie much longer," says CNET.com's Molly Wood.

Ultraviolet will put that theory to the test.

As another enticement to consumers, at least two of the studios involved with Ultraviolet, Sony and Warner Bros., plan to allow consumers to upload movies they've already purchased from them into the Ultraviolet digital rights locker.

Disney is the only major studio not involved with Ultraviolet, but they're working on something similar of their own called "Disney's All Access Keychest".

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