Walmart and UltraViolet are teaming up to provide consumers with digital copies on their Vudu account of the DVDs and blu-rays they already own, enabling then to watch Vudu movies via stream instead of playing the physical disc on their DVD player.
According to Forbes.com, this initiative will be very important for the future of both the UltraViolet digital storage lockers, as well as WalMart. UltraViolet was created back in 2008 when Hollywood saw the need to shore up sales of physical video content as rental and streaming of digital content became more and more appealing to consumers. Less sales mean less revenues, and rental/streaming simply isn’t as lucrative to these entertainment companies. So this digital locker was formulated, enabling anyone who purchased a DVD or blu-ray to also load the content onto a cloud server for instant streaming access any time.
The big issue is still whether or not consumers value owning this content vs. being able to access it via stream, or simply a one time rental. Fewer people are purchasing movie tickets as well since the economy has been crawling along.
Vudu Disc to Digital will cost consumers $2 to get the rights to the digital version of whatever they own (as long as you purchase the same resolution). If you wish to upgrade to a high definition digital version of your film, it will cost $5. This will enable consumers to have more options in streaming services.
