The cloud movie locker Ultraviolet is shutting down on July 31. If you purchased movies and have them in an Ultraviolet library, don't worry - we'll tell you how you can continue watching them on your Roku after July 31. But you may need to take action before the shutdown to avoid losing access.
Ultraviolet launched in 2011 to allow consumers to access purchased videos across streaming services. That meant you could, for example, purchase a title from VUDU and watch it on FandangoNow. This allowed customers to purchase from a variety of retailers based on availability and price, but use only a single app to view them - no more searching across multiple apps for a specific movie you bought a few years ago and lost track of.
Although Ultraviolet had a reported 30 million users in January 2019 who collectively stored over 300 million movies and shows in their cloud library [1], the service was not supported by industry heavyweight Disney. This, according to Variety, "long represented a major roadblock for Ultraviolet. Some major digital retailers, including iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play, never joined Ultraviolet because of the market's fragmentation." Disney ultimately started their own cloud locker service called Movies Anywhere.
If you're one of the 30 million with movies in an Ultraviolet library and want to watch them on your Roku device, you can do so using Roku's VUDU channel. VUDU was reportedly the biggest retailer to use the Ultraviolet service, and VUDU vice president Scott Blanksteen told told Variety that "Customers who use Vudu to watch, rent, or buy movies and TV shows will not be impacted by the discontinuation of the Ultraviolet platform... These customers will continue to be able to enjoy Vudu content as they have been and continue to access any and all movies and TV shows they have saved in their Vudu library, even after the shutdown of the Ultraviolet service."
Furthermore, Blanksteen said that "customers of other video platforms could always link their Ultraviolet accounts to Vudu to access their collections through the retailer's apps going forward." Be aware, however, that the shutdown FAQs on the Ultraviolet website warn that "in some cases, there may not be a retailer in your country who can provide access to rights that came from a different retailer." If you have problems accessing a certain title, Ultraviolet recommends contacting the retailer; if the retailer is no longer in business, the FAQs provide contact information for the studios that participated in the Ultraviolet system.
Fore more information, and specific instructions on linking to your Ultraviolet account, please visit the Ultraviolet FAQs at www.myuv.com/faq.
