'Disney Movies Anywhere' gets Android app, ushers in cross-platform movie purchasing
Disney on Tuesday rolled out an Android app for its "Disney Movies Anywhere" cloud service -- already available for iOS -- in a rare deal that finds Apple and Google sharing digital content rights for movie purchases.
Disney's Disney Movies Anywhere app for Apple's iOS.
Disney Movies Anywhere first debuted for iOS in February as an all-inclusive service providing a store integrated with iTunes, video viewer and content manager wrapped up in a single app. On Tuesday, Disney extended the service to Google's Android operating system, allowing it to coexist on the world's two dominant mobile platforms.
As part of the deal, both Apple and Google will purchase Disney content wholesale and resell it in their respective iTunes and Google Play media stores, reports The Wall Street Journal. Through the cloud, Disney's app bridges across the iOS and Android platforms, meaning registered users can buy a film on an iPad and view it on a Google Nexus device, for example. On the same token, users can purchase movies on an Android device and access it via iPad or iPhone.
"This is about getting people comfortable with building their digital movies collection," said Jamie Voris, CTO at Walt Disney Studios. "Disney is going to protect them and make sure they can watch their movies wherever they want to."
With the app, Disney is the first Hollywood studio to offer its wares on a truly cross-platform system. The achievement is notable considering Ultraviolet, a digital movie format backed by a coalition of major film studios, has been unable to curry favor with either Apple or Google.
With support for both iTunes and Google Play, Disney Movies Anywhere content is now available on digital storefronts that, combined, generate more than two-thirds of online movie sales, the WSJ notes. As it stands, iTunes commands 61 percent of online movie sales, according to research firm IHS.
Disney's Disney Movies Anywhere app for Apple's iOS.
Disney Movies Anywhere first debuted for iOS in February as an all-inclusive service providing a store integrated with iTunes, video viewer and content manager wrapped up in a single app. On Tuesday, Disney extended the service to Google's Android operating system, allowing it to coexist on the world's two dominant mobile platforms.
As part of the deal, both Apple and Google will purchase Disney content wholesale and resell it in their respective iTunes and Google Play media stores, reports The Wall Street Journal. Through the cloud, Disney's app bridges across the iOS and Android platforms, meaning registered users can buy a film on an iPad and view it on a Google Nexus device, for example. On the same token, users can purchase movies on an Android device and access it via iPad or iPhone.
"This is about getting people comfortable with building their digital movies collection," said Jamie Voris, CTO at Walt Disney Studios. "Disney is going to protect them and make sure they can watch their movies wherever they want to."
With the app, Disney is the first Hollywood studio to offer its wares on a truly cross-platform system. The achievement is notable considering Ultraviolet, a digital movie format backed by a coalition of major film studios, has been unable to curry favor with either Apple or Google.
With support for both iTunes and Google Play, Disney Movies Anywhere content is now available on digital storefronts that, combined, generate more than two-thirds of online movie sales, the WSJ notes. As it stands, iTunes commands 61 percent of online movie sales, according to research firm IHS.
Comments
Ultraviolet. . . oh please. Download codes with expiration dates. Pfft. Sounds like it was created by the same geniuses who came up with CurrentC.
Original Trilogy wouldn't be the unbroken versions, so meh on that one. I'll stick with my LaserDisc copies.
Everybody and their mothers know full well that giving us Star Wars will be bigger than the Beatles (and U2 for that matter)...read: cash cow
Fox owns the distribution rights of episodes 5/6 until May 2020 and the rights to episode 4 in perpetuity.
See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars
They'll release the 4K/8K master equivalent versions as either downloads or on special multi-layer Blu-Ray. But, I'd like to see the special effects redone all over again and done well this time.
That's ok, it just means that if you buy a disc, you should redeem the code within a reasonable time. The downloads themselves won't expire (although you have to login every 90 days). It helps prevent someone buying a used disc years later and using the code, their second-hand purchase doesn't give the company any money.
Won’t that entail going frame by frame all over again from the film? Won’t the film need to be re-re-restored by that point?
I have no idea why they're making android users happy. Disney should be Apple exclusive.
Ultraviolet. . . oh please. Download codes with expiration dates. Pfft. Sounds like it was created by the same geniuses who came up with CurrentC.
You've got that right. Ultraviolet is crap!! I should be able to play the video in any player I have now instead of installing another one(Flixster). And it's not even a true digital copy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraViolet_(system)
Who's the biggest owner of Disney since Steve Jobs died? Is it his wife?
I have no idea why they're making android users happy. Disney should be Apple exclusive.
A quick search would have answered your question.
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/01/youll-never-guess-the-one-woman-who-owns-more-of-d.aspx
The film has probably been meticulously maintained. I've recently seen quite a few movies from the 70s that look phenomenal on HD. I can only imagine how much better they'll looked once they're cleaned up, and converted to 4K, and up.
I should have checked if they'd done it first. A company has done a 4K scan at 16-bit this year:
https://www.avforums.com/news/original-star-wars-trilogy-in-4k.10513
The original trilogy was done on film so should have a resolution around 4K or maybe a bit higher so scanning the film will work ok. Some scenes in the prequels were shot digitally, possibly 2K so they might not be scaled up, nobody cares about those anyway. This rescan would be the original version, not the special edition so they'd have to redo it all again if they wanted the modern special effects back in. That might not be such a big deal though and rendering technology has moved on. There was an article about Disney's new 55,000 core render farm that they used for their upcoming Big Hero 6 animated movie:
http://www.fxguide.com/featured/disneys-new-production-renderer-hyperion-yes-disney/
The changes they put into that software will be coming to Renderman too (which will be free for non-commercial use later this year, it's only $495 for a license now anyway):
http://renderman.pixar.com/view/DP25849
This can render realistic images very quickly so all those CGI parts in Star Wars can just be run through the new photoreal engine at 4K and rotoscoped back in - they can probably reuse the masks from the last time it was done. Even the modern CGI Jabba doesn't look right:
[VIDEO]
Inanimate objects looked ok but not organic characters. This can be updated now. This will be the definitive, master, ultra HD, collector's, director's cut final final edition... until the 8K one comes out.
They'll need to milk this franchise to get back up the charts:
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchises/sort/World
They've slipped to 5th because of Harry Potter, The Avengers, James Bond, LotR.
Ah, yes, “modern” Jabba from ’97. I hesitate to be okay with redoing the effects for the original trilogy, but if technology has progressed such that they can be made to look like the models surrounding them, I say go for it.
And definitely redo the Jabba scene’s CGI. And the run-up in the landspeeder. Random crap happening everywhere does not a compelling story make.
AND GET RID OF THE ‘NOOOOOOO’ AT THE END OF JEDI.
well that answers the first question and it seems she owns %7.5 I'm guessing not enough to persuade the others to make Disney Apple exclusive.
That's ok, it just means that if you buy a disc, you should redeem the code within a reasonable time. The downloads themselves won't expire (although you have to login every 90 days). It helps prevent someone buying a used disc years later and using the code, their second-hand purchase doesn't give the company any money.
Ugh, no thanks. iTunes movie purchases involve less friction. The whole point of digital content (for me) is to eliminate the storage and space requirements of owning physical media. I haven't purchased a CD in many years thanks to iTunes. And my AppleTV doesn't even store any content--I can stream and watch my iTunes movie and TV purchases any time without having to think about "free disk space." It's just there and waiting for me to press play.
I didn't know android users had money /s
But you're right. There's no reason why Disney would limet themselves to iOS. Even Apple doesn't limit iTunes to iOS/OS X users.