Ultraviolet, One of the Earliest Digital Movie Lockers, is Shutting Down

January 31, 2019

When studios first started offering digital copies of movies with home video releases on Blu-ray and DVD, Ultraviolet was one of the first services to host a library of titles for customers. Now the company is shutting down.

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) announced that the Ultraviolet digital movie locker will shut down this summer. What does that mean for customers who have a collection of movies redeemed through the Ultraviolet digital movie service? Find out below.

Variety has word on Ultraviolet shutting down, but users don’t have to worry about losing access to their digital library immediately. Ultraviolet won’t be dead until July 31, and they’re offering customers the ability to link their library to another collaborating retailer in order to hang on to their digital library. Most users with a collection of digital movies will have likely already done this by making their movies available at retailers like Walmart’s Vudu or Fandango NOW, but if you haven’t done that, Ultraviolet has instructions of how to do this on their website.

For those Ultraviolet users who are worried about losing their movies, Vudu went out of their way to reassure customers that this won’t have an impact on their libraries in any way. Vudu vice president Scott Blanksteen said:

“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.”

There’s a chance that some movies and TV shows from your Ultraviolet library won’t stick around once the service closes. But the company is anticipating very little disruption for customers in that regard. And if you happen to buy a movie or TV show with an Ultraviolet digital copy, you’ll still be able to redeem it through July 31. It will also show up in whatever retailer’s library is linked to the service.

The shuttering of Ultraviolet isn’t surprising. Studios like 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures previously used Ultraviolet as their default digital movie distributor. But ever since Disney launched the Movies Anywhere service in the fall of 2017, the two studios stopped releasing digital movies through Ultraviolet. Since then, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures have joined Fox and Universal in releasing digital movies through Movies Anywhere.

If you haven’t set up a Movies Anywhere account yet, it is now the best way to keep track of your digital movie and TV library. Most movies and TV shows redeemed through the service will crossover into movie libraries at iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Vudu, FandangoNow, Microsoft Movies & TV, and Xfinity. However, movies from Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate don’t crossover yet since they haven’t given their support to Movies Anywhere. Even so, it’s still the best digital library locker out there now.

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