While it’s not particularly difficult to rip Blu-rays or DVDs, it’s technically illegal to do so in Australia. Disc-2-Digital is a service that creates legal, cloud-accessible versions of movies you own on physical media — but you’ll pay for the privilege.
The service is offered by streaming media provider EzyFlix.TV. To verify you own a movie, you insert a copy of it in your drive and run the Windows or Mac app. Once verified, you pay $2 for access to a cloud-based version of the existing title, or $5 to upgrade it to an HD version if it’s an older DVD.
That only works if the movie is on the list of supported titles. Currently that numbers around 1000, though the developers say the number will increase in the future. The service is essentially an extension of the existing UltraViolet digital locker service, allowing you to pay for copies of movies that don’t already throw in an UltraViolet conversion for free.
The reality is that being forced to pay again for a title you already own sucks, and with only 1000 titles on offer so far, lots of existing content won’t be covered anyway. It also only works with discs purchased in Australia.
Given the choice, I suspect many people will continue to digitise their physical media, even if it is technically breaking the law, or find their way to an online streaming provider like Netflix or Quickflix. But if that seems like too much effort, this is cheaper than buying a new digital copy from iTunes or Google Play.
Comments
5 responses to “Disc-2-Digital Will Put Your Blu-ray And DVD Discs In The Cloud For A Stupidly Large Fee”
I buy most of my discs overseas anyway. I’ve never ever redeemed an ultraviolet copy either. I try to avoid movies that have them as it possible just increases the cost of it plus it has that really ugly bar across the top of the cover.
Don’t forget, you’ll need to have a BD-ROM drive in your machine if you want to do this with blu-ray. It actually needs to read the disc to verify ownership. How many people do you know with a BDR drive?
Is it really that unusual? My fairly avergae 6 year old HP laptop has a Blu-Ray drive
*shrug* maybe it’s just me then, but I haven’t come across any BD drives in an IT job in at least the last 4 years. In my previous job at an internal agency inside a corporate, it was a Big Deal when the department acquired a single Bluray drive because we were starting to deal more in video as a medium.
Also interesting: Apple does not make available any kind of bluray drive on any of their machines. You’d have to use an external drive from a 3rd party. Just sayin’.
Quite a good idea really, though as the T&C’s point out they can (and likely will I imagine) contact you to request more proof of purchase / ownership etc.