I’ve been talking a lot about Ultra, the 4K streaming service from Sony. While I like the idea of it, the service is unfortunately going to face some tough times with a lot of questions about its long term viability in the midst of competition from Netflix and Amazon Prime who will also be providing 4K HDR content. One positive thing that Sony with doing with Ultra is allowing users to connect their UltraViolet accounts and bring over their Sony Pictures titles. Jake Winett, VP of consumer services and advanced platforms for Sony Pictures:

 We believe that consumers like choice, and don’t like to be locked into a particular silo, within a particular service. It was important that we made Ultra compatible with UltraViolet, and as a new service for consumers, to give them additional value. They can turn on Ultra, and already have titles in their library they can watch, or even upgrade to in 4K. 

While I despise everything there is about UltraViolet, this is a good move by Sony and automatically brings people into their new app with some content. If you’re staring at a blank service that only revolves around purchases, you’re less likely to use it. But if it’s already populated with your previously purchased content, then there is a far greater chance that you’ll actually put the service to use. Perhaps best, Sony will also allow you to upgrade your HD films to 4K.

 For Sony Pictures titles they already have in their library, SD or HD, depending on what they purchased previously, when a 4K HDR version of that movie is available within Ultra, when they go into that particular title … there will be an upgrade option. For $12, upgrading from HD to 4K, they’ll get the highest quality possible, and be able to stream [4K] with a single transaction. 

That’s honestly not too expensive, considering the alternative when many of us bought the same titles we owned on DVD on Blu-ray. This is frankly the same transition and with digital, it’s even easier. Ironically despite Winett touting:

 We believe that consumers like choice, and don’t like to be locked into a particular silo, within a particular service, 

once upgraded to 4K, it’s not as if they’ll be able to take their 4K purchased content to any other TV, seeing how Ultra is only compatible with Sony’s 2016 Android 4K TVs. Hopefully Sony can dramatically expand Ultra’s availability because like Netflix, they should target it to be on every 4K TV sold and not instead use it as a leveraging tool for consumers to purchase a Sony TV vs. the competition because frankly, most people likely won’t even know it exists.

Also, Sony PR, this is your newest service launching and there is still no website with info for it and the only 3 pictures that you’ve released have resolutions of 640 x 360…

Discuss:

Do you think the price to upgrade from HD to 4K is fair?

[Via MESA]