Digital | 4:53 July 20, 2010 | Print this story

DECE becomes UltraViolet for digital rights locker

The multi-industry consortium Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) has chosen the name UltraViolet for its planned digital rights locker due for launch at the end of the year.

Backed by around 60 entertainment and electronics firms including Sony Pictures, Paramount, Warner Bros., Microsoft, Toshiba, Netflix, Best Buy, and Lovefilm, the open standard allows consumers to watch purchased content on all formats and players.

UltraViolet faces competition from proprietary services run on Apple products and from the Walt Disney Co., which is developing a system called KeyChest.

DECE President Mitch Singer, who also is Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Chief Technology Officer, said that specifications for the format will be published soon with tests to begin by the end of the year. He said the name UltraViolet was chosen because “it's outside the visible spectrum, but it’s all around you and it’s ubiquitous”.

Details are available at www.uvvu.com but the idea is to have a digital locker that stores proof of purchase of DVDs, Blu-ray discs and movie downloads. Consumers may watch content on any device without having to copy to a personal file.

“Our hope is that consumers go through retailers to manage their UltraViolet accounts, and we want retailers to maintain that close relationship with consumers,” Singer said. “This will be the back end, but of course people can go to our site directly.”

Cue Entertainment reported in January that the clash between DECE and Disney would have great significance, quoting industry analyst Screen Digest, which said the Keychest-DECE battle is going to be the “format war for the digital era” defining who controls digital formats of the next 15 to 20 years.