The "revolutionary new approach to digital entertainment", UltraViolet, has made its way across the pond to the UK and will officially go live on Boxing Day with the launch of Final Destination 5.

UltraViolet is a scheme backed by 75 companies ranging from the movie studios, to Lovefilm, to Sky, to Tesco, and has been set up so people that buy digital video content are able to access their purchases from a digital locker and play it back on their various devices, whether that be PCs, internet enabled TVs, mobile devices or games consoles, without being tied to specific platforms.

Hollywood has been keen to set up an industry standard to cushion the blow as people move away from physical media such as DVDs. 

"If consumers buy a movie or TV show they should be able to use it in any way they want," said Mark Teitell, general manager of DECE, the body representing the consortium backing UltraViolet. "This allows consumers to buy enduring rights to a piece of content, like an internet-based version of a proof of purchase, that they can then watch pretty much anywhere they want."

Robert Price, UK MD for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment stated: "Movie lovers want the freedom and choice to play their purchased movies everywhere. Today’s announcement of the first UK licensees for UltraViolet is great news as it means we will soon be able to browse digital versions of movies from multiple studios just as easily as we currently browse our Blu-ray and DVD libraries on our shelves at home

"Demand for digital ownership has rocketed over the last year with access via Blu-ray proving the easiest and most popular approach. This Christmas we’ll see the share of sales tip in favour of the Blu-ray format, thanks to bundling with digital copy."

We're all for UltraViolet. The industry is rapidly evolving into a digitally based empire and it's about time consumers began to reap the benefits.