It’s no secret that the experience of building a digital movie collection has been pretty terrible up until now. There have been so many competing companies involved that the average consumer has ended up with multiple movies spread across many different incompatible services. It has been confusing and inconvenient, to say the least. This week Hollywood seems to be finally taking a step toward fixing this with Movies Anywhere, a joint venture spearheaded by Disney and supported by four other major studios in addition to four digital retailers (Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu). Karin Gilford, General Manager, had this to say about the launch of Movies Anywhere:

“Movies Anywhere is a massive step forward for the consumer digital media experience, bringing the incredible film libraries of five studios together in a virtual one-stop movie-watching shop… Movies Anywhere means that consumers never have to remember where they purchased a film or which device they can watch it on, because all of their eligible movies will be centralized within their Movies Anywhere library and available across platforms through the Movies Anywhere app and website and also available at their connected digital retailers. And as Movies Anywhere continues to add more studios, retailers and platforms, the entertainment possibilities are endless.”

You heard that right. If you decide to sign up and link your various accounts with Movies Anywhere, all of your movies will be available on Amazon Video, Google Play, iTunes and Vudu as well as the Movies Anywhere app (assuming it currently exists in their library). This is essentially what Ultraviolet should have been. The service is launching with 7300 titles and it currently includes movies from Sony, Disney, Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers but Paramount and Lionsgate are not yet a part of the initiative. The service is based on Disney’s KeyChest technology and movies can be streamed or downloaded for offline playback. Obviously it is still too early to tell if this will be embraced by consumers, but it seems like a step in the right direction. You can sign up now over at moviesanywhere.com and get some free movies out of the deal as well. Does this sound like the digital movie solution you’ve been looking for?