UltraViolet is a digital rights authentication system developed by the movie industry to give consumers access to the content they have purchased across a number of devices. It sounds straightforward enough, but when we bought a Blu-ray copy of Horrible Bosses in order to see how well UltraViolet is implemented, we found it to be too tied down to proprietary apps, its access limited in too many ways, and the viewing experience subpar. It's a hassle.

Here's how UltraViolet works: when you buy a Blu-ray movie, a piece of paper inside the case provides you with a 12-digit code and directs you to a website. This is when you will meet Flixster, the multi-platform app you won’t be able to shake for the duration of your UltraViolet experience. You must create an account with the website in order to redeem your various digital copy rights, and then download the provided programs in order to view the digital version of the movie.

Flixster's website and various apps are heavy on social network integration. And they didn't work very well in our testing. After creating an account on the website, adding the movie to my "collection," and downloading and logging into the Mac app, the movie didn’t appear as connected to my account. I tried searching for the movie, figuring the program would let me download it. The search result offered a menu to select what version of the movie I owned (DVD, Blu-Ray, etc) or how I had previously seen it (theatres, TV, etc). But there was no download button to be found.

Instead, Horrible Bosses was merely added to my collection as a sort of image with attached information, not unlike the way you can add devices to a gdgt profile. Great. My friends could see I own the movie, but I still didn't have my digital copy.

To get the actual movie into the app, I had to go back to the website and log into my account and navigate to the movie in my collection. The download link that redirected me to download the Flixster program now begins the movie download, and is placed alongside an option to stream it directly through the website.

In contrast to the 1080p Blu-Ray version of the movie, the downloaded movie in the Flixster app is only 480p and 1.5GB in size. And this is the only version of the movie I could get—there are no other options for resolution or compression. A Warner Bros. spokesperson told Ars that this was because a better resolution would be lost on smaller screens, an odd assertion given devices with high-resolution displays like the iPhone 4 and 4S.

As for the actual movie file, it's definitely not yours to do with as you please. It’s visible in your files and you can move it around, but you won’t be able to open it without the Flixster program’s say-so.

To view your movie on a mobile device, you must download an iOS or Android version of the Flixster app. Once logged in, you can stream your movie over WiFi, but you can’t download the movie for offline viewing or watch it over 3G (we're told that the ability to download movies will be added to the mobile apps in the future).

My use of Flixster's social network integration also created some problems. I connected Facebook to my Flixster account after setting it up rather than using its "Log in with Facebook" option. This caused my Flixster account to splice into two versions: with Facebook connected, I could not see my movie in my collection; if I unconnected it from Facebook, the movie reappeared. This could be just a bug, but connect your account from the beginning if you’re going to want Facebook integration. Eventually my profile broke down and the movie wouldn’t show up as my property anywhere.

There are still more restrictions to Flixster and UltraViolet: according to their terms of service, your purchase of a movie with UltraViolet rights gives you access to streamed and downloaded versions for “at least a year.” What happens after a year is up is anyone’s guess. If you’ve downloaded your movies, we doubt they will be ripped out from underneath you, but your ability to stream the movie to your mobile device may be compromised.

Flixster tries to take over your end-to-end video-watching experience by incorporating indirect access to a lot of other services, like Netflix and Hulu. While I resent the application’s desire to butt out Netflix in favor of its own interface, it may be that layering over services that customers already use is the best way to win over loyal customers of those services. But it's annoying. As it is right now, taking advantage of the UltraViolet system means accepting Flixster as your new video master. Given the restrictions on the digital copy's resolution, download, lifetime of use, and functionality we’re not comfortable with that. With Netflix already offering access to video on multiple platforms and an endless number of programs that allow you to store personal backup copies of your DVDs—not to mention the vast amount of illicit content that you can bend and shape to any format and device you like—this is too little, too late.