Hello everyone, here is a story i thought was funny seeing how i never really liked the idea od UMD and thought it was pointless. Even Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is cutting back.

In pre-Liberty City days, UMD movies were the shining star in the PSP library--in fact, at one point movies comprised almost 50% of all UMD sales. That success, however, has either not sustained or not increased enough to appease film studios. According to a report by Variety, key movie studios (Warner Home Video, Paramount, even Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) have announced that they will cut back on the number of films they release on the UMD format.

Many factors have contributed to this decision, most of all sales figures (" the average release posts sales closer to 40,000-50,000" ). Other factors include the sheer number of different formats available and soon-to-be-released disc options (DVD, UMD, HD-DVD, and the Sony-backed Blu-ray) that will dilute the market. Another reason cited is the inability to view UMD movies on a TV--a problem, says SCEA, that will be soon remedied by a new PSP adaptor.

The article notes that comedies are doing well, especially collections like Chappelle' s Show and Beavis & Butthead, but the weaker sales of dramas have led to the cancellation of a Goodfellas UMD. One of the problems we' ve noticed with UMD' s are the lack of special features compared to their DVD brethren. How do you feel about UMD, and what would encourage you to buy more discs?

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/02/16/film-studios-cut-back-on-umd-titles/#comments

there' s more - Sony plans to add UMD movies to DVD editions for a few bucks more.

Sony just suck when it comes to storage/media. Blu-Ray could end up flopping too!

I' ve always been one of the biggest advocates of UMD movies and I still consider it a viable format BUT Sony and other movie studios are incredibly retarded when it comes to UMD movie pricing.

$25.99 for most new releases, You f***ing Krazy Sony??

I won' t even buy DVDs that cost more than $21.99 so I sure as hell won' t be spending a little more than that on UMD movies.. All of my UMD movies were in the $13.99 - $17.99 range..

I personally think that $7.99 - $14.99 should be the magic price point of UMD movies depending on the age of the movie as well as whether its a Hollywood blockbuster type film or straight to video release.

UMD movies put me off buying the PSP in the first place. Firstly I dont want to buy two copies of the same movie as the article on the front page says. But also why would I want to watch movies on the bus, on such a small screen? I just cant enjoy a movie that way. It' s like why would I want to play Tomb Raider on my mobile phone? (The N-Gage should never have existed!)

So I might have bought a PSP for movies if there was an official cable for decent TV out so I had a choice, but I' m guessing that didnt happen due to quality and DVD sale issues. Those little speakers and stand you could get to turn it into a minature widescreen cinema made me laugh as well.

Incorporating internet into mobile devices for e-mail, movie and game trailers, mp games etc is ok, but theres no point trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Imo, if the PSP had DS games or the DS had PSP design then either would have been more my taste.

So yea, I personally wouldn' t be sad to see UMDs go..

I like the UMDs. They are great entertainment if you' re on a long trip and you' re too tired to play a game. Watching UMDs is relaxing.
The screen is smaller than most portable DVDs but if you use headphones the experience is actually really good. And besides, it' s not supposed to be a portable cinema. The games for the PSP and the DS are as great as many console games even though the screen is smaller than a TV-set. So why can' t this be said about movies? I watch movies because they are entertaining, not because they look cool on big screens.
You can of course put ripped movies on a memory stick but with he UMDs you won' t have to go through the process of ripping and converting. And the option of watching with or without subtitles is good to as well as the extras.
If the prices were lower, I think the UMD format would have been a great success.

The thing is though that UMD' s cost more to produce than DVD' s. I thought they would have learned their lesson with mini-disc!

The reason N64 games cost so much, even late into their life was because they cost more to produce. If Sony or other companies reduce the cost of UMDs before they manage to drive manufacturing costs down they will lose money.

I think £10 ($17) is perfect for the format, but in the UK we have to pay £17.99 ($31) to £22.99 ($40) for a new release, with the occasional badly transferred anime movie with no extras costing us £10/£12. It' s rediculous!

Will they manage to drive the manufacturing costs down?
I mean if they give up on the format already then people won' t buy UMDs and that will make it very difficult to drive the costs down. What a waste of effort!
I think Sony should either put everything they' ve got on the UMDs, or nothing at all.

I dunno. I think UMD' s are nice but it was always going to be a risk!

Think about it this way. When feature length films are downloadable (like HL2 from Steam), in the next year or two (you better believe it), ...who' d going to pay over the odds for a UMD, when they can pay half that (maybe less) and have a digital copy to stick on their memory stick?!

sounds nice - but downloading an HD movie (30GB) is impossible for many - the internet isn' t ready.

Not yet, but PSP isn' t a HD capable device is it?!

But um... the UMD cases look good in the bookshelf once you have a couple of them... Memory Sticks aren' t that beautiful...
But if downloadable movies will defeat the UMD then the CD and the DVD should also go the same way.

ORIGINAL: ginjirou

But um... the UMD cases look good in the bookshelf once you have a couple of them... Memory Sticks aren' t that beautiful...
But if downloadable movies will defeat the UMD then the CD and the DVD should also go the same way.

It already is isn' t it? iTunes is uber popular and tons of stuff is downloadable; music (obviously), podcasts, radio show, tv shows...etc...

It' s only a mater of time (and not a long time either) before feature length movies are available to download. 360 will initially be able to download tv episodes but eventually will have full movies downloadable.

Steam showed it could be done for games, and Revolution' s retro games for the virtual console will be downloaded like that (shame you have to pay for them though...).

DVD and CDs' will never be completely wiped out though, but places like HMV are already offering digital tracks (WMA, MP3 etc) instore and are charged per song like iTunes does.

Ok. Damn... now I have to trade my bookshelves for a harddrive instead. Wohoo more space for the PS3!

LOL!

I hope a HDD comes as standard in with PS3. I expect Sony to offer multiple packages, but i wish they wouldn' t. I mean, i don' t mind paying £400 for the unit as long as it has a HDD and a wireless pad as standard (which it will).

I half actually hoped it would also play UMDs' , just so they' d be playable on something other than the PSP.

Maybe it will be possible to connect the PSP to a PS3 and look at UMDs on a TV. Is it possible with USB?

It would be possible through USB, but the main problem is getting the films to look good on a standard TV as the resolution is much lower. Interlacing at 480i (the easiest way) is out of the question as most people will have native res LCD or Plasma HD' s.

Sony will probably have to use the PS3' s power for video scalling in order to look good, but as anyone whose experienced will tell you, it' s not easy to do (and expensive). Plus it' s a different process from PS3 scaling it' s own video coming out of it' s graphics chip (more like how PC games do it.).

If Sony released a device that played UMD' s on PS3 I don' t think playback would all that great given their track record with PS2 playing DVD' s, or just look at the GameBoy Player, which shows what happens with an affordable way of displaying low res visuals on a TV the easy way.

UMD' s on a home TV is slightly pointless though when most people will have the DVD version, or if not that can usually be obtained very cheaply today. Though I would love to play Ridge Racers on my TV.

Not yet, but PSP isn' t a HD capable device is it?!

I misunderstood I guess.

I think you should stick with the DVD format for your TV.

I hate those boring DVD cases - I think that japanese gamecube games had the coolest boxes this time.

I hope N makes some cool ones for Revo.

BTW - those PSP cases are really cool :)

Whether or not it would be possible to watch a UMD on your TV via USB is unknown. They would have to update the firmware to allow the USB to be connected and live (because you have to activate it from te menu, it doesn' t connect automatically).

I doubt it though.

But you could watch whatever' s your doing (like watching a UMD) on your PSP, on your TV already with PSP2TV (unofficial product), shown here...



You can use a widescreen mode which on a 4:3 TV would give you black borders but would look perfect on a widescreen 16:9 TV. But UMDs' aren' t formatted in HD anyway, they' re specifically formatted for the PSP screen as far as resolution is concerned, ergo it would look horrible on anything but the smallest of TVs.

The biggest problem with PSP2TV is that it requires you to modify your actual PSP, because it doesn' t have a native video-out port.

It' s a step but a very small one, and not really worth thinking about.

It would have been better all round if they included a UMD drive in the PS3!

I' ve been meaning to get PSP2TV for months now but kept putting it off because I wasn' t sure which PSP to sacrifice - the U.S. unit that I use for movies, firmware updates, and games, OR the Japanese unit which still has firmware 1.0..

And now that Sony has announced their own adapter for the PSP, I' ll wait and see if that one is potentially better, quality-wise, than the PSP2TV... If it' s not then I' ll wind up getting both.