UMD Movies for PSP: The new 8-track!

by Blake Snow { Dec 11th 2006 at 6:15PM }

GameSetWatch suggests UMD movies may become the new 8-track of today as studios slow down and likely stop releasing the PSP format. Even Sony, oft criticized for its proprietary formats including the short-lived MiniDisc, are releasing less than half of Sony-published movies in UMD form.

So what does it all mean? UMD bargains and rarities galore for collecting geeks seeking movies and music. But you better hurry up. Scarcity drives the price up quick.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

RoroCo @ Dec 11th 2006 6:21PM

Betamax... check
Minidisc... check
UMD... check
BluRay... only a matter of time...

Shane @ Dec 11th 2006 6:27PM

I think if Sony wanted to have UMD's be a real format for movies they would have released something to play them on your TV as well. I wouldn't group UMD movies with other formats because there are still the UMD games. The movies seem like a tacked on afterthought to milk the consumers for more. Also, unlike the other format types, this one was not really competing against anything else, unless you include the memory stick.

Ash @ Dec 11th 2006 6:28PM

Who didnt see this coming?

Heres what sets blu ray apart tho... cuz sony doesnt own that format like they did all the previous ones.
I own a 360 but I hope bluray is the next format simply because it is technically more advance and has more space than HD DVD.

Kspraydad @ Dec 11th 2006 6:36PM

UMD is THE reason I never bought (though I really wanted) a PSP.

The UMD could've succeeded if it was burnable (like minidisc was so SONY knows how to do it).

luigi193 @ Dec 11th 2006 6:39PM

LOL @SONY!!!

cyberfrog @ Dec 11th 2006 6:44PM

Shane, what are you talking about? You think Sony released UMD movies as an afterthought? An initial selling point of the psp was to be a multimedia device, not just for gaming. UMD simply failed as it's relatively high cost was unjustified and did not provide any burnable media. In terms of games, UMD was a poor choice as it eats up battery power do to moving parts more than flash based games would. As Sony's recent moves have shown, movies are easily shown on flash format as well. Sony's fear of piracy and love of proprietal formats clearly bit them in the ass on this one.

Evan @ Dec 11th 2006 6:44PM

8-track was much more popular than UMD. 8-tracks were popular for a decade, and albums were still released on it for a decade after that. By all accounts, 8-track was a successful format and does not belong in the same sentence as UMD.

RoroCo @ Dec 11th 2006 6:45PM

While we all know Sony does not own BluRay... they are clearly the figure heads behind the media format. With their studios and gaming division pushing the format aggressively, most of the world views BluRay as Sony's format.

As for BluRay being technically superior - Sony marketing is working on you. Unfortunately, that is not an absolute statement. While BluRay can hold more data, the video data that is stored on it is inferior to HD-DVD (MPEG2 v VC1). Plus, once you have enough space for a full length movie in 1080, than extra space means nothing but more money for the format.

TheH2s @ Dec 11th 2006 6:48PM

I'm seeing commercials now that say "In stores on DVD, Blu-Ray, and PSP". Are they trying to not call it UMD's or is this something different?

RomeoDude @ Dec 11th 2006 6:51PM

MiniDisc, UMD, Blu-ray, Betamax..... looks like Sony never has the right idea when it comes to formats...

J.Goodwin @ Dec 11th 2006 6:51PM

8-track had GREAT audio fidelity. It had it's bad points, namely that the cartridges were frequently manufactured on the cheap and that any tape format is going to suffer stretch on repeated use, but 8-track was as close as you could get to the original master recordings. Period.

Only SACD and DVD-Audio approach it.

JodyAnthony @ Dec 11th 2006 6:58PM

8-track was invented by the same person that designed the lear jet.

also, minidiscs are still used for recording purposes by some people, but as a mass consumer thing yeah, totally dead in the water.

Washington @ Dec 11th 2006 7:10PM

J.Goodwin, that's nonsense. Even regular cassettes were better than 8 track tapes in terms of sound quality. And you're smoking crack if you think they sound better than vinyl records or normal cds.

Unless you are referring to 8-track MULTITRACK tape, which is not what is being discussed here.

SuicideNinja @ Dec 11th 2006 7:10PM

Blu-ray isn't more advanced, it just holds more space. If you consider MORE copy-protection a desirable advancement, then boo to you. Other than space, both discs are capabale of the same thing. If you want to go there, then HD-DVD can have DVD/HD-DVD hybrid discs where Blu-ray cannot (because they don't want to pay for DVD licensing, kind of like how they don't want to pay for licensing so they use the inferior MPEG2 codec).

Also, that so-called "scratch-proof" coating on Blu-ray was put on there because it needed it, not as a feature. The naked surfaces were too delicate and were damaged easily.

Anyway, why would Sony want UMD competing with Blu-ray (by making a regular UMD player)? I'm aware there is a difference between HD and UMD's crappy resolution. But that would in effect put a FOURTH competing video format on the market (well, for North America anyway...there is EVD, VCD, etc, used elsewhere). Besides...UMD would look awful blown up to standard television size.

Just because Sony isn't the only company with say in Blu-ray, they are the most influential of the collective, so they might as well own it.

Justin @ Dec 11th 2006 7:21PM

People bought UMDs?! Wow . . .

you can just import a DVD for Sony Vegas Video and click the render to PSP button for free.

Cosmos @ Dec 11th 2006 7:23PM

I wasn't alive at the time, so correct me if I'm wrong on this, but weren't 8-tracks a valid and popular media format back in their day? They were eventually rendered obsolete by superior technology. This is not so with the UMD; it has never been a popular format, nor is it in the process of being superseded by a superior technology because even when it was introduced it was an INFERIOR technology. (Flash memory and hard drives have proven themselves better suited for mobile storage.)

WraithLord @ Dec 11th 2006 7:38PM

This is something I posted on the G.A.P. community page several months ago, but I still think it's the truth.

Entry #4
Why UMD Movies don't sell...
I don't know if this subject has been touched on yet, and I have been out of the G.A.P. scene for a while; so I decided I would bring it up for the other members to speak on. Anyway...

The more I read about the UMD, the more I am convinced that Sony has absolutely no clue as to why they aren't selling. So to anyone who cares to collect, here are my 2 cents.

The Problem: Your favorite local retailer "Bullseye" has let's say "Office Area" on DVD for $13.45. The UMD is $17.99.(These are all actual prices i got from the interweb) They have "Ultrapurple"(not that anyone would buy it anyway, but) on DVD for $16.88; on UMD for $25.99. "Seatwarmers" DVD for $17.87, on UMD for $25.99, and one step further Blu-Ray for $27.25. So, if we take an average of the three movies; we see that the UMD's are (on average) $7.26 more than their DVD counterparts. That is F*&king Ridiculous!!!! And in the case of Seatwarmers, the UMD is only $1.26 less than the Blu-Ray!! Ah!!!! Am I the only one to see a problem with this?

The Fix: Simple: LOWER THE PRICE OF THE UMD!!!!!
And I don't mean lower the price to equal the price of the DVD, I mean lower them (ALL OF THEM) to $4.99-$6.99 Price Points for Old Releases; and $7.99 to $11.99(max $9.99 preferably) for New Releases.

Final Thoughts: I (and I'm assuming a lot of other people based on the current market trends) Absolutely Refuse to pay 26 bucks for something I might use once a year, or once period. When I can pay 16 bucks for the same product; take a couple of hours worth of clock cycles; and have a product I can use when I want, how I want, and where I want. Alternately: I might see "Seatwarmers" for $4.99 and say, "Sweet, Seatwarmers for PSP for 5 bucks, that's awesome! I'm getting that!" (Because for me, buying a movie that I would enjoy watching, or that my wife would enjoy watching; (for five dollars) is well worth not having to take up valuable encoding time, or that oh so precious stick space.

Follow up to the same post:

Entry #6
Follow up to UMD Prices
The Dvd Can be used in many different consumer products. the UMD cannot. It can only be used in a PSP. That is exactly why it is important to lower the price of the UMD movies to not only an affordable level, but to an attractive level. Just because I can afford something, doesn't mean I'm going to buy it. It has to be priced so that it's overall quality justifies the cost. i.e. Enough bang for the buck. And in the case of a UMD; Enough portability, durability, resale value, and compatibility for the buck. So... Think about DVD's or Memory Sticks as I run thru my basic values...
Portability... High: Can take them almost anywhere...
Durability... Overrated: If you drop a UMD from average standing hieght, the case will probably crack. This may or may not hinder playability, but it most certainly reduce...
Resale Value... Low: Pay 26 Bucks, as soon as your out of the store, it's worth maybe 7 bucks at your local trading post(if it's in mint condish with all the fixens).
Compatibility: Very Low...1 Consumer product away from being ZERO!!!
So in my mind, 26 are WAY WAY too many bucks to pay for such little bang. Where as 5-10 bucks are not.
That's my point.
Again these are just my measly .002 cents, they're not worth much, but they're mine.

dominiward @ Dec 11th 2006 8:13PM

I can't wait until an article from Joystiq reads "Blu-Ray is the new... Betamax..UMD..minidic..networkwalkman..HiFD..clie..memorystick
microMV...." you get the picture.

ManekiNeko @ Dec 11th 2006 9:20PM

I don't think it's a coincidence that Sony's proprietary music format is called ATRAC...

JR

Micro Mame Man @ Dec 11th 2006 9:22PM

I think the funniest thing behind the whole UMD trainwreck is that the "U" stands for "universal."

Sony, you never intended for the UMD to be anything other than a PSP format. Why say it is "universal?"

James @ Dec 11th 2006 9:48PM

Hey guys, I just found a newspaper clipping from the year 2015 that got flung into the distant past.

__Sony baffled at poor sales of BluRay 3.0__

excerpt: "I just don't get it," Sony spokesdroid PR-150 said Wednesday, "they're a steal at only twice the price of the Ultra-HD-DVD, and they run on the PSP2 at almost a quarter the resolution! And you can almost get through a whole movie on one battery charge! People should be snatching these things up left and right!"

Heh. I keed, but as a PSP owner I wish they would have scrapped the idea and made movies-from-flash easier from the start. I found a few open-source transcoding tools, but they're kind of shoddy (most crash half the time) and I refuse to pay for a commercial suite to fix Sony's failures. They can't include support for any mainstream codecs, and they're too short-sighted to allow a pluggable video player (at least, not without homebrew). I hope UMD dies a beggar's death.

Oh, and Joystiq needs to rethink the original post -- when it comes to UMD movies, you forget the "demand" side of Supply and Demand. You know, that great big sucking sound of a vacuum where there should be customers.

gk5000 @ Dec 11th 2006 11:47PM

argh, why do all of you keep needing to be reminded?!

minidisc was a huge success in Japan and much of the rest of East Asia in the 90's, when most of us were still listening to cassette tapes and trying our hand with our fancy 4x CD-RW drives.

(I'm not a Sony fanboy, they sure did fail in all the other formats, soon to be joined by Blu-Ray, but just setting the record straight)

The ZeroCorpse @ Dec 12th 2006 12:07AM

Actually, I think a better analogy would be VideoDisks. These were not unlike vinyl records encased in a plastic enclosure that spun and were read one side at a time.

There's a reason most of you never heard of them.

Smoke_Dawg_187 @ Dec 12th 2006 12:21AM

James! That is LOL funny! Thanks, I needed a good laugh. = )

the_game_master @ Dec 12th 2006 5:24AM

Betamax

rjj130 @ Dec 12th 2006 8:25AM

I love MiniDisc's... I still use mine to this day. I purchased my deck and portables back in the mid to late 90's and they still work flawlessly.

It was a great product and Sony just didn't know how to really market it. I guess that and I'm not sure the American public really was able to understand it and get over their obsession with making mixed tapes...

CLShortFuse @ Dec 12th 2006 9:15AM

wow, you guys are really out of date in the blu-ray debate. since 2005 blu-ray supports MPEG-2, H.264 and VC-1. the first gen blue-ray in 2004 only had MPEG-2. i do believe sony's UMD idea was stupid, but blu-ray is the better drive, though use of a different laser means higher price

ryan @ Dec 12th 2006 10:00AM

I agree that the UMD was a flop being that it never made it outside of the PSP. However the minidisk has been fairly successful, especially outside of the US. I got one of these in 95. It was the only option I knew of to burn cd's for many years. Not every Sony format flops or sucks. People just hate on sony since it is the popular thing to do.

Oz @ Dec 12th 2006 10:02AM

As a mass media medium MDs do not exist today but in the live show environments (theatre/opera etc) MDs are life savers. I have been in the industry for almost 10 years, I have never seen an MD went bad. Saves your ass in live environment (No skip/No Scratch and editable). Today it is slowly shifting to HDD based computer systems playing MP3s, but still I really liked MDs. Only if sony would let data to be recorded on them and let direct copy of Mp3s right out of the bad. For some reason they are trying to push these ATRAC encoding which is a really bad strategy.

gk5000 @ Dec 12th 2006 10:41AM

MD's problems in America were pretty complex... Mainly
1. Botched marketing -- hardly anybody even knew what the word "MD" meant
2. Americans don't ride buses are trains, outside of our 5 or so the biggest cities... They just drive, and in a car stereo MD didn't have as much of an edge over CD's and tapes.
3. The whole thing was more fiddly than Americans were prepared to deal with in the 90's -- you needed an optical cable, a special recordable MD player, and your own CD player ideally with an optical-out port -- tons of gadgets, all just to listen to stuff you already own. Fiddliness doesn't much phase people these days, but in the 90's people really couldn't be bothered.
4. Sony is jinxed.

ackmondual @ Dec 12th 2006 6:36PM

I agree with UMD players at home. That would'v been nice to watch movies on your TV. Not saying that would've saved UMD movie format for sure, but merely saying that's the great thing about DVDs now. Home theatres is nice, but being able to play DVDs on the road via PVPs, laptops, and DVD players built into todays cars made it even better.

@ #9
""I'm seeing commercials now that say "In stores on DVD, Blu-Ray, and PSP". Are they trying to not call it UMD's or is this something different?""

Perhaps no1 knows UMDs are the format for PSP? My guess would be it doesn't matter. PSP is the only device that can play UMD movies. It's not like you can say DVD and it'll be for PVP, PC, Macs, TV DVD players, or even the PS2.

B1gC72 @ Dec 16th 2006 1:00AM

i really dont know why sony struggles so much with new formats. it doesnt really seem all that hard. they make it seem like anybody on this blog could do a better job than them at pushing a format.

o and how the hell is the UMD Universal? its only supported by one device. dumbass move for sony.....again.

Emru Townsend @ Dec 18th 2006 4:36PM

I know it's cool to bash on Sony these days, but let's put a few things in perspective. Betamax lost the format war, but its descendants (like Digital Betacam and Betacam SP and DigiBeta) are still being used today in the professional world; the Betamax format itself persisted for about twenty years.

MiniDiscs also aren't quite dead yet, and have been in existence for something like fourteen years. For people who record in the field and want something durable, it's still hard to beat. (Being able to even crudely edit using a $200 MD recorder is something that no MP3 player I can think of can top.)

I'm as disappointed as anyone at how far Sony has fallen, but c'mon, let's give them credit where it's due.