Portable Copy makes us wonder why we still have UMD
The Portable Copy feature shown off at the Blu-ray interactivity demo is a nice bit of functionality. Buy a Blu-ray disc and you can easily put an optimized copy of the content onto your PSP. Sounds good to us, but it really makes us wonder what use UMD has anymore. If it ever had any real utility to begin with, that is. Sure, UMD may be useful for those who don't have a PS3 and want to get the portable movie fix, but the format is losing visibility in the retail space and even before that, things weren't so rosy. Only Sony can decide when it's time to let go of UMD, but the first step in solving a problem is identifying that it exists.
Filed under: Blu-ray, Other formats, Other hardware, Players, Sony
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sean @ Jan 8th 2008 1:37AM
Ive said it before, and Ill say it again, UMD is garbage.
jango fett @ Jan 8th 2008 1:52AM
these day's anything sony makes is garbage... people think
DrXym @ Jan 8th 2008 8:41AM
UMD was undone by pure naked greed and the march of technology. Who is going to buy a UMD when it costs more than a DVD and offers lower features and resolution? If they'd pitched these things for $10 a shot I think the format would have taken off. We might even see dinky dedicated players for the format.
Instead people took one look at the price and ignored the format almost entirely (except for games). Those that watch movies on their PSP do so by ripping a DVD. At least Sony were smart enough to let them play movies back from a memory stick. That was definitely a smart move.
TigerShark @ Jan 8th 2008 1:49AM
I believe the next PSP should have large flash drive built in, at least 100GB. The new PSPs games should come on a standard DVD, which we can insert into the PS2/PS3/PC and download it directly to the PSP. This PSP should also include Bluetooth and GPS built in. The Bluetooth should be used for an external HDD/flash drive, with rechargeable batteries, for more storage space.
TJ @ Jan 8th 2008 1:55AM
I like the idea of an all-flash PSP, but why is this on EHD? Shouldn't it be on classic?
jango fett @ Jan 8th 2008 1:56AM
it makes me wonder why the ds uses a crappy ass game card too. oh and how about the gamecube with its bullshit nintendo gamecube disk. yall need to stop this bullshit. nothing wrong with umd. what was it it was supposed to mean if people bought all the movies released for it? for other companies to use the technology for their handhelds?
Spiza @ Jan 8th 2008 2:42AM
Its been dead for a long time, consumed to much power spinning those discs when its legal to download a copy and put it on a memory stick if you own the movie.
EQC @ Jan 8th 2008 3:30AM
I wanna live where you live if it's legal to download copies of movies there. Last I heard, whether or not you own the DVD, that'll get your ass sued.
Craig WB @ Jan 8th 2008 3:01AM
You've gotta be kidding me, You do realize that they also put the games on this "Dead" format.
Give me a break It's like Jango Fett up there just said UMD wasn't made to be the next DVD people it's just a delivery format for the PSP.
And UMD movies are still useful, for one thing the quality is really nice and you can bring more than maybe 2 of them at most unless you want to load up a bunch of movies onto multiple memory sticks before you leave.
They aren't as expensive as they used to be as well.
Augustus @ Jan 8th 2008 10:12AM
This technology would put a PSP on my new "must have" list. It would be great to have a LEGAL way to take my HD movies with me. I guess this is what Sony gets for owning the format. Don't get me wrong, I'm an open format, fair-use kinda guy, but I'm pretty happy if they simply make it easy for me to get the same results in a round-about sort of way. I do wonder if they will keep the image quality high enough to plug a PSP into a TV for viewing.
MI @ Jan 8th 2008 10:55AM
I'm not familiar with PSP all that much. Are they saying you can download the movies on to a UMD, or directly to memory in the PSP itself?
Augustus @ Jan 8th 2008 11:08AM
It seems like it's directly to PSP memory. There is no way to write to a UMD as far as I know and there sure isn't a way to even get a UMD into a PS3.
required @ Jan 8th 2008 12:16PM
Just so you bunch of daft posters know, UMD is a fine format that is doing very very well, nearly all PSP games are published on it.
Seriously if you are going to make such asinine comments and pontificate about products you clearly know nothing about (UMD) at least be upfront about that fact because your idiocy is showing and it's ugly.
andy @ Jan 8th 2008 12:18PM
Or they could just include an unencrypted copy of the movie on the disc in .wmv format in vga resolution so that we could play it on our smartphones and media players. you know, devices that people actually own already. I'm a grown up, I don't care around a PSP, I carry around an ATT tilt (or treo, or blackberry... whatever for others)
andy @ Jan 8th 2008 12:22PM
UMD is dead as a format, and was before it started.
Will it ever be used for home media? Doubtful considering how cheap DVD's are and how much they hold. And UMD can't even touch the HD media capacities. Ever.
Will it ever be used for portable media? No unless you like hauling around huge batteries. Spinning a motor takes juice. Reading solid state memory takes next to nothing, and have you even seen pricing on 512mb SD cards lately? They're also 1/16 the size of the UMD things.
I think it's safe to say it's dead.
stephenbratz2 @ Jan 8th 2008 1:35PM
And so it begins, you need a **Sony** device to be able to take your movies on the go. From all I have read about this, no other devices have been mentioned. Want to use your cell phone (such as WM or iPhone), PDA, iPod/Zune/other media player? Sorry. And how do you get the movies onto the device? PS3 only? Looks like BD may win the war, but don't worry, this is a Sony format. You may be able to do some things with other BD players like watch the bare-bones movie, but Sony will make sure that you get all the features with their ecosystem only.