Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment releasing five movies on UMD for the PSP
By Peter Rojas 
posted March 17th 2005 2:49PM
posted March 17th 2005 2:49PM
It's not just Lions Gate and a bunch of random Japanese companies that are going to be releasing movies on Sony's new UMD format, now Disney, in form of subsidiary Buena Vista Home Entertainment, has committed to putting out at least five movies this spring that you'll be able to watch on your PlayStation Portable—"National Treasure," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Reign of Fire," "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Hero"—with more to come later on. If Sony can get one or two more studios on board then these sorts of announcements are going to officially stop being newsworthy.
It's DIVX all over again.
(Disney was one of the only supporters of that format too, to the point of refusing to release movies on any other format for a while.)
Here's another $20 you'll have to spend. 1st you had it on VHS, then DVD... or for kids, first DVD, now UMD... release it in HD-DVD, there's another $20+. It'll cost you $100 per movies for multiple formats. I hate this crap.
The UMD is the Beta of the new millenium.
Innovative at first, but destined to burn out like a bad fart.
The term UMD is an oxymoron, if it is univeral, then how come only the PSP is the only thing that will play it? exactly.
The other limitation with the UMD is that no PC manufacturers will be producing any type of hardware to use these.
Oh and that sound you just heard is the value of the PSP crashing through to hades.
Kill Bill? That's a great movie for the kids that will likely be buyers of the PSP. Not!
Sony: just give us an UMD writer...
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
They're releasing 'HERO' for the PSP ???
I thought I was going to be able to resist temptation and NOT buy one...but now...
Oh wait...that's right...I already have 'Hero' on DVD (a *marginally* more universal format the afore mentioned oxymoronic UMD) and I can rip it to divx/mpeg and play it on my
Jornada 720
Mobile pro 780 (heehee - hith-hitch-hitch)
Sharp Zaurus
Laptop
GBA-SP (that I might buy)
Discman (VCD enabled)
etc...
Sony REALLY needs to open that standard up if they expect it to fly.
Sad too, the UMD could be kinda cool since it's physically a good size for portability and offers a usable amount of space. I could picture dvd players having an extra slot that would accept these and play both factory pressed movies and also home burned DIVx rips...
(me shakes head in disgust)
...releasing 'Hero' on UMD...that's just plain fighting dirty...
Then again even with the PSP's (realatively speaking) huge screen I think the subtitles will be a wee bit difficult to read...
i know a whole lot of adults drooling over the psp. i think it is smart to release as content, movies or other wise, for as wide a market as possible.
Only dumb people will buy a movie on UMD.
Showing off your PSP playing UMD movies is like showing off your family photos of you boarding the short bus on the way to school.
Which you can also do on your PSP :P
What's with this constant tone of resentment towards the psp? It's like, 'how dare they come out with an amazing handheld device, and then begin to release content for it.'
come on some1 crack umd, so that u can download the game and put it on ur memory stick and play it thru the memory stick instead of buyin umds,
It isn't the content that's a problem, it is the media. Were the content downloaded movies to the device, that would be great. instead, they sell you a VHS-quality UMD that you can only play on 1 device. It also costs the same price as a full-fledged DVD 2-disc set with special commentary, additional languages, 5.1 sound and more.
Again, if they would sell the movies as downloaded films for $3-5 a pop, people would jump all over it. Instead, they are trying to force another Betamax/Minidisc
and you're watching it on a 5 inch screen
We just need two discs for music and movies:
CD and DVD. All the other incompatible systems need to go: UMD movies, sacd, dvd-a.
Except with DVD-A, you only need *one* disc for music and movies?
The more I think about it, the nuttier it seems that Sony is simultaneously trying to champion two dicreet disc standards. Blu-ray and UMD. I know they have nothing to do with each other technologically and I know they are targeting slightly different market areas, but it just seems stupid to be fighting a war on two fronts like this.
"if they would sell the movies as downloaded films for $3-5 a pop, people would jump all over it."
True that. To this day I will occasionally buy VCD's in chinatown for $4 - $10 a pop if the DVD version is substantially more expensive and the movie is not stellar (but is something I like to watch occasionally). Episodic TV series become practical in this price range, say $20 per seasons worth, and at 24 - 45 min they are perfect for train/bus comutes.
Still...
The clitcher is that you can only watch these things on the PSP. Does anybody really think VCR's and DVD players would have been nearly as popular if all this time we had to watch them on a 4 inch screen (even if we didn't have to hold it up the whole time) ?
Omg.. why is everyone freaking out and being *****? I'm gonna by a few UMD movies. Why? Because I can and choose to. Sony is giving us options. You don't want to buy UMD? Fine, rip the dvd and stick it on a memory card. Just stop complaining about the fact that they are following through on their promise to offer UMD movies...
Ehhhhhhh .. You guys know that Beta is still around don't you?
It may have missed in the consumer market but it's been alive and well as a high end broadcast format for years. Beta-Sp and later acame Digi-Beta.
Semi: Do you really not know how to speak proper English? Or perhaps you need a bigger keyboard?
Wait... Beta? Alive?
WHAT YOU SAY?!!
"I can rip it to divx/mpeg and play it on my ...
...Sony REALLY needs to open that standard up if they expect it to fly."
You can play that same rip on the PSP too, and it will look better on it than on any of the handheld devices you listed, due to it's really good screen. UMD video version will however look even better - very comparable to a DVD quality.
"Were the content downloaded movies to the device, that would be great. instead, they sell you a VHS-quality UMD that you can only play on 1 device."
First of all, you can download and play video content on the PSP. Second, if you think all you get is VHS quality, you clearly haven't seen what the UMD movies look like. Every early PSP owner in US will get a free Spiderman 2 UMD movie, so I'd imagine soon enough it will not be difficult for anyone to see what it will look like.
"You can play that same rip on the PSP too, and it will look better on it than on any of the handheld devices you listed, due to it's really good screen. UMD video version will however look even better - very comparable to a DVD quality."
Very likely true. As for quality I would guess UMDs would be at least as good as a DIVx looks on my PC since they are larger than the average DIVx movie file, and all that space is likely encoded in such a way as to optimize the screen usage. And yeah, the video quality is not stellar on the J720 or the Mobilepro 780, the Zaurus is actually pretty good but you are right, the PSP is probably better.
Thing is I already have those devices, and CF cards, and SD cards, and a 2GB pcmcia HD for the Jornada. Even if I rip my DVD's to DIVx I'd still need to buy a PSP. I'd need to buy Memory Stick media as well.
As I've said in this and other posts (perhaps not explicitly though) the PSP is a pretty cool device, and I wouldn't mind having one. But as far as PMP's go there are much cheaper (and in many cases easier) ways to accomplish virtually the same thing (granted with lower playback quality).
All in all I guess I've really got nothing against the PSP itself (after all it is *primarily* a gaming console), but more the marketing of the UMDs and the UMD technology. Of course, Sony can do whatever they want, but I just think it's dumb to expect people to pay full price for what *I* would deem a crippled product, a digital movie that I can only play on 1 device that is not even the primary device most people watch movies on.
IMHO...
If, as said by me and others, the UMD movies are relatively inexpensive the PSP+UMD route becomes rather attractive. If I could hook a PSP up to a TV or buy a little box that played UMDs to my TV it/they would be an excellent buy , if I could record my own movies on UMD and play them in addition to pressed content on the PSP/mythical-tv-box it would be a slam dunk.
But as it stands now you're absolutely right, you can take your own DVD's and rip out a DIVx file and call it macaroni (I think the quality difference is pretty relative considering the screen is only about four inches and will be contending with glare and be slightly unsteady if you're holding it in you hands). So why would I ever buy a UMD movie? It sounds like I could buy a DVD for about the same price (maybe even less) and with a little work subsequently be able to view the content on virtually any device of my choosing. Like I said, if Sony wants UMDs to gain success and be popular there's gotta be more in it for people than maybe 1 out of every 10 - 15 movies out there that can then only be played on the PSP.
I know, Iknow...Sony wants to protect their UMD game interests from piracy, I can respect that. But then why bother offering UMD movies at all ? Again Sony can do whatever they want, but to me it seems like a feeble and kinda pointless effort.
Of course, UMDs could just become the next "Laser disc". A realatively expensive niche market that never caught on mainstream but had reasonable support by those who chose to adopt it and pay for it until something out and out BETTER came along (I could be wrong, and am open to comments if there is any way in which a Laserdisc is superior to a DVD). I suppose there could be money in that...
But hey, whatever. If people want to buy this/them/it and are happy with it, more power to them...
Just voicing my opinion, not trying to quash anyone elses...