September 16th, 2005
Sony UMD Movie Format Gains Momentum, Netflix Just Says No
By Dave Zatz
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Over 8 million UMD movies have been sold for the Sony PSP encouraging Gamefly, the video game rental service, to begin offering flicks via mail-order last month. So I gave Netflix a call to see if they’re still sitting this one out. Steve Swasey, Director of Corporate Communications, told me Netflix has no plans to rent UMD movies saying it’s a “highly specialized, marginal” market niche. Instead Netflix is focusing new media attention on high definition DVD offerings. Meanwhile, Tom’s Hardware reports Sony will be increasing production of UMD movies from 200,000/day to 500,000/day to keep up with demand and they expect to sell 130 million discs in 2008.
We Ask: With such high UMD movie production goals, will we be seeing UMD set-top boxes, PS3 UMD accessories, or even a new Sony Clié line in the future?
rog says:
At my local Best Buy, about 10% of the DVD space is now UMD.
September 16th, 2005 at 9:09 am
Rob says:
I find it really weird that UMD is selling so well.
I don’t think there will be set-top boxes … the UMD resolution is a few pixels short of VHS, so it’s going to look crap compared to a DVD.
September 16th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Dave Zatz says:
The UMD quality issues, in terms of low resolution and limited audio channels, would definitely be a turnoff for adults with nice home theaters. But what about UMD players for children? I can also imagine a drive integrated into one of those Disney-branded TVs. Are the current quality specifications fixed or is the only real limitation the amount of data they can cram onto those small discs…
September 16th, 2005 at 10:59 am
Another Mike says:
I think there is a lot of misunderstood ideas here. First off UMD’s are only capable of 1.8 GB of storage making them excellent for mpeg4 video. But everyone has to understand that the only video player there is for UMD’s is the ubiquitous PSP. That’s it! No more. Have you seen the screen? It’s big for a portable device but it’s no 19″ monitor. The resolution of the video UMD’s carry is perfect for the target device.
Those who have converted movies(dvd) to memory sticks and played on the PSP will tell you that there is little to no difference in quality when watching the same movie played back to back.
But keeping a collection of converted dvd’s on your harddrive just to play on the psp is kinda silly. So now we have a market for UMD movies. Having a new disc for every movie is a lot easier than having to keep swapping movies to and from the memory stick.
September 16th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
TipsDr Blog says:
Sony UMD Movie Format and the PSP
Been reading up some on the Sony PSP, my boy wants one for his birthday, and have been reading on how popular the UMD movie format for the PSP has become. According to an article on RealTechNews, Over 8 million UMD movies have been sold for the Sony P…
September 19th, 2005 at 8:08 am
Chris says:
http://www.5psp.com
There have some low price UMD games (Not movie)
October 13th, 2005 at 2:14 am
employee monitoring software says:
I just purchased Air Force One (UMD), as usual, Sony gives the ol’ choppin treatment to Air Force One’s 2.35 ratio into a 1.78 ratio, which sucks. Thankfully, the cut doesn’t seem too bad on the film, but I rather them leave the film alone then zooming into the picture enough to fill the screen.
That said, this film looks good, although the very first scene of the movie looked completely washed out and hard to see. The black levels could have been better, and the overall look of the film is slightly dull, but is most likely the film’s cinematography.
February 10th, 2006 at 1:51 am