Sony Takes Memory Stick To The Movies

[wraggster]

New press release from Sony:

Sony’s new Memory Stick® Entertainment Packs are designed for people who want to experience the full range of multi-functional features on their PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system.

In concert with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Sony Electronics will be making 1GB and 2GB Memory Stick Duo™ Entertainment Packs available that will be bundled with an installer DVD. With the installer DVD loaded into a personal computer, you can use the complimentary unlock code in the package to select, unlock and transfer one of four Sony movies optimized for PSP playback from the DVD to the Memory Stick media.

The movies to choose from are: “Hitch,” “S.W.A.T,” “The Grudge” or “XXX: State of the Union.”

While the Memory Stick Duo cards included in the Entertainment Pack can be used with any enabled device, such as Cybershot® cameras, HandyCam® camcorders and some Sony Ericsson mobile phones, a movie transferred from the bundled DVD is viewable exclusively on PSP system.

“The Memory Stick Entertainment Pack bundles fun with function,” said Mike Kahn, senior manager for Memory Stick Media at Sony Electronics. “This collaboration with Sony Pictures provides a quick, simple way to get a full-length movie onto Memory Stick media at no extra charge.”

“We had great success on the big screen with each of the movies offered in the Memory Stick Entertainment Pack,” said Mike Arrieta, senior vice president, digital distribution and mobile entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “We expect consumers to have renewed enjoyment from these movies on the go as we make them available on Memory Stick media cards for the PSP system.”

The 1GB (MSX-M1GSTEP) and 2GB (MEX-M2GSEP) Memory Stick Entertainment Packs will be available next month for about $60 and $100, respectively, online at sonystyle.com, across the country at Sony Style® retail stores (www.sonystyle.com/retail), and at authorized dealers nationwide.

[makaveddie]

What a lineup of 4 crappy movies! :)

[LC_killer]

i thik ther jsut testing to see if it will work. it is a good start. so letts all hope that they start sending out some good movies. and mabey make it so you can get more than one movie

[Eilonwy05]

Wow. $ony is trying to sell something that has been possible for free since the PSP came out -- sure, it took a little bit of effort to convert movies to PSP's MPEG4 format at first, but right away there were easily half a dozen freeware and retail apps for automating the conversion...

Then we got the PMP format, allowing even higher quality and lower filesize, and there are tools for automating *that* process too, and $ony is just now figuring out that people buy big Memory Sticks and put movies on them...

And as makaveddie said, the choice of 4 movies is mostly crap anyway, and if you were interested in any of those movies, you probably would own them on DVD (or, God forbid, UMD) already!

I know it's unrealistic to expect $ony to pull their heads out of their collective @$$es, but come on! They're just going to sucker some naïve folks out of a little more cash... while the rest of us continue to convert our own movies just like we have been.

[dthpsc]

Yeah, those are pretty bad movies the only one thats missing is White Chicks. Sony are a bunch of dumbasses I'm pretty sure they should just allow us to take the DVDs we have and be able to watch them on the PSP in full-res AVC... oh, wait, somebody else has already done that *sticks middle finger up at Sony*

[pkmusicmaker]

These big companies can't keep up with how easy it is to do all these things on our own. Even with music, you can pay to download songs, or get a program that does it for free. Tough decision.

[mavsman4457]

I think it is good that Sony admits failure in their UMD sales but they don't even need to try to save themselves in another way. Just move on.

[fistikuffs]

sad sad sad:(

[jwilds73]

Well lets see they can't sell us UMD Movies at $24.99 so now they are going to try and sell us this crap? If UMD movies where half the cost they are now I'd buy some but not at the current prices.

[pkmusicmaker]

It's funny how when I first heard about the PSP, i thought the UMD seemed like one of its best features, but i almost never use any type of UMD, everything I really use my PSP for is on my mem stick.

[ACID]

If the price tag drops to 40 & 80 maibe they can have something. But 4gb are about 140 so why pay 100 for 2gb

[corenskae]

sad sad sad :(

lol you took the words right out of my mouth,

..just like the way sony took this $H!T out of their 4$$

[tsurumaru]

I think Kotaku put it best:

"Too bad there isn't some sort of vast high-speed network of computers out there that could be used to allow PSP owners to download films directly to their own memory cards."

[horacehogarth]

What programs convert the movies to PMP or AVC? I just use video9 which does a decent enough job but higher resolution and smaller file size sounds great!

[dthpsc]

Jonny released a PMP Mod that supports AVC. Go to his website and there'll be a download for his program, muxer and a modified x264 binary.

For DVD conversions you'll need AviSynth and DGIndex as well. For tutorials on using these search the doom9 AVC forums at http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77, there's plenty of articles on using these programs. I'm pretty sure that there's a program called Xvid4PSP that will make things easier for you but I'm not sure whether or not it supports AVC yet (AVC is way better)