Why isnt there a Sony UMD player ?

[wraggster]

If Sony are serious about the UMD as a video format you would have thought that by now they would have released a standalone UMD Player or even a PSP Console, imagine playing your games on the TV and handheld when ever you want?

Maybe it would only appeal to PSP owners but what a killer idea eh?

or maybe just maybe theres a UMD slot in the PS3?

Anyone have any thoughts on this ?

[SteveV2]

The umd format works well for the psp as the screen res in smaller than a tv/pc etc.

I don't think a umd could hold a crystal clear movie thats watchable on a tv (like dual layered dvd 9.4 gig!)

[Video_freak]

good point, but it would still be really nice tho! i would buy one

[wraggster]

maybe a portable DVD player type UMD Player

[steve-b]

why would you buy a portable UMD player when you can just use your PSP ;)

[Video_freak]

why would you buy a portable UMD player when you can just use your PSP ;)
thats what i was thinking :rolleyes:

[nielsss]

they could sell them cheaper that the psp is one reason

[doof69]

it would look ridiculous. The resolution is way off and low, it uses stereo, c'mon you cant seriously think that would work. DVD is one thousand times better. And only an idiot would buy it. Seriously the umd movie format is dead. Why do you think with the new firmware you can now put video's any where. You use to have to make special folders which is to confusing for ppl so they would buy UMD movies. well thats what i thought sony's plan was.
now they realise its dead so they dont care. O yer the psp is a portable UMD player ^^

[Xiofire]

A PS3 UMD Slot would be awesome, but if yew upscaled the picture, wouldnt it look treible?
-Xiofire

[yoshinatsu]

That idiotic "UMD on PS3" thing is finished.
There was a fake pre-PS3 picture showing a fake PS3 having a UMD Slot.
That's bullshit. UMD's just for PSP, since the resolution is 480x272

[SSaxdude]

Sony already is trying to push two formats on consumers: UMD and Blu-Ray. A UMD slot in the PS3 would be a waste, considering that you're paying the $600 to watch Blu-Ray movies.
UMD is more of a novelty.

[Ichijoe]

I think S0NY®™ could revitalize the UMD™ Market.
By just simply charging the Customer a fair value for what the UMD™ is worth.

...HINT: It's not woth +€20.00(EUR)

It's been said time and agin, but I would be willing to shell out €5.00(EUR) to €10.00(EUR)
on a UMD™ Movie. Because this is what I think they are worth!

After all there's the crappy 480x272 Res. If the Format even uses' that?! Then we also lack a
5.1 Sound System, and then the glaring lack of Bonus Features. Make the UMD™ a 'No Sale',
and so we have the current situation.

I aggree with the point that S0NY®™ could have and perhapps should have made a UMD™
(Movie), Player, on the cheap. For those that didn't want to invest in the PSP™. But, then S0NY®™
would've had Two disasters on it's Hands.

[Man]

Ya but its too late now, Sony is geting rid of the UMD format anyways, so now there is no point, they would have a UMD player, but no UMDs.

[Accordion]

if the blu ray has a casing (i dont think it has been finalised yet ) then perhaps an adapter could be made in which you slot the umd into the blu ray case and then run it through a linux based emulator....

perhaps

[jwilds73]

I could give a crap about blue ray. I bet that for atleast the first year of the PS3's life no game will appear on Blue Ray format (unless it's in house). Aren't there two systems anyways? One without Blue Ray and one with? Anyway's if there are two PS3's no third party developer is going to want to develop for only a portion of the PS3 market.

Using the PSP as a remote for the PS3 whoopdeedo!~ It's the world's fastest battery draining remote!

I'd rather have a UMD drive on the PS3 so I can play my PSP games at home on the TV then sync my saves to the PSP and take the games with me on the go. This coupled with reverse compatability with PSX and PS2 games would sell me on the system even at it's high price tag.

For now though I am really considering giving Nintendo a second chance with the Wii. Nintendo is very creative with their systems and games. Look at the DS it's got touch capabilities the Wii has a funky controller. Sadly not many third party developers have taken advantage of the DS's touch screen feature but Nintendo has with their in house games. I'm sure their funky controller will be fun also.

I want to add Nintendo had the Super Gameboy for the SNES, Transfer Pak for the N64, and 3 or so adapters for the GameCube including the GameBoy Player, and Gamecube Game Boy Advance Cable. I have high hopes for Nintendo's intersystem capabilities.

[felonyr301]

actually guys the umd movies arent encoded in 480x272 its actually encoded in 720x480 (like dvd's) but the psp just downscales it and its been said many times in other sites so sony had in their mind that one day it be used for tv's just a heads up guys. (i still dont like umd's)

[Eric]

There is one question i gotta ask here. If Sony is getting a rid of UMD doesnt that mean they would stop making games for the PSP. I dont know cause i dont own a PSP its just that i thought UMD's were games aswell.

[MicroNut]

Why Sony even pushed movie's on UMD is a mystery to me.

The cost is/was ridiculous
DVD’s offer a much better product when compared to UMD movies.
If you buy the DVD, it’s easy to make a PSP playable movie out of it.
Why buy the movie twice?

The resolution and sound quality of a UMD is anemic.
DivX / XviD avi’s need to be about 1.5 to 2 gigs in size of they are to come close to DVD quality.
(Watch able on a TV but not a projector or HDTV)

The convenience in portability of movie’s come into question with portable DVD players.
Then there are portable DivX / Xvid players, in various incarnations, already on the market.

For many reasons it behooves Sony keep the UMD a proprietary format.
I don’t think there will ever be a UMD-R released to the consumer.

[Video_freak]

There is one question i gotta ask here. If Sony is getting a rid of UMD doesnt that mean they would stop making games for the PSP. I dont know cause i dont own a PSP its just that i thought UMD's were games aswell.
only UMD movies are dying

[soup_nazi]

Sorry MicroNut, but like felonyr301 said, UMD's are encoded at 720*480 resolution using H.264 compression. On a 1.8 gig disc that's enough to be claimed to be 'DVD quality'. Have you ever seen a UMD movie on a big screen? I'm guessing no... so how can you possibly comment on how good it looks?

[MicroNut]

Have you ever seen a UMD movie on a big screen? I'm guessing no... so how can you possibly comment on how good it looks?

Have you?

Even if you can.
Why?

DVD's are so much better.

I Do have plenty of experience converting DVD’s to XviD and DivX.
So I can speak from experience that they work “Ok” for standard TV’s but look like crap when projected or played back on HDTV.
H.264 better than DviX or Xvid? lol

So I beg the question how could video UMD justify the price when compared to DVD?
(Or any of its already portable derivatives?)
It can't that's why it failed.

[Mr.Denny]

If Sony are serious about the UMD as a video format you would have thought that by now they would have released a standalone UMD Player or even a PSP Console, imagine playing your games on the TV and handheld when ever you want?

Maybe it would only appeal to PSP owners but what a killer idea eh?

or maybe just maybe theres a UMD slot in the PS3?

Anyone have any thoughts on this ?

It`s this kind of thinking that could have prevented the UMDs demise.

[MicroNut]

It`s this kind of thinking that could have prevented the UMDs demise.

It also may have been helpfull if the PSP had a video out.

[NoQuarter]

A burner might be able to help this format out more than anything else.I really don't understand sony's logic-on one hand they support linux which is open source but on the other hand they release things on these proprietary formats when the market is way beyond this sort of thing!???

[soup_nazi]

Have you?

Even if you can.
Why?

DVD's are so much better.

I Do have plenty of experience converting DVD’s to XviD and DivX.
So I can speak from experience that they work “Ok” for standard TV’s but look like crap when projected or played back on HDTV.
H.264 better than DviX or Xvid? lol

So I beg the question how could video UMD justify the price when compared to DVD?
(Or any of its already portable derivatives?)
It can't that's why it failed.

Ok, h.264 is part of both HD dvd and Blu-ray spec, so you can't really argue that it's not a suitable standard to use, or capable of producing high quality video. Furthermore I wasn't arguing a case that UMD is a great rival to DVD or anything, just saying that it's foolish to say it's unsuitable for TV sized screens, when it's clearly been chosen with TV in mind. Why sony haven't implemented it is beyond me...

Personally I'd like to see a UMD on a TV and check it out for myself because specs can only tell you so much, and I just find it intriguing what the potential applications could be.

As for the HD argument, DVD's look pretty poor on my HD projector anyway, so that's not really that great or amazing a medium, if you start slagging off UMD for it's lack of HD support and touting DVD's as far superior.

We all know sony blew it with UMD videos, that's not to say it couldn't have been an interesting and potentially viable medium. Speaking for myself I could see a potential use for them if they were the same or slightly less price of a DVD, but just offered you the film without the special features and you could then watch it on you PSP/other PMP which could also connect to a TV when you wanted, giving you DVD quality playback. (Which I'm willing to guess it would be).

[MicroNut]

DVD's look pretty poor on my HD projector anyway,

DVD's are MPEG2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2) quality which is better than H.264 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264)
The MPEG2 bit rate on DVD's vary for many reasons.
The bit rate can can be maxxed out for the media.
Unfortunately not all players are built to spec.
See: SuperBit DVD (http://www.google.com/search?q=SuperBit+DVD&sourceid=mozilla-search&start=0&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)

Google H.264 (http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=h.264)

BlueRay Spec (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/)
See Section 3.3

Doom9 (http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?f=77)
Is a great resource.

MPEG4 (H.264) is the next generation of video compression standards.
This does not mean that its better than MPEG2
Max. video resolution
MPEG1 352 x 288
MPEG2 1920 x 1152
MPEG4 720 x 576

BlueRay and HD-DVD are the next big storage media.
This doesnt mean that the compression format MPEG2 is dead.
Todays's DVD's are limited by the media and the players they were standardized (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD) on 10 years ago.
The new players and media give the room manufactures need to sell movies that look good on HDTV's
and Projection Screens (Digital Projectors)
See DLP (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-51,GGLD:en&q=DLP+projectors)

I do agree that H.264 is capable of encoding better than XviD quality.
Although this is being debated:
H.264 vs Divx (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-51,GGLD:en&q=H%2E264+vs+Divx)
MSU MPEG-4 AVC/ H.264 codec comparison test (http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-89741.html)

The bottom line is that compression of any kind sucks.
Displaying the source resolution is always the best.
Digital Video Codec's give the highest rate of capture possible.
Unfortunately 500 gigabyte storage media arent available yet,
much less the players needed to play back the video.
Home Theater PC's can do this but the movie houses already have a problem giving away the source video.
Anyone experienced in digital home video knows just how much space is eaten up by raw digital footage:
Digital Video Standards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video)

[pkmusicmaker]

No one wants to own 2 versions of a movie unless they have money growing on trees outside their house. The only way for it to work would be to sell blank UMDs and sell a DVD to UMD burner. I'd buy it in a second.

[NoQuarter]

Me too as long as I could put any thing on there I liked(homebrew)

[shadowprophet]

Why isnt there a UMD player :(

Oh well the umd movie market has crashed now anyway :(

I guess I was the only person alive who actuelly like the idea of UMD movies...

[Gizmo356]

no i like them 8)

[Elbereth]

Uhh as far as I know UMD Video resolution is 720x480 but is downscaled for PSP when played on it, this was proven by decoding the mps files on UMD. Being encoded in H.264 for a UMD size of almost 2GB, you would get pretty decent result on TV so it would not be dumb to have standalone player (other than PSP).

Even if the DVD is far better (bonuses, much better audio and usually better video) that do not mean there should not be a UMD player for TV. Bear in mind you don't need HD if you are using a standard TV (most of European people) or if you are using a normal videoproyector (480p). I actually agree that MPEG4 looks (most of the time) crappy on proyector.. :p

Edit: Actually at PSP presentation a UMD Video was projected on a big screen and it looked pretty good.

[borikua_rocks]

wouldnt a USB-VIDEO adapter that went from the PSp to a TV imput be better? And easier to make?

[PsychoSync]

UMD movies are 720x480 and the PSP downscales it... That's stupid if Sony is not planning on making a standalone player (or anyway of playing the movie to TV). What i always hated about UMD movies is the lack of bonuses. Now if they're not planning on selling some kind of gizmo to play those movies on TV, then why don't they burn their movies 480x272, that would leave enough space for special features.

[r2works]

You would think a company like Sony with their music market, gaming market, computer market, electronics market, car stereo market, and film making market; would come up with better ideas or at least force their ideas within there own electronic world.

I still don't understand why Sony did not go with the mini-dvd format!? 1.4G with 3" in width...! that would have had more people buying movies twice, then with a UMD cd. Think about it, you watch mini-dvd's on your dvd, watch mini-dvd camcorder video's (sony's camcorder plug), make a mini-dvd car player (sony's car stereo plug), release a dvd to mini-dvd compressor program (sony's computer/software plug), etc. etc.

This UMD format is just like the MiniDisc player Sony marketed 6-10yrs ago, and what happened with that? Sony should have learned from this or at least think about what made them so successful. The Playstation used CD format, which then in turn made games cheaper and more universal for developers when compared to the N64.

So what does this all mean for the PS3??? Well from what I have read the battle between HD-DVD and BluRay could be decided through the PORN industry. yay more porn.