Why isnt there a Sony UMD player ?

**MicroNut** · July 30th, 2006, 22:02

Originally Posted by soup_nazi

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** · July 30th, 2006, 22:06

Originally Posted by 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 ?

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

**MicroNut** · July 30th, 2006, 22:12

Originally Posted by Mr.Denny

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** · July 30th, 2006, 22:54

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** · July 30th, 2006, 23:32

Originally Posted by MicroNut

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** · July 31st, 2006, 00:57

Originally Posted by soup_nazi

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

DVD's are MPEG2 quality which is better than 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

Google H.264

BlueRay Spec
See Section 3.3

Doom9
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 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

I do agree that H.264 is capable of encoding better than XviD quality.
Although this is being debated:
H.264 vs Divx
MSU MPEG-4 AVC/ H.264 codec comparison test

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

**pkmusicmaker** · July 31st, 2006, 02:07

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.