Sony needs to sell a some sort of way to freely write to UMD's... imagine going to best buy and buying blank UMD's knowing that you can put whatever you want on there; homebrew, mpeg movies..anything!!! Sales would skyrocket.. it should be a no-brainer, but sony doesnt get it

Reply

I, for one, have lots of movies on UMD. They're great for travelling, working on projects at school and even to watch if I'm sick in bed. If you don't do any of those things, I guess it's pointless, but I think they're great.

Reply

I think the main thing is the price. To expect us to pay more than what a DVD costs for a movie we can only watch on a small screen is ridiculous.

My best solution would be a DVD/UMD two pack for, say, 5-7 dollars more than what we would pay for the DVD alone. That way I can have my DVD to watch on the big screen and a UMD to take on the road.

Reply

I will never buy a UMD movie simply for the fact that I get less for my money than buying the equivalent on a DVD. I also second #1's comment about being able to buy blank UMDs to burn whatever we want, which would generate a lot of sales for the PSP.

Reply

I will never buy a UMD movie simply for the fact that I get less for my money than buying the equivalent on a DVD. I also second #1's comment about being able to buy blank UMDs to burn whatever we want, which would generate a lot of sales for the PSP.

Reply

Today at Wal-Mart I saw something odd... Volume One of Family Guy...on 5 UMDs. The packaging looked odd, looked like they were stored in styrofoam... It seemed to have most or all of the bonus features from the DVDs.

Reply

Convenience is why I buy UMDs. I don't have the time to rip DVDs.

Reply

I have to say, while I agree that the quality isn't as good and that Sony should make a UMD burner, I really like UMD movies. The PSP is great for finding specific moments in films if you are at all interested in film studies.

Of course, I also like the new video-capable iPod, so maybe I just like small portable video, quality be damned.

Reply

I think UMDs would be more appealing if 1) price is lower and 2) Sony releases a home DVD/UMD player combo, so you are not restricted to use UMDs just on the PSP

Speaking of which, isn't UMD supposed to be an "open standard"? Where's the 3rd party support?? If it takes Sony several years to realize the Memory Stick media is crap for their own digital cameras (they're beginning to support CF for high end cams), I wonder how long it'll take them to realize another "proprietary" format like the UMD is not helping their case to be a consumer friendly brand..

Reply

i think sony should set a flat fee for all UMDs because it is such an exclusive format.

they cannot play on big screens unless you have a special attachment so i think sony should set a base price at 10$ or something like that. i

only have one umd and it is spiderman 2 from the promo for the first psps.

Reply

Id rather just download simpsons and family guy episodes and convert them with PSP video express to put on my 1 gig mem stick. Right now I have like 17 episodes and the family guy movie.

Reply

If the movies were ALOT less, let's say $10 each, then I would definately buy them. Until then, the article says it already; why would I pay more for less?

Reply

I previously pointed this out in the PSP homebrew post and the reason applies here as well: sony can NOT release an umd writer because it will be used for pirated games. People will rip off games onto umd. What each firmware update tries to do is to make sure files can only be executed from umds. if umds have the ability to launch executables, there is no stopping the game piracy..
homwever, sony should it easy to make sure writtable umds have no execution capabilities and have only media capabilities... that would be nice..

on the movies rate, i doubt ill buy umd movies for more than 9.99. the best thing would be to unclude umd version with each movies as apackage fro 5-10 bux more, like someone else suggested...

Reply

Sony, you listening?

PUT A UMD PLAYER IN THE PS3!

Ok, so I realize that isn't going to happen, but if it did, I would buy nothing but UMD movies.

Reply

I haven't bought any UMD movies, i have no problem ripping my own DVDs. However, i do think its cool, and i think people who say "ARG!! UMDs are teh illogical!!!" miss the point: UMD Movies are an impluse buy!

Someone wandering around the mall could buy a UMD instead of a CD or pair of jeans or something where they might not plunk down for a $40-50 game. I tend to see people either own a lot of movies or none at all. I'm personally in the "none at all" camp, but i appreciate the attention the big studio support brings to our burgeoning handheld.

Also, i think the PSP owner community needs a better way of sharing PSP-encoded movies ... but that's another issue...

Reply

I'm with Soatari. I think there is that happy price medium that Sony's gonna have to find before I get excited about buying UMDs.

Reply

I'm in for 2 cents:

Remember the Mini-disk? Sony's proprietary format with only slighly degraded sound quality that couldn't be copied?

I think that the movie thing in UMD format will end up being Sony's 3rd "betamax" format failure, all because of high prices (remember the high prices on the pre-recorded mini-disks?) and lack of other players for the format.

And really, with the penetration of the DVD format, what was Sony thinking?

Think: given the option of renting the DVD from netflix and then using your computer to compress the movie file to 250MB or so, who's even thinking of buying UMD's?

Not me....

Your's truely,

Joe 6-pack.

Reply

I can't see any good reasons for buying a film on UMD instead of DVD...

If I had the time to watch films (i.e. if I had to commute to work on the train), I would certainly rent them. LoveFilm ( http://www.lovefilm.com/collection.php?cl_id=184 ) has a decent-sized library, which would make watching them on the PSP worthwhile (especially financially!)

Reply

As far as UMDbeing Sony's 3rd betamax failure - Minidisc was a reasonably successful format because it was introduced before many had CD Burners. I bought a Pioneer HiFi System with a Minidisc recorder in it about 10 years ago and this let me copy CD's in digital quality. What killed off minidisc was the ever increasing popularity of cheaper PC's and cheaper CD Writers. UMD has been introduced as a storage medium for PSP Games first and movies second. The main problem with UMD for movies is that if you own a DVD you can convert it and shove it on a memory stick. Once you're fed up with it you can bin the copy and replace it with something else. All the while you have the original DVD in your collection. So if you own the orginal DVD why fork out for the UMD version? If you find yourself in a store with a DVD in one hand and a UMD in the other. The DVD wins everytime simply because you can watch it at home and (after converting it) on your PSP. With UMD you cant do this.

Reply

UMD movies are sometimes going for as much as £22 in the UK. Absolute daylight robbery.

Reply