Another Sony Format Bites the Dust 425
Lam1969 writes "Reuters is reporting that Universal Media Disc, Sony's PSP-only movie format, is about to kick the bucket. While the discs' novelty factor resulted in strong sales shortly after the PSP's May 2005 launch, interest rapidly dropped and movie companies are no longer interested in producing titles. From the article: "Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said one high-ranking exec: 'It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-ray."'"
Sounds familiar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
Common FUD tactics.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Informative)
You have to admit the comment about blu-ray is a bit strange.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
Betacam and Digital Betacam are used professionally... but sony has flopped (off the top of my head) Minidiscs, UMD, memory stick (sort of), and a load of other ideas.
I used to sell both computers and audio equipment, back in the 1998-2000 era, and it's astonishing to see what sony wasted. They of course couldn't jump on the standard flash memory bandwagon (compact flash or smart media, or later SD) - no, they had to invent their own thing, and of course it only worked with sony stuff. Stupid.
Minidiscs were a novelty, and were pretty cool for a while, but then... CD-R's and mp3 platers became cheap. Who wants to pay $5 per minidisc in order to listen to music when CD-R's are $0.25, or you can get something solid state for less than the price of a MD player? Even when a 512MB mp3 player cost $299, it was comparable to the high end MD player, in features and size. They should have LONG AGO made a minidisc MP3 player - the technology existed, and those disks hold about 480megs or so, not to mention $5 / 500MB is still a good price for media. But they didn't. Arrogance.
All the time, I see sony's marketing people put out all this shit which, in a perfect sony universe, would all interpolate, interact, and be amazing. But, in the real world, only a few people are going to buy all sony. They have yet to deal with that reality. People want their flash memory to be usable for their camera, mp3 player, and phone. They want their media to not be format locked.
It's just marketing stupidity and corporate hubris. Plain and simple. Develop good ideas, then drive them into the ground by making them proprietary.
~Will
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a kid, I went to my dad's office and he had some sort of digital media drive where you put the CD in a bulky plastic cartidge, and slide the whole cartidge into the PC. Those things stayed in better shape than most of my 3 1/2 floppys.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
Compared to CDs, minidisc is small - that might not sound like much, but it means I can slip a MD player in my jeans pocket, my shirt pocket, hold it comfortably in my hand, whatever. For portable music, that's a must - CDs can never be as portable.
Compared to MP3 players, the sound quality is vastly better (OK, maybe "vast" is an overstatement, but for someone int
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:5, Informative)
You got that one allright. Although there are mini-cd MP3 players quite cheap that fit that requirement equally well, if not better.
Compared to MP3 players, the sound quality is vastly better
This is just FUD, nothing else. It would depend on the player and the MP3, for sure, but trust me, I can get you an MP3 that you will be just unable to tell from the source, let alone ATRAC. In fact, many listening tests have proven ATRAC to be inferior to MP3 at equal bitrate. And you can choose your bitrate with most MP3 players, hence defining YOURSELF the perfect quality.
You can also get MD hifi units to put next to your CD player, which I've yet to see for MP3
Virtually ANY DVD player on the market will play MP3-CDs. Where have you been in the last 5 years?
I like listening to music on my stereo, not my computer
Dude, there is no comparison on hardware support. MP3 is way out of reach on this area. Most CD/DVD players will play MP3s, even at $30. You are just out of your league out here.
Lastly, you exaggerated the price for MD units
Still, it much more expensive than a an AIWA Z3C, which is a mini-CD MP3 player. $50 (although I don't think you can still find one).
My current MD portable is about the size of an Ipod nano, give or take
This is not one manufactured by SONY then... The MZ-RH10 is 80x19x84 and the Nano is 89x41x7... That's about 5 times bigger !!!! Have you ever had a look at a Nano?
I know none of these reasons are likely to hold much weight with 95% of consumers
Of course, since none of them are valid (or at least still valid). You need to look around: The MP3 world has also evolved in the last 5 years.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Informative)
The sound quality issue isn't FUD; ATRAC (in its latest incarnations) is simply a better compression algorithm for audio quality (at comparable file sizes); see here [learningcenter.sony.us] or here [hydrogenaudio.org] for example. Now, I'm not saying you couldn't produce an MP3 which sounds better than ATRAC, but in common usage, ATRAC generally has more fidelity. Saying that, I'm sure as MD drops off as a format and MP3 becomes even more mainstream, MP3 will improve to the point that it overtakes ATRAC - and it's not a huge difference at the momen
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
many advantages for MP3 CD,
I)theirs more sound per bit so
1) more music per disc
2) you can spin the disc slower or less duty cycle.
a) longer battery life
b) less prone to skipping
c) longer cd life (less likely to rub:
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:4, Interesting)
When MiniDisc came out in its first incarnation of Atrak was booed by audiophiles for suffering the EXACT SAME inadequacies (lack of top-end and bottom-end frequencies) as your are describing with regard to MP3, but - just like the Atrack system has improved over the years so has MP3 and the myriad of other codec's floating around these days.
but when I'm sat in a dark room concentrating on the music, or listening to each chord through a decent pair of headphones, it's that sort of thing that i'll pay money to improve. MP3 doesn't cut it for me (yet).
I can understand forking out for a decent music system its easy to tell the difference between a plastic midi-hifi and a decent seperates system!.But your comment is borderline obsessive. You sound so obsessed with the sound quality and the finer intricacies of the sound; Do you actually enjoy music? Good music is good music. Its a shame you judge it chord by chord or frequency by frequency. You sound like an obsessively biased audiophile fanboy who's more interested in tweaking his stereo than actually enjoying music (as opposed to listening to the inadequacies of your set-up). I cant imagine what it must be like to be so distracted by the details of the sound that i couldnt enjoy my music collection!
Nick
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with you on the early md players not being able to playback mp3s. They shouldve made the md players capable of playing back mp3s along with atrac from the start. Also they made minidiscs capable of storing pc data but decided to make the format incompatible with md audio. So that weakened one advantage minidiscs could have had and improved their market share. by the time sony bought bo
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Insightful)
Beta... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many Beta lovers (like I used to) tout the "Beta is better quality than VHS" line, and this was 100% true. Beta lost due to marketing ploys and buying off video distributors/publishers into VHS, ultimately killing the technology. Also killing the technology was Beta's choice to make smaller, neater tapes that lasted for an hour, whereas the VHS manufacturers used basically the same technology with a bul
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:3, Interesting)
They are good at picking losers (Score:5, Informative)
As a more receant example take HiMD. HiMD was a wonderful extension of their neat MD format that did ok, but really failed to launch. HiMD added much better quality, more storage, and most importantly of all, high speed async computer transfers. Orignal MDs had to be dumped to computers via S/PDIF which meant no faster than realtime.
Now it would seem this format would be ideally positioned to make major inroads for recording. DAT is on the way out fast and is expensive anyhow, flash devices cost a lot and storage is pretty expensive, HD recorders are large and inflexable. HiMD would have a big market as the next DAT in essence.... Except they locked it down all to hell. You can only transfer files to your PC with their peice of shit software. Worse yet, it orignally didn't even let you transfer it to non-DRM'd formats. So you'd record your band, transfer teh recording, and then you couldn't open it in Wavelab. Wonderful.
I personally am skeptical of Blu-ray mainly because Sony is the big backer. They've a good track record with pro formats, but they have hosed thigns in the consumer market so many times I tend to predict they'll fail just based on their track record.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Yes, but certainly you must admit there is a long trend of failed Sony media formats. Betamax, Minidisc, UMD....
And don't tell me minidisc didn't fail, I agree it was (and sort of still is) a cool format, but sales sucked and no one ever really took advantage of the technology...
I hope Blue Ray does fail...I also hope HD-DVD fails. I'd much rather download my movies on demand, or stream them from my cable company or whatever. Eventually we'll hopefully have all of the movies we want at our fingertips and
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Makes sense. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Did I miss it? No, my list is of questionable (failed) technologies. Thus the omission of CD, which yes Sony had a hand in. I don't think 1/4 is good enough from a company like Sony. I'm betting on 1/5 after Blue Ray.
Think what they could do with all of the R&D money they waste, and advertising dollars they spend...if only they (and everyone else) could come to a consensus on a standard we could all reap the benefits.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Involved, but not solely. Philips came up with it, it became a standard (until Sony decided to violate it!!!), etc.
Sony formats basically suck, and blue ray will die or not even get off the ground.
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:2)
Re:Blu Ray? (Score:5, Insightful)
That specific quote is attributed to an anonymous exec at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, a member of the HD-DVD consortium.
http://www.cnet.com.au/hometheatre/dvd/0,39025983
How did this ever get past the editors? (Score:2)
Paid for by Universal studios I'm certain.
retailers also are cutting the amount of shelf space they've been devoting to UMD movies, amid talk that Wal-Mart is about to dump the category entirely. Wal-Mart representative Jolanda Stewart declined comment on reports that the retailer is getting out of the UMD business.
Really, i haven't seen or heard anything of the sort.
"A high-ranking executive was more blunt: "We are on hiatus with UMD," he said.
Sony == KOD (Score:3, Insightful)
The CD format, as I recall, never faced any serious competition, mainly because it was invented by Philips, which has always been good at getting its formats accepted by the industry. The Blu Ray format, by contrast, is facing a nasty format war, at least as bad as the one between VHS and Beta, even before its launch.
But although your comparison is wrong, you're still right — one shouldn't judge a race before it's over, never mi
WTF? (Score:2)
Re:WTF? (Score:2, Redundant)
Loss leaders would save the day (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about it:
(1) Sony is affiliated with Sony Pictures and has ties within the film and TV world;
(2) Sony uses that influence to negotiate rights for UMD / PSP versions of movies dirt-cheap - practically give 'em away. New releases at $6-$8 a disc; older stuff, $2 or $3. Enough to cover production. So what if they take a loss on the rights? They'll get it back in sales of units.
(3) The format's pretty secure, so piracy is a marginal issue - and the inexpensive price makes it hardly worth the time to rip and burn if you could, unlike discs that cost between $18-$20.
(4) The ability to use the PSP as a dirt-cheap portable movie player - and a little strategic marketing in the right places could help parents see this as a Good Deal ("it does more than play those damned games, we can watch movies on it, too..."
(5) They let other movie studios start making UMD movies also; they license out UMD to some cheap Taiwanese outfit and make some $60 - $80 UMD movie players and sell 'em at Wal-Mart. They let the format spread itself around. They keep the money in the game market and the PSP-2 or whatever the next item is.
(6) Profit - not mega-millions, but not the loss that the current situation is likely to be.
I'm sure there are some flaws in my idea and I'm sure someone will point them out. But in the end, somebody dropped the ball here big time. I love the PSP; it's a neat toy. But I've never bought a single movie for it; in fact, I saw this coming and told my friends to expect it - dropping the movies inside of a year - and I said that the first time I saw a UMD movie at a Goddamned Wal-Mart with a $20 price tag.
But, I think that if Sony came back at it, even now, and tried this strategy, it could work. Even this late in the game, with the right promotion and presentation. But it's a good idea, so, fat chance of that happening, eh?
Rental (Score:2)
Re:Loss leaders would save the day (Score:3, Funny)
Can you be so sure yours is the only smart thing to do? Let's compare your idea with Sony's own idea for saving UMD. From the article:
"We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback," [Benjam
Re:Loss leaders would save the day (Score:3, Interesting)
You're assuming that the player itself is not a loss leader. Microsoft took a loss on every Xbox it sold. I thought both Sony and Nintendo were doing the same on their home consoles. Why should the portable market be any different? If that's the case -- and I can't say for certain that it is but it seems plausible enough -- then obviously they'
Re:Loss leaders would save the day (Score:4, Insightful)
(2) Sony uses that influence to negotiate rights for UMD / PSP versions of movies dirt-cheap - practically give 'em away. New releases at $6-$8 a disc; older stuff, $2 or $3. Enough to cover production. So what if they take a loss on the rights? They'll get it back in sales of units.
And they would also face a barrage of lawsuits from all the people - producers, directors, stars - who have gross profit deals on a movie and its ancillary sales (TV, DVD, etc), and would consider selling their movie at an 'artificially' low price to be swindling them out of money that's rightfully theirs. (In much the same way that David Duchovny sued Fox when it sold The X Files to its own FX channel at a far lower than normal per-episode rate - he had a percentage deal, so less money for Fox meant less money for him. Not that he was exactly starving in the street, but...)
UMD movies dead, not UMD itself (Score:4)
UMD sucks, use HD. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:UMD movies dead, not UMD itself (Score:2)
Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Overall, I'm glad that this format, among others, is becoming extinct. The closer we get to a universal storage format (flash drives seem to be the popular candidate), the faster we'll get to complete integration of information. Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, said in the article, "We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback." I, on the other hand, hope not.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:3, Insightful)
Especially true for kids' movies.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn, the anti-piracy / commercials / trailers that can't be skipped on most DVDs are super-annoying. When the kid wants to see the movie, I've got to stand there and wait for a couple of minutes (pressing FF when the disc deems that I am allowed), and then finally press "play"?
I learned how to use DVDDecrypter / DVD Shrink based on this annoyance alone! Now I tell everyone about it. Way to shoot yourself in the foot, studios!
I predicted this from the start (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, they had no distinct advantages over DVD. Why buy a UMD Movie, that is the same price as the DVD so you can watch it by yourself and can't rip it to anything else.
Finally, who in their right mind is going to rebuild their collection, or even build a new one in a completely useless format that only has a single device capable of playing it.
Any moron could tell them that this was doomed from the start.
Re:I predicted this from the start (Score:2)
No but you will bring it with you on an airplane or a train so you can pass the time. Or maybe you take it with you and sit outside in the sun. Movie watching can be a social thing but it can also be something you do alone (by choice or by chance).
You are right about your other points.
Re:I predicted this from the start (Score:3, Insightful)
I personally would rather bring 2 gadgets, along with my existing movies, rather than *BUY* expensive movies for essentially for a single trip.
-MS2k
Watching DVDs on my PSP (Score:2)
Re:I predicted this from the start (Score:5, Informative)
If only it things were that good!! Almost always you can by the DVD equivalent for less. More quality, more versetile, less money. No brainer. UMD was doomed to fail from the get-go.
Compare two samples, a new release and an old release:
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: $15.76 [amazon.com] vs $21.99 [amazon.com]
The Matrix: $9.76 [amazon.com] vs. 17.99 [amazon.com]
A good thing (Score:2, Informative)
Proprietary vs. Non-Proprietary (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya think Sony would remember this lesson and quit repeating it. They've introduced so many formats that *would* have been good, had they not been intentionally crippled by their media division.
Memory Stick is about the only format they've introduced that hasn't been bombed into oblivion by the reality of a market unwilling to buy crippled products. It's only a matter of time, however, since MS is inferior and more expensive than just about any other flash-card format.
Re:Proprietary vs. Non-Proprietary (Score:2)
Re:Proprietary vs. Non-Proprietary (Score:2)
Hmm Lets See (Score:5, Insightful)
UMD, had little usuability because of DRM, (Crackable but who needs the headache). Also, was a low quality format because of the target device. Had a small odd media that was more expensive that its full size counterparts. And just for that final sauce releases were pretty much priced as high or higher than DVD.
Sounds like a winner
Re:Hmm Lets See (Score:2)
absolutely right, except for one thing (Score:5, Informative)
You're right about the other aspects, but I think the main problem is that you can only play it on a PSP (the Universal part is a euphemism)
Re:absolutely right, except for one thing (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd actually be amazed at some of the quality differences you can get on just regular SDTVs. I got a new one some time ago and it had component inputs. I decided to try the difference between component and s-video, my DVD player supported both. You might think it wouldn't matter for D
Re:absolutely right, except for one thing (Score:2)
Now the UMD has no notable extras, and can't be output at the native resolution (because Sony stupidly doesn't have an interface for the PSP to a HD set, nor do they have players for UMD apart from the PSP).
You're right, 720p looks better, but DVDs aren't encoded that high, so it's a moot point.
Re:absolutely right, except for one thing (Score:3, Insightful)
As for progressive vs interlaced, doesn't ma
Re:absolutely right, except for one thing (Score:2)
That's ridiculous. That's just slightly higher resolution than VCDs, and anybody without serious eyesight problems can tell the difference between a VCD and a DVD.
It would probably compete with VHS tapes, but certainly not with DVDs, or even SVCDs.
Re:Hmm Lets See (Score:2)
In short...... (Score:2)
Maybe in the US (Score:3, Informative)
The US and possibly the British markets are small. But the Japanese & Korean markets are reportedly solid. I work at a post house, and we are still turning out quite a few versions for UMD. There must be people buying them somewhere.
One studio is not indicative of the entire market. Unless that studio is Sony itself. They own the largest catalog of movies, making up over a third of the titles produced by major film studios in the last 60 years.
Re:Maybe in the US (Score:2)
Reported by whom? It's the US where the PSP is selling. The Japanese are ignoring the PSP and buying every DS they can get their hands on, and the Koreans tend not to like things that come from Japan to begin with.
"They own the largest catalog of movies, making up over a third of the titles produced by major film studios in the last 60 years."
The submission that this duped pointed out rumors (at least) that Wal-Mart (among other retailers) is be
No Surprises (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the lack of interoperability that make the format useless - it's all very well being able to watch a film on your PSP, but there's no facility to use UMDs in your PC,PS2/3 or home cinema (unless you buy a TV adapter.)
It's the minidisc story all over again, but accelerated because UMDs aren't a home-writeable format.
Re:No Surprises (Score:2)
Clearly, Sony is insane.
For at least 30 years now, they have come up with proprietary format after proprietary format, and they fail, because (drum roll....) they are a proprietary format.
DVDs were an excellent step. Same form factor of a CD. No rewinding. Open standard. Plays in cars (why??), TVs, DVD players, computers, portables, etc. The quality was much better than VHS and it is flexible.
What als
It wasn't the format that was bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Should have used "Mini Disc" (Score:5, Insightful)
Also the 1 gig storage capacity of the mini discs would have been usefull and at 6$ dollars a pop pretty cheap compared to gum stick media.
Now both stagnate...
Re:Should have used "Mini Disc" (Score:2)
Its not however, so there goes that.
The fact that the PSP allows people to rip their own movies to memory stick means buying and ripping the DVD is smarter anyway.
Re:Should have used "Mini Disc" (Score:2)
Re:Should have used "Mini Disc" (Score:3, Interesting)
Hi-MD would have been the perfect choice for consumers, but I think Sony was way to terrified of piracy (since you can easily buy blank Hi-MDs off the shelf), so they went with something a bit more "secure".
Full-res video (Score:3, Insightful)
Figures... (Score:2)
"Next generation technology" (Score:5, Funny)
Since when is being able to play video on a television "next-generation"? These people are removing features, realizing that people won't buy without the features, and then adding the features back claiming they're innovative and new.
Hey Sony, open your formats, or use standards (Score:2, Flamebait)
For years Sony has played this game and for years they have lost. Anyone remember the minidisc? Betamax? Yet another Sony screw up, UMD.
So long as Sony tries to "own" the market on their own devices (the PSP) they will find that people shy away. I imagine that Sony was charging a bit of money to these companies to allow them to publish movies for the PSP. Now, I can hear you saying it... any fool can put a
Why oh why (Score:5, Funny)
Sony's viability (Score:4, Insightful)
The Blu-Ray standard, I don't even know why they're even trying it. Look at how well their Memory Sticks are going once Flash memory has become commoditized (its 30 or 40% more). The UMD format is going to work because its linked to the PSP. Just not for movies. I don't see Nintendo trying to sell movies on Gameboy cartridges (they won't fit) but they just make the unit for gaming.
I have an MD player, and I must say its completely unusable. Not the hardware. The software. Everyone complains about SonicStage. I've thought of buying another MP3 player (I have one w/ bad sound quality right now), but I'm really hoping they can pull off the next MD software (and get it working on my Mac). Nothing, even flash MP3 players have been able to beat the Minidic for sound quality or battery life that I've been able to find. The quality in the MD player is gained from the audio processor I'm sure.
My complaint to Sony have really neglected me as a customer. I'm still satisfied with the product. Hopefully someone at Sony who has a clue will read this Slashdot thread and fix it. I'm sure they're putting off more people from their products then they think. IMO, PS3 is really the hit or sink product (esp if they will be losing as much money as predicted per unit) and they want the Blu-Ray stuff to succeed.
Re:Sony's viability (Score:3, Insightful)
Last week I finally bought an i
Re:Sony's viability (Score:3, Interesting)
But the real killer is that the cartridge works on all of the advance and DS models inc
UMD Movie Resolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, why do sony waste the space on the UMD, and processing power to scale video, if they don't have to.
I would have expected to see, by about now, a set-top UMD player. Sony's stated design goals are to reduce the size of a media player device to the size of the carry case for the media. See MiniDisc players for an example.
How cool would it to be to have an iPod sized DVD player that plugs into a TV?
Which exec again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it not simply sad to see a high ranking executive reduced to trash talking? How desperate is he?
Maybe not such a bad idea... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sony, what a company!! (Score:2)
Let's see, various unsuccessful SONY formats (YMMV):
Then consider the one resounding industry success for which SONY was co-inventor -- the Compact Disk! The Compact Disk has been one of the most astounding success stories, though is now probably nearing its sunset years.
Oh, and what has SONY done around Compact Disk? Yeah, started issuing corrupt CDs (that don't even qualify to have the CD logo) with malware i
Layoffs to be announced (Score:2)
In other news, a Smithsonian archaeology exhibit featuring the "capitalistic free market" will be opened later this week...
Sony is daft. (Score:2)
Whoever puts this one out first with a slick interface to share music en route is going to make a lot of money. Then they can use that to thwart the **AA's of the world.
I had high hopes when I picked up the PSP, then I flipped it around, saw the stupid UMD drive, went 'oh', and put it right back on the shelf - where it will be
I bought some UMD movies when I got my PSP (Score:2)
Quality was OK, but not great. I noticed a lot of MPEG artefacts in Spider Man 2 - distracting at times, and some even in House of Flying Daggers. I still found the quality good enough to watch (the screen is BEAUTIFUL), but not good enough to justify the price of the movies.
The last movie I bought was Time Bandits and I never even watched it. I love that film but the time and place to have a good movie watching experience on PSP is basically a quiet dark room by yourself. As a father and husband that isn
Let's be clear about what the issue IS, okay? (Score:3, Informative)
And with good reason. No one's going to pay $25 for a movie they already have in a higher quality format, when they can just rip their DVD and transcode it for PSP playback. UMD video probably isn't going to fail as spectacularly in Japan though, where most of the time, you can get a UMD _with_ your DVD purchase (For a little extra) I should know, I have a couple. And I certainly wouldn't have bought them seperately, since I could have just as easily put my videos on the memstick for free (Though that is one of the two advantages of UMD video; it's encoded better than you could possibly do transcoding, and it doesn't take up any space on your memory stick.) As for this 'cavalcade of failed Sony formats'... Seriously, drink the koolaid. No one else is buying that crap.
Betamax? Still the top choice for many professional video applications.
Minidisc? While MP3 players have their advantages, the latest generation of MD player/recorders are still going strong, even outside of Japan. Also, minidisc recorders are pretty much the #1 device for bootlegging live performances for its blend of small size, and high fidelity.
Blu-Ray? Let's skip past the part where it ISN'T EVEN OUT YET, and get down to the facts. The Playstation 2 cemented DVD in Japan. It hadn't caught on until then, they were still using VCD! So, considering that the Xbox 360 had such an abysmal launch (Usually what happens when your product can't withstand the rigors of...well, WORKING), which do you think is going to win in Japan? HD-DVD, or Blu-Ray? And don't forget, a growing constituency in the US and abroad care more about the outcome of that battle than what format Universal is going to put their latest summer blockbusting crapfest on.
UMD was about putting software in the PSP, first and foremost. The fact that they never had plans to manufacture anything ELSE to play UMDs should speak for itself.
Should have been HiMD (Score:2)
But that would have stopped any plans f
Not according to The Inquirer it ain't! (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the article: Sony's UMD format breaks through to the mainstream [theinquirer.net].
I can't help but laugh at some of the things the author wrote:
Apparently "extremely popular" is weasel-words for "we will hype the format now and abandon in 6 months".
Wow, customers must really appreciate paying through the nose for a UMD, and this can only be good for the studios! (note: this is an example of Irony [wikipedia.org]).
The Inquirer article even quotes a Newsweek article, PlayStation Portable - New Format for Hollywood [msn.com], which is less glowing but was clearly the only source of information for the Inquirer author.
Even Newsweek can see the rorting going on with UMD but they seem to not have a problem with it, as they tell of the studios "milking their catalogs" as if that's a good thing.
The Reason Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumer - "What ?! The PSP has no facility to play a UMD movie and output in a TV?! Well screw buying two copies - I'll buy the DVD, rip it, put it on a memory stick, and still get to watch it on my PSP"
Enough said really.
Greed killed UMD (Score:3, Interesting)
Instead, they came up with a format that was only playable on an overpriced game system then charged $20-25 for UMD disks that could be purchased on DVD for $12
Noone to blame but themselves (Score:4, Interesting)
They chose not to do that and so now they have to live with that choice.
I was ready to buy into UMD as a portable movie/game format until they announced that PS3 would NOT have a slot.
Re:Don't let SACD be next (Score:2)
Re:Don't let SACD be next (Score:2)
people will never buy music they can't rip and copy to make mix cd's for their car and put on their ipod.
Re:Don't let SACD be next (Score:5, Interesting)
not too cool.
Why 1-Bit Sigma-Delta Conversion is Unsuitable for High-Quality Applications [sjeng.org]
Single-stage, 1-bit sigma-delta converters are in principle imperfectible. We prove this fact. The reason, simply
stated, is that, when properly dithered, they are in constant overload. Prevention of overload allows only partial
dithering to be performed. The consequence is that distortion, limit cycles, instability, and noise modulation can
never be totally avoided. We demonstrate these effects, and using coherent averaging techniques, are able to display
the consequent profusion of nonlinear artefacts which are usually hidden in the noise floor. Recording, editing,
storage, or conversion systems using single-stage, 1-bit sigma-delta modulators, are thus inimical to audio of the
highest quality. In contrast, multi-bit sigma-delta converters, which output linear PCM code, are in principle
infinitely perfectible. (Here, multi-bit refers to at least two bits in the converter.) They can be properly dithered so
as to guarantee the absence of all distortion, limit cycles, and noise modulation. The audio industry is misguided if
it adopts 1-bit sigma-delta conversion as the basis for any high-quality processing, archiving, or distribution format
to replace multi-bit, linear PCM.
Re:Don't let SACD be next (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who didn't see this one coming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also take into account the fact that you can use a free program like PSPVideo9 to automatically take those DVDs you already own and create mp4 files to put on memory sticks.
Nobody's going to want to shell out money for a different format of the DVD they already own.
Re:Who didn't see this one coming? (Score:2)
Re:Universal? Hah (Score:3, Insightful)
-kaplanfx