New DVD Format? Mini-DVD
 

I went to Best Buy today and found them along with a dvd player the size of a Nintendo SP. Why hasn't anyone talked about it?

I was about to buy one but changed my mind the last second and left to see peoples responses and opinions about it.

Has anyone seen them?

Look at the website:

www.warnervideo.com/mini-dvd

I saw them the other day, and $120 for the player, unless this is going to be aimed at kids, this will certainly die rather quickly.

Did you look at the available titles? That shows their target market.

And that portable player with the 2.5" screen must have a great picture! I like how they say you can watch it "alone or with friends". Two hamsters would have a hard time seeing that screen.

How much can they store? yeah can't see this taking off in a hurry.

1 hour.

all kids titles....seemed like a lot of warner bros...teen titans, scooby doo and so on....there is a flyer with a ton of titles....if someone has it please scan it.

But one hour seems wrong because they were selling movies like new york minute and cinderella story. Not sure how the bitrate works on these titles. Also the animated shows seemed like the same dvds released before only set up for the small player.

These titles will play in the center tray of any home dvd player, and come in slim line cases as opposed to snappers, so thats a plus. Not sure how the MSRP works between the two releases.

I think they are spread across multiple discs

Available Titles:

New York Minute
A Cinderella Story
Scooby Doo 2
Ankle Breaker Volume One
Dunks Volume One
Free Willy 2
Kangaroo Jack
justice League
Scooby Doo Cyber Chase
Mucha Lucha

More Cartoons...

Coming Soon:

Beetle Juice
Catwoman
Starsky & Hutch
Replacements
Chasing Liberty
Grind
What a Girls Wants

And Many More!!!!! (according to the flyer)

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I'm beginning to assume that this dvd's hold more than 1.4 GB. T

This DVD's have a lot of potential and I think they are here to stay.

Sometimes, while I'm carrying a DVD from my shelf the 1 foot to my DVD player, I think, "Gosh, this is heavy..." This might be the most important invention of the past 20 years.

K

Aimed at the kids and this one should tank relatively quickly.

it does seem like a launch before Xmas would have went better...but compared to the mini disc video players and gameboy advance cartoons...it could fly...not gonna be a major hit, but might work

The format can't tank, since it's part of the dvd specs. Players might actually do well -- I'd never think that videonow would be a product to make money, but that seems to be performing adequately.

You kidding right? Can you say DVD-Audio? That was part of the spec as well.

fitprod

DVD-Audio is not part of the spec. There is nothing that says a player must be able to play DVD-Audio.

However, these discs would theoretically play in any player, so even if the portable aspect goes belly up you could still enjoy the DVDs.

Totally off topic but since it's taken a DVD-A turn... DVD-A hasn't tanked at all, it's just very slow going at the moment. This is mostly due to the launch of Dual-Disc, which was in development for some time, and a general lack of consumer interest - due to DVD-A support not being very common on the average consumer DVD player. The format <i>could</i> take off, if Dual-Disc is able to convert some of the masses. That said, until Best Buy and the like offer much better B&M support, it's mostly in limbo for now... I had to buy the recent Nine Inch Nails DVD-A at Tower Records, Best Buy only stocked the SACD. :mad:

On topic... Eh, this mini-disc thingie may find a market with the kiddies, who knows... But those launch titles + FULLSCREEN only leaves <i>a lot</i> to be desired.

I shake my head at both DVD-A and SACD. How can either format survive when it is so difficult to find a player that has them. Isn't Sony a big supporter of SACD? If so why have my last two Sony DVD players (mid range not low end players) not had SACD support? If Sony actually thinks I am going to buy a separate player for DVDs and SACDs they are freaking crazy, stupid or both.

If I can't get it built into the player I'm buying for DVDs I have no interest in the format. I'm not going to buy a new piece of hardware everytime a new format comes out.

BTW, the Dual Discs from what I have read, have been a failure. The CD side isn't up to CD quality standards, playback problems in various players and the discs themselves have suffered from faulty manufacturing. Many companies including Pioneer have put out warnings not to use Dual Discs in their players. Not going to win me over with that kind of product.

Here are a couple of stories I wrote about these mini-disc players for TVShowsOnDVD, if anyone's interested:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=2508

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/newsitem.cfm?NewsID=2705

Ugh. Just what we need, another format.

It's not really another format, any dvd player will play them. The anime film Metropolis actually had a mini dvd as disc 2 of the release so this format has been used in normal releases. I believe these hold 1.5GB.

Call me when they release mini-DVD porn.

But all of these movies (except for maybe some of the cartoons) are already on DVD, so unless these mini-DVDs are significantly cheaper, then what's the point? You can get a regular portable DVD player for about $150 now. Plus as someone pointed out, these mini-DVDs are Fullscreen only and undoubtedly bareboned. I could see this having some limited appeal with children, similar to the Gameboy Videos for the Gameboy Advance, but at least with the Gameboy Advance you can play games on it too.

I hope these take off with the kids' market so they'll STOP putting out foolscreen movies on regular DVD. I don't know what the point is of making a player that can only play the 3-inch discs; there was a portable CD player designed for 3-inch CDs but they could also play the regular discs with them sticking out of the edge of the player!
I bought a 3-inch DVD called "Tune Buddies" a few years ago just out of curiosity, and now you can get blank 3-inch discs but they're awfully expensive. I'd buy a few of them if they were cheaper. Yes, I'd love to see some cheap porn on 3-inch discs!

I once read that the new Sony PSP (the playstation portable device coming out soon) will be able to play mini-dvd movies--will these be compatible?

Thoughts?

The PSP uses a proprietary format of discs called UMD (Universal Media Discs, I believe), and Sony is supposed to be releasing their own movies in this UMD format. I doubt the PSP will be able to play standard mini-DVDs, although I guess it might be possible.

You can play almost all DVD-A disks on a regular DVD player because most come with Dolby Digital 5.1 and many with DTS 5.1 too. So don't let anything stop you :)

As for mini DVD ..... :rolleyes:

These were out before Xmas here at TRU. Widescreen on a 2.5" 4:3 screen?? No thanks.....

If anyone has the full NY Times Article please post it here.

from the digital bits...

Also today, The New York Times has published a short story on Hollywood's latest version of DVD... the mini-DVD. These are 3-inch versions of the regular DVD format, designed for greater portability. The idea is that kids can tote these things around as hand-held devices - like iPods or Gameboys - and watch their movies on the go. A number of studios are going to be releasing titles on mini-DVD, including Warner. Given that the display screens on these devices are much smaller, the digital video files will presumably be much more highly compressed - image quality will not be as good as regular DVDs. Recordable mini-DVD-Rs can also hold pictures and music files that these portable players will also be able to make use of. It's certainly an interesting idea, but I doubt it will make much of an impact ultimately. Gotta give the kids what they want, I guess. We'll see if they do, in fact, want it.

I bought the 3-inch disc of Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase just for the novelty factor. Picture and sound are as good as a regular DVD, the disc is dual-layered so it can hold a little more than an hour OK. The regular movies are split onto 2 discs (should have been one 2-sided disc) and are all in pan and scan so I wouldn't buy any of those. Sound is 5.1, but interestingly there are no closed captions or subtitles, and no chapter stops either.
I don't see those players taking off unless a LOT of stuff comes out on the 3-inch discs. Why buy a machine that only plays 3-inch discs when you can get one that plays ALL DVDs for a little more? The screens on those look too small, and it looks like the sound is through 2 tiny speakers.
I enjoyed the great irony of playing something meant for a portable device on my big-ass combo laserdisc/DVD player though!

It won't fly, the kids don't care.

pics?

from the digital bits

And in an interesting bit of news, Sony has also announced that it plans to release movies in a "mini-disc" format compatible for viewing on the new Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) game system. Titles are expected to be available within a month of the PSP's 3/24 launch date here in the U.S., and will include XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil 2 and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Spider-Man 2 will actually be bundled with the first 1 million units of the PSP - a nice little perk.

The PSP will not play "DVD" mini-discs. They play a proprietary format called "UMD", that is NOT compatible with DVD mini-disc players like the kind we've been talking about. UMD discs are housed in a caddy, and use a higher level of compression to store more data (a film that would have to be split on two Mini-DVDs can fit onto one PSP disc).

The PSP will ship with the Spider-Man 2 film, along with a disc full of videogame demos, a memory stick, headphones, a battery, and an AC Adapter. March 24th is the date, $249.99 is the price. The inclusion of the film may be limited to only the first one million units, some say.

Other UMD films will ship April 19th: XXX, Hellboy, Resident Evil 2 and Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Pricing for those will be announced next week. So far Sony is the only company releasing films for this thing, but they are trying to talk other studios to also participate. They also want to get music discs made in UMD format.

I think it would be easier to just make them mini dvd's instead of the UMD format. Why confuse the people more than they already are?

Think about it

Blue Ray
HD-DVD
DVD
Mii-DVD
UMD

This is getting wild. I hope they stick to one format and sony stops from trying to create something else.

Too late, Kar10. Sony's already producing these things; they just need to get them shipped in time for the debut in 30 days.

Is it just me, or does it seem like Sony is always one of the biggest instigators in creating format wars? Jeez - now they have to champion a competing format to a stupid mini-DVD that no one cares about?

thought i would link this to the bargins thread for those who are looking to check this out for cheap.

Mini DVD's and Sam's Club 4.88