http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/3266

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By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

This should not be coming as a huge surprise, but the demise of Sony’s UMD format for movies is going away faster than the Mini Disc got shelved for music. This week Sony quietly announced a new entertainment pak called the Memory Stick Entertainment Packs (MSEP) that contained movies on a Sony Memory stick, and many paused to wonder what that meant for the UMD. And now it is official.

Sales of movies on the PSP’s once-hot proprietary format have slowed to a trickle, causing several major movie studios to cease supporting it. In March, the Hollywood Reporter ran an article claiming that the home-entertainment divisions of Universal Studios and Paramount Pictures have “completely stopped” releasing films on the format, and other studios have been cutting back their release slates.

Perhaps more disturbing for Sony were unconfirmed reports that retail colossi Wal-Mart and Best Buy were scaling back UMD displays in their stores. This week, speculation turned into reality when Target decided to discontinue stocking UMDs entirely. A manager at a San Francisco Bay Area Target outlet told GameSpot, “We no longer carry PSP movies. We stopped carrying them nationwide.” Source: Gamespot

In typical Sony fashion, moving to the Memory Stick Duo as a movies release platform makes more sense, but the execution is convoluted and expensive. The 1GB version is $60 and the 2GB version $100, and you only get what look to be lame Sony Pictures releases (Hitch, S.W.A.T., The Grudge, or XXX: State of the Union??)- not much of a catalogue. To make matters worse, Sony steps down the resolution to 240x320 instead of the nicer 480x272 the PSP can do. Meanwhile, most people are simply converting DVDs to MPEG-4 and copy movies onto the PSP with a simple USB cable. Don’t expect this new move to change that.

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I have to say, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. I saw the demise of UMD's coming as soon as... well, as soon as I heard about UMD's. They cost more than the DVD version of the movies, the special features are either lessened or stripped out completely, and you have to watch it on a screen a little bigger than a saltine cracker.

Looking at the info on the memory stick movies, I think it's safe to say that they'll have a shorter life than the UMD movies.

At least UMD movies could be lent to people and resold. DRM movie and music downloads is something I would never spend money on. We talked about this in the videogame forum.

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....8&page=1&pp=25

Dammit, I hate the search function on this site. I plugged "UMD" into the search engine, told it to check the forums, got a response of "no matches found."

I didn't think of checking the video game forum, since I'm really not a game player. I guess I'll leave this post up for those that aren't regulars to the game forum. The mods can delete it if they deem necessary.

UMD was a very dumb idea. Glad to see it gone.

I disagree that it was a completely bad idea. It was a terrible idea at the prices they were charging, but if they would have priced them at $5-$10 and sold portable UMD movie players (not just PSPs) for around $100 it might have had a chance.

However, with them charging more than DVDs for many of the UMDs it was doomed from the start.

I'm actually surprised at this news. I haven't looked at numbers or anything in quite a while (I no longer have a PSP), but weren't the UMD's selling pretty good for a while? It seemed like many people had more UMD's than they did games.

I'm surprised they lasted this long.

makes alot more sense to just buy a portable dvd player (which are relatively cheap) and use that with normal dvds. Then you can watch your entire collection on the go, and not have to buy 2 copies of the same movie. from the protable dvd players ive seen, you get alot bigger size screen and much better picture.

Gaze into my crystal ball.

I see the "UMD" being replaced soon by...something else. It is very...BLU-RY.

Wow, that article is really poorly written.

Those UMD's were too expensive. HD-DVD and Blu Ray will be joining that format soon if they don't lower their prices on them.

The players may be (relatively) expensive, but the discs aren't expensive at all. Bear in mind that DVDs have the benefit of routine loss leader pricing, and many titles have received multiple price drops over the years. It's too soon for that with the new formats, although some titles have been on sale for under $15.

The new formats may cost a bit more, but at least you're getting improved picture and sound, unlike the UMD downgrades.

Yep. I'm paying about $18 including shipping and whatknot for mine. No biggie. At least it's not $30-40 laserdisc prices.

I live in Canada and the prices of the HD and BR discs are between 25 and 35 dollars. I talked to a few clerks and they have told me that they haven't been selling. They have been on the shelf for at least a month now.

Sucks to be you guys. have you tried amazon?

On the bright side, at least ANYONE can get married there

Amazon.com : 23 dollar average

Amazon.ca : 25 to 35 dollar average

Oh yeah, just married my horse last week.

Why buy overpriced UMDs when you could buy some 1GB-2GB memory sticks and just convert your DVDs over.

Personally I think UMDs are not a bad idea, but with the limited battery life of the PSP, I wouldn't have time to watch a 2 hour movie on a PSP. I can understand how certain things like Family Guy and Beavis and Butt-head would be nice on UMD. Another big negative about the UMD is its price, who wants to spend about $20 for something that basically has less features and quality than the normal DVD version?

Another failed format from Sony. No shock there. BTW, regarding HD DVD and Blu-Ray pricing, they're the same price as when DVD launched...

UMDs did sell well the first few months the PSP was out, but that had more to do with the fact the system had few games anyone wanted. The portable DVD player is a good option, but I would note that the PSP is much more portable has longer battery life than most portable DVD players and would let you obviously have all the other features of the PSP.

Again, I think the UMD movie idea could have worked, but not at the stupid prices they were charging. The crazy thing is looking at the movie download services companies like Sony seem to still think their movies should cost $20 even just as a permanent download you can hardly do anything with.

The problem here is that HD and Blu-Ray are not major innovations in the eyes of the average consumor, at least not on the level of VHS to DVD. Furthermore, Joe Six-pack is being told that not only does he have to buy a new DVD player to take advantage of this new tech, he has to buy a new (and expensive) TV as well.

Combine that with the format war, and I think it's an uphill climb for the new tech. Maybe if one soundly wins out over the other relatively soon, it has a better chance.

Thats just the problem. HD and BR aren't radical enough.

"you have to watch it on a screen a little bigger than a saltine cracker." says MovieExchange. exactly I rather watch movies on a 12 inch black and white. than something that small. Yes, sometimes size does matter.

I'd pay that much for the discs, if I could buy an affordable player and not have to worry about getting stuck with an abandoned format.

I believe that Sony intended UMD to be a temporary format. It was a sacrificial lamb on the altar of the PSP. As you mentioned, there weren't any/many games for the PSP and people were picking up UMDs left and right to have something to play on their new gadget. Now that the PSP has gained momentum, no need to keep UMD around. I've never seen Sony give up so easily on one of their proprietary formats before. They have a history of sticking with something long after it has fallen out of favor (minidisc), or they use their muscle to force the format to survive (Memory Stick).

Exactly. If Sony was interested in keeping UMD around, they would've built and sold USB-attached UMD readers/writers for PCs. There would have been a full complement of accessories and gadgets to support the format.

HDTV sales are increasing. HD cable content...increasing. HD DVD & Blu Ray titles...increasing. I'm noticing a trend.

If more people are buying HD tvs, then why not take advantage of them by purchasing HD movies on disc? These formats have only been out for a couple of months. I think it's extremely foolish to write them off. Wait a year and see if things change. I think they will. I love movies and I won't settle for just dvd because I know HD DVD looks so much better. I want the best picture and sound presentation possible for my movies and the HD formats offer that...well Blu-Ray has some work to do.