Slut med film i UMD-format

[QrazyLeg]

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.

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

[Hoopstar]

hvem fanden har i det hele taget også brugt det.. jeg nægter at købe film til afspillere der er mindre end mit fjernsyn.. gider fanme ikke side med en lup for at kunne se filmen på min "Ipod video eller PSP eller what ever."

Det er sq da spild at penge bare for at kunne se den på sådan en afspiller.. så hellere en portable dvd afspiller.. det kan jeg gå med til da filmene der kan afspilles på fjernsynet derhjemme i ordentlig størrelse...

[amh]

Jeg må indrømme jeg har heller ikke syntes om at man kunne se video på en iPod... Størrelsen er sq lille.

[Kazo]

Er ovenud tilfreds med min iPod video, der viser glimrende udsendelser. Hele film er den heller ikke beregnet til