Sony UMD on its last legs?

[Webmaster]

Reuters is reporting that Sony's Universal Media Disc is waning as a pre-recorded movie medium. From the article "No one's watching movies on PSP," said the president of one of the six major studios' home entertainment divisions. "It's a game player, period." Observers speculate the studios released too many movies, too fast. Within five months of the PSP's March 2005 launch, 239 movie and TV titles already were either in the market or in the pipeline -- a significantly higher tally than games, according to the DVD Release Report. But while sales were initially strong -- two Sony Pictures titles even crossed the 100,000-unit threshold after just two months -- the novelty quickly wore off, observers say. The arrival last fall of Apple's video iPod only hastened the PSP's decline as a movie-watching platform.

[mdmania]

I kind of expected this and it was obvious. It was like a re-run of minidisc going against it's rival CD only UMD was going against DVD or the rival iPod...oh well, I'm not surprised. I'm glad I learned from the md experience. Even though, I am taking a chance on the RH-1 since this will rejuvenate my existing md decks and disc again...sorry about the UMD going away.

[ZosoIV]

Not suprised in the least. While MD is often considered a "failure" but many know-it-all pundits, it at least did/does something novel. MD's are smaller than CD's but are also editable, protected in a cartridge, an offered consumers an easy way to make high-quality recordings. UMD on the other hand is basically a small, low-quality DVD format that is not recordable and does nothing that other formats out there right now cannot already do (and at a higher price to boot). Hence, it's already on its last gasps - you'd think they would learn.

Edited April 6, 2006 by ZosoIV

[Stuge]

This a has to one day b`coz UMD`s are costlier than DVD`s .& they can`t be used with every device except of PSP.I`m amzazed to see the it statts with U =Universal ..& it is not at all Universal ..

[plainsman]

well, i guess it is what it is. maybe sony psp's umd movie portion failing is just part of the cycle of things... if psp's gaming & wireless internet features takes a respectable ( and profitable) share of the portable handheld market, i guess it will still offset the former's failure to gain a foothold on the market.

since this probably will not kill sony, i hope they think very carefully about introducing any new proprietary media formats in future.

[agafly]

well, i guess it is what it is. maybe sony psp's umd movie portion failing is just part of the cycle of things... if psp's gaming & wireless internet features takes a respectable ( and profitable) share of the portable handheld market, i guess it will still offset the former's failure to gain a foothold on the market.

since this probably will not kill sony, i hope they think very carefully about introducing any new proprietary media formats in future.

It is a no brainer really, no user flexibilty and way way way too expensive. They actually make DVD's look good value!

[jadeclaw]

since this probably will not kill sony, i hope they think very carefully about introducing any new proprietary media formats in future.

This isn't the first failure, AIT (Data Tape Streamer) wasn't a runaway success either and their latest foray into professional data storage went amiss as well.

The 'Professional Data Disc'-Adventure was silently ended a few weeks ago, as Sony had to concede, they cannot compete against Plasmon and its 95% marketshare it holds with the UDO-discs.

[1kyle]

MD's certainly haven't been failures in the professional domain. Perhaps at the consumer level for people who wanted playback devices yes there was a failure but this might have been due to problems in deciding who the MD market was actually aimed at.

The UMD certainly had all the WRONG credentials right at the start. As a viable format it wasn't going anywhere since it wasn't re-writable so that immediately knocks out a HUGE potential market.

DVD recorders (domestic one's) have become rediculously cheap now.

I saw some in my local Morrisons SUPERMARKET for 72 GBP (100 USD approx). These are more than good enough for recording TV and will handle re-writable media as well. What would people do with unrecordable UMD's.

The actual cost of DVD films themselves has also dropped to rock bottom (especially if you aren't always waiting for the latest release), and sometimes you even get FREE ones given with the Sunday Papers.

DVD download / film streaming via the Internet is almost with us as well (albeit currently the quality is hideous and riddled with DRM).

However unlike audio where people can tolerate a lesser quality sound in some cases, bad quality video will always be a no no especially once you've seen one of those hideously expensive large plsama TV's showing proper HD TV (HD here means High Definition).

I suspect that DVD downloads or movie streams will have to offer high quality if that method of distribution is to take off.

Finally by limiting UMD to playstations and the like who do Sony think their market is for.

As a Greying 50 something - but with a reasonable disposable income does Sony really think that people like me will buy play stations for G--'s sake.

If some of my friends come round for a few drinks and to watch a movie or two does Sony really think we are going to get a play station out and pop a UMD in it. Come on pleeeeeeease. !!

Even the youngsters who buy this sort of gear will eventually tire of it and want something else so there is no longterm natural market for this product.

With HD TV here NOW and Blu-RAY / other High capacity format DVD's only a few months away the new format didn't have a chance - which even somebody with an IQ of about 5 could have predicted.

So what on Earth were these high paid Sony Execs thinking of or what planet do they actually live on. Certainly not this one.

The MD currently for journalists out in the field / some musicians etc doesn't have any viable competitor YET which is why the RH1 will be a runaway success.

OK volumes will be small but in its niche market it will do very very nicely.

I'm not sorry at the demise of UMD - it was a really stupid piece of kit to begin with anyway.

The quicker UMD dies the better. It was a total piece of Bovine Scatology (B/S) from the start.

Cheers

-K

Edited April 6, 2006 by 1kyle

[SHion]

Yeah lol,

It makes me at least satisfied to see it as a punishment for sony. Hahaha !

So they learn also from this, greedy useless company !

Edited April 6, 2006 by Shion

[mercury_in_flames]

LOL^^, I sort of aggree on this, Instead of using their brains and making a UMD a re-writable format like md, and letting users make their own UMD discs with their own content, converted movies, music files, photos etc, they had to go and try and rip the world off by making users buy memory sticks, and movies that were essentially useless for anything other than watching when you are away from a standalone dvd player, laptop etc. pffft.

[batfastad]

This was always going to happen.

Sometimes I just wonder if anyone has the lights on at Sony.

Buying a movie on a UMD, which is more expensive than the DVD version, and can only be played on a small PSP screen?

Pfft!

For UMDs to be a success, they should have been half the price of the DVD version.

I think most PSP owners would buy the DVD and rip it to PSP format, and stick it on the MemoryStick - if Sony made some software to do it all in one go.

And I think sony realise that as they're now announcing larger MemoryStick sizes, plus the PSP HDD.

And if this Sony PSP media manager software ever happens, I'd hope it's able to rip DVD movies and copy them to the device - much like iTunes does with music to the ipod.

Well that's what I'd do with the software.

90% of people don't want to rip the DVD themselves, then re-encode to fit the PSP, then copy it to a memory card. So for those 90% of people, it is just a games machine.

But the potential's there for it to be so much more.

Same old Sony story

People would use it to play movies and tv shows, if it was moron-proof to get them on there.

I don't think it's entirely Sony's fault though - there's probably all kinds of legal issues and licensing problems that Sony would have to iron out with film studios if it was to make software to explicitly do this though.

For me the balance at the moment is spot on. Rip my DVDs. Re-encode. Copy to memorystick.

But probably 90% of users don't know how to do that.

That's why itunes and ipods have been such a success with music, because they are moron-proof.

[mercury_in_flames]

It's also the fact that you have to go the the hassle of doing it. Thats the reason why I didnt get a psp in the first place. I was going to use it as a pmp, but after converting a few dvds and seeing that it took ages and that on some the audio and video were out of sync I stopped trying. It's also the fact that a dvd takes about 800mb or so. That means that you need to buy a 2gb card just to watch 2 movies. If I was on a long haul flight, I'd want to be able to have a choice of 4 movies. Sure they;re coming out with a 4gb card but the price of that :/ Yeah I know its a games console first and foremost, but why make it sound so great when you tell people it can play videos if all it can play is mpeg4. bah.

[batfastad]

Now if it could play xvid or divx!

Imagine a DVD reduced to fit a PSP screen, then whipped into shape with xvid.

Sony would never let that happen.

But divx and xvid support is now commonplace on DVD players.

Ah well.

[superboy]

Yeah, Sony is getting to be a horrible company for innovation, their track record is getting worse and worse. I'm sure overall they're still churning great profits from their "safe" products like movies, music, playstation, etc. But their innovative products or ventures into other people's territory (er...ipod) is pretty poor. It seems like for every somewhat good thing they do, they either screw up multiple times, or it's like one step forward and two steps back. For example, look at the the 3 generations of HiMD, and look at the evolution of the remote, recording features, mp3 playback, legacy support, and overall device design. It's bizarre, they fix one thing, they screw up a couple things that were already good. Then they fix what they screwed up, and remove a couple of features that were already there. What in the world is going through their minds here?

Sony is like New Coke, except that was an honest mistake from Coke and they recovered for the better from it. Sony is like New Coke, except they stubbornly stick to New Coke without recognizing what was good about "classic" Coke, and they keep trying to come up with Newer Cokes, while Pepsi kicks their a$$. Wake up Sony, and do something right for once.

[garcou]

HiMd can play at 700kB/s that's enough for very high definition xvid/divx video or even SQ qualitiy MPEG2 video!!

Sony make an himd camcorder, I will buy!

Edited April 6, 2006 by garcou

[stefan1]

It's about time they figured that out.. UMD movies are useless.

I have no marketing or business background, but I seem to be able to figure out that people don't want to spend their money on a movie that they can only watch on their PSP when they could buy a DVD to watch on a big screen.. Rediculous. Maybe if the DVD *came with* a UMD, then at least when you feel like watching it on a TV, you can.

[dytcs]

Before PSP was released, I was wishing that SONY would use Hi-MD as PSP media format .....

But with the release of UMD format, I'm totally disappointed. I agree that this format was doomed, although it will still alive as the game media, but it will never be UNIVERSAL.

If SONY used 1GB Hi-MD, that should be good enough for most games. With the advanced H.264 video codec and ATRAC3 audio codec, 1GB is capable to store up to 4 hours of high quality 480x272 resolution video. (keep in mind that UMD Movie is stored in 720x480 standard DVD resolution, sony want to fight with DVD on big screen??). Both MD and ATRAC would have a brighter future considering 10Millions of PSP hardware sold (if that's the case, we will see a lot of friends playing PSP to borrow recorded MD from us ). The most important thing is, we can write or audios and videos!!

Then read only Hi-MD movies and CD quality Audio discs would have stood a much better chance compared with UMD.

The only thing sony is worring about is: illegal copy. come on, isn't it easer to download and copy audio/video even games to Memory Stick?

PSP is great, and MD is great. SONY screwed them all.

[xatax]

[...]

PSP is great, and MD is great. SONY screwed them all.

Incredibly true.

Anyways, I have one of these and... well, see for yourself. For a price that's near the PSP... it's fool-proof and expandable forever because it runs Linux. Try JapanDirect to get one. The new models (more expensive) come with 6GB of built-in memory, a processor overclockeable to 630 MHz and of course, the amazing 640x480 display.

(oh, you can watch divx and ogm on them too )

EDIT: Bad link corrected.

Edited April 8, 2006 by xatax

[ZosoIV]

Let's just hope that Blu-Ray doesn't suffer a similar fate.

[mercury_in_flames]

O.T but,

IMHO, I cant see how hdtv and blu ray/hd tv are going to survive as a movie industry format. I mean yeah, dvd caught on, the price of movies did go up at least 1.5, but this is different. To watch all these new formats you'd need a plasma/lcd tv and those cost at least 500 pounds for a measly 19 inch. Yes, many people have splurged on the Sony Bravia televisions, but do people really have in 1500 pounds to buy, a new hdtv, a blu ray disc movie player? Im talking about your average consumer here. :/

[jadeclaw]

I strongly advise against buying BluRay. And against HD-DVD as well. Wait atleast a year. For Game consoles and HDTV the same is true. Early adopters are usually the beta testers of the industry. The overheating problems and the crashes, the XBox360 had, are a testimony to that. I'm really surprised, how few problems we had with the introduction of the HiMD format. Plus, waiting a bit saves money too.

[burns3016]

Hi there !

Two points:

1. UMD is a joke! Why did SONY not use Hi-MD (as is, or revised in some way) as the format for the PSP?

2. in regards to the Blu-Ray issue, hopefully we won't all need new High Definition TV's if some distributors utilise the capacity of the Blu-Ray to squeeze more onto the discs rather than just making all the data HD (if this is possible?). eg. put a whole season of a TV series on one Blu-Ray disc, as compared to 4 episodes in High Definition. This as far as I'm concerned is the real potential benefit (obviously we all will need a new player). I'm not sure if this is possible however ? Just a thought I had out aloud.

Edited April 9, 2006 by burns3016

[tekdroid]

First of all, bit of a surprise since Sony hyped UMD so much.

"But next week, Sony Computer Entertainment executives will begin making the rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to connect to TV sets."

Sony is an entertainment company first, hardware second. If this isn't proof of it, I don't know what is. Does it cost a lot to add TV-Out? Nope. Is there a significant technical barrier? Nope. Does this feature come standard with virtually every other portable multimedia player and is expected and found to be extremely useful to Average Joe? Yep.

Right now Sony have too much competition from no-name and big-name manufacturers giving the customer what they want for portable movie-watching, while Sony hardware continues to take orders from the entertainment division - and continues to give the customer no flexibility.

Every day these no-name companies (and some household names) are getting richer while Sony sleeps.

The competition

More open formats. FLAC. Ogg. Xvid. TV Out (of course!).

Yet Sony continues taking orders from the division that continues to butter its bread. We can't expect change until management at Sony stop this piracy paranoia. We can't even copy MiniDisc to MiniDisc directly. It's 2006. Sony Electronics is weak and fearful.

[dytcs]

Incredibly true.

Anyways, I have one of these and... well, see for yourself. For a price that's near the PSP... it's fool-proof and expandable forever because it runs Linux. Try JapanDirect to get one. The new models (more expensive) come with 6GB of built-in memory, a processor overclockeable to 630 MHz and of course, the amazing 640x480 display.

(oh, you can watch divx and ogm on them too )

EDIT: Bad link corrected.

I'm very intrested in the Sharp Zaurus SL-C750 you recommended. Though I have both PSP and a PPC, but I do like the good sized qwert keyboard..... but the problem is I don't think I can get one with the price near PSP.....

Currently my solution is more 2GB MSPD, or enen 4GB MSPD later.....

[batfastad]

Now of course if the lights were on at Sony, the PlayStation 3 would have a UMD slot.

And therefore be able to play PSP games.

And so you could watch your UMDs on the large screen.

What the quality would have been like compared to DVD, I can't really comment.

UMDs have a capacity of what? 1.5GB something like that?

So the resolution of UMD films would look pretty poor compared to DVDs on a big screen.

But...

Imagine if Sony had used Hi-MD as the disc format.

Stick a Hi-MD slot, and a memorystick slot into the PlayStation 3 - and play your Hi-MDs through your TV / surround sound receiver etc.

Add a USB connection on the back of the PS3 and... bosch!

A Hi-MD deck!

Well for Hi-MD playback / PC (+Mac!) transfer purposes with SonicStage anyway.

Might have made a decent little media centre that PS3 thing you know!

Oh if we'd all been working for Sony over the last 15 years we would have made them billions, and given the world not just good products, but amazing products.

[burns3016]

Now of course if the lights were on at Sony, the PlayStation 3 would have a UMD slot.

And therefore be able to play PSP games.

And so you could watch your UMDs on the large screen.

What the quality would have been like compared to DVD, I can't really comment.

UMDs have a capacity of what? 1.5GB something like that?

So the resolution of UMD films would look pretty poor compared to DVDs on a big screen.

But...

Imagine if Sony had used Hi-MD as the disc format.

Stick a Hi-MD slot, and a memorystick slot into the PlayStation 3 - and play your Hi-MDs through your TV / surround sound receiver etc.

Add a USB connection on the back of the PS3 and... bosch!

A Hi-MD deck!

Well for Hi-MD playback / PC (+Mac!) transfer purposes with SonicStage anyway.

Might have made a decent little media centre that PS3 thing you know!

Oh if we'd all been working for Sony over the last 15 years we would have made them billions, and given the world not just good products, but amazing products.

I like your line of thought ! Great idea .... that Hi-MD slot in the PS3. I mean, what harm could it possibly cause ? None! All it could do is bring a few more people over to Hi-MD once they see how good it is. Is that such a bad thing ? ..... would have been fantastic!

[garcou]

I've just put a 960MB xvid movie on himd: GREAT, I can't distingue from original DVD! (XVID 1.1.0 version)

[batfastad]

The problem I have with HD DVD and Blu-Ray are the fact that for me they are completely unnecessary.

I find DVD quality fine for me. The main reason for me buying DVD was not that the quality was better than VHS, but I didn't have to rewind, and tapes wouldn't get sucked up into the machine, and the quality wouldn't deteriorate.

But for the industry, DVDs are far too easily copied and ripped off... so enter a new format that's going to be incredibly difficult to crack - but get consumers to adopt it by selling it to them as BETTER QUALITY.

The exact same is true of what's trying to happen with SACD for audio.

(the cracking will happen eventually I'm sure - BluRay's meant to be more secure than HD-DVD though I think)

Add to that, the new HDMI connections which allow broadcasters and studios to prevent content being recorded between the playback device and the display - and it appears they've got it sewn up.

Plus it gives retailers an excuse to sell Blu-Ray and HD-DVD at a higher price than DVDs.

DVDs - even brand new releases - can now be had for very cheap prices.

I predict uptake on both formats will be almost non-existent until the point where you have a unified format player / recorder.

The point where I buy an HD disc player, will be when the device is also a recorder and plays both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. And the point when I can bothered enough to upgrade my TV.

People are not going to replace DVD technology when it's only been accepted mainstream for 5-6 years.

Plus it's reliant on HD TVs being affordable as well.

I think the formats will initially take off on computers though as data storage formats.

Which Blu-Ray might well win because it can get 25GB of data onto a layer whereas HD-DVD only 15GB. Plus Blu-Ray have now got rid of the stupid cartridge things and might be pretty scratch resistant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray#Hard-coating_technology)

The ability to backup 25GB of data (or DVD movies downloaded off the internet for free - how funny will that be!) onto a large capacity optical disc is too good for computer people to refuse - I can't wait for that!

People also like to back up their movies for playback on their computer, PDA, mobile phone, PSP etc.

If HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are so impossible to crack and there's no way for people to do the above with the discs they buy, they won't buy it. And having bought the disc, they certainly won't pay an extra fee to download a version from any official new online services so they can play it on their computer.

So my predictions on HD formats?

Nothing on the movie buying / consumer front until there are affordable players that play both formats AND affordable HD TVs.

I'm going to say 2009 will be when it will really start taking off (this post is on record so come 2009 it will be pretty funny to see how wrong I was )

... that will only be because new movies are only getting released in HD and not on DVD any more.

Long live HD-DVD / Blu-Ray for computer data storage.

I don't give a stuff about the formats yet. I enjoy being able to back up my movie and watch it on the PSP and to do that I need the movie on DVD.

My final thought on this...

What's going to happen to Sony's revolutionary PDD format that noone's heard of :D ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Disc_for_DATA

[jadeclaw]

Plus Blu-Ray have now got rid of the stupid cartridge things

I think, that was a bad decision. A cartridge makes handling the media much easier, no stupid tray coming out at a snails pace, instead just pop it in. Plus, a cartridge gives better protection than any coating can ever provide.

And speaking of the professional data disc, it is terminated. a new generation of drives will go on sale, as production already has started, but it is the last one, discs will be provided for a number of years. But providing media for their obsoleted formats is a long standing Sony tradition.

[cthulu]

I think the biggest downfall of the UMD movie are the insane prices, here in the UK alot of them are more expensive than the equivalent movie on a retail DVD.

[atrain]

I think the biggest downfall of the UMD movie are the insane prices, here in the UK alot of them are more expensive than the equivalent movie on a retail DVD.

same here. same with pre-recorded minidiscs back in the day. UMD is a terminal format, you could as easily buy an original dvd, rib then transcode. & you'd have a movie you could watch anywhere.

[SilverBlade]

Its funny how they called it a 'Universal Mini Disc'..when...only ONE product had the capabilities to read it.

Compact Disc is universal, Floppy is universal..UMD..ha.