Sony's PSP Handheld Storage Media Pictured

Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to an article on the new PSP Insider website that has the first pictures of the UMD disc format. The Universal Media Disc, or UMD for short, is the game storage medium that Sony's handheld, the PSP will use when it launches in late 2004, and is a 2.4 inch disc that can store up to 1.8gb of data.

Comments

Dataplay?

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like a revamped DataPlay disc, only higher density and double sided. And unless Sony made some huge advancements, the PSP is probably going to suck a ton of juice and bigger than a GBA SP.

Re:Dataplay?

[TimeTrip]

That would be double-layered... not double-sided. :) Can you imagine the headaches it would cause if it were double-sided? "Flip disc now to play the next chapter".

Re:Dataplay?

[Yorrike]

As much as I prefer Nintendo over Sony, I must cite the fact that Sony has more than a decade of making CD Walkmans / tape walkmans behind them, so the battery life shouldn't be an issue, as they've already layed down the foundation with their CD players.

For example, my Sony MP3 CD player plays MP3s (decoding them off the CD, while spinning up and slowing down the CD every 30 seconds to fill the buffer), for 30 hours on 2 AA batteries.

I'm not worried about battery life in the PSP, what I'm concerned with is price point, games (fully 3D handheld games? Just doesn't sound right) and the usual shoddy quality of Sony's past portable devices.

If their CD players are anything to go by, then the PSPs will last about 1/20 the time a GBA will. Sony has the cool factor, but lack the hardware quality factor, in my experience.

Re:Dataplay?

[amuro98]

Eh, wouldn't be any worse than swapping discs in a PS1 RPG...

Re:Dataplay?

[Zuph]

An elaborate system of mirrors...and perhaps some smoke...

Re:Dataplay?

[willtsmith]

Think, TransFlective!!!!

The transflective displays to a really good job with energy efficiency. The display is ALWAYS the biggest power hog in handhelds (unless it has Wi-Fi).

To get REALLY excellent run-time though, they need to do some VERY AGGRESSIVE caching on disc usage.

Seriously, Sony are the gods of handheld/portable devices. I'm very surprised that it's taken them this long to lay down the gauntlet and challenge Nintendo.

Is it just me?

[wizarddc]

Is it just me, or does it look like Sony is presenting this purely as a new media format, that they just happen to be using in the PSP? Kinda like the memory stick, Sony seems to be addings another proprietary format to their ranks. Your new VAIO will not only be able to read these, but eventually, they'll be UMD-R's and RW's that will write your AIBO 3.0 code on and slip right into your digi pooch. Or not. I'm only guessing

Re:Is it just me?

[aster_ken]

A part of me hopes you're right. My nephew (six years old) likes to play my GameCube. Because he's a kid, he doesn't realize that tossing the game discs around can harm them.

But if Sony takes a chapter from the days of magneto-optical storage and places the disc in a cartridge similar to a floppy diskette then those things will be far harder to damage.

And by the way, he is no longer allowed to touch my GameCube since he killed both Super Smash Bros. Melee and Tony Hawk 4.

Re:Is it just me?

[amuro98]

At 1.8GB/disc, the first thing I thought about was using them to store SVCD-quality video, or other media formats.

Simply stick the player on the disc, and you'll still have plenty of room for your media. True, you'd need to buy a special peripheral for your computer to format & write to the discs, but if it was reasonably priced ($50-100) so what?

If Sony did this, their handheld would be a fearsome competitor to behold - capable of being your portable MP3 player, video player and game player - just swap discs.

I'd definitely buy one if this were the case.

Re:Is it just me?

[willtsmith]

You must be a prolific coder if you can write 1.8Gigs of code for your Aibo.

I think a memory stick slot for Aibo would be JUST FINE. Heck, maybe they can get him to play MP3's on command.

Not that Aibo has ever held any appeal for me. I'll stick with my REAL dog :-)

PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[peel]

This isn't so different from a GameCube disc. It's a little smaller and has .3GB more storgae but other than that I don't see a real significant leap in technology, nor another reason to introduce yet another optical disc format.

GC Optical Disc - 7.62cm(3in) 1.5GB Storgae capcity
PSP UMD - 6.1cm (2.4in) 1.8GB Storage Capacity

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but GC discs do not employ dual layer technology, so theoretically they could hold twice the amount of data. I'll leave all of the comments about using this type of storage in a handheld to others. -peel

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[BigBir3d]

Because Sony has to create their own thing. They can not use GC discs, that would involve giving money to the competition.

Kind of reminds me of a revised Mini Disc format.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[cgenman]

I thought the reason people went with proprietary standards for gaming disks were to head off piracy. Preventing compatibility is the reason to introduce a new format with each and every console system. Just look at the extensive copying Sony and Microsoft face for going with a very vanilla DVD standard on their consoles. The gamecube is safe for now, at least until Mini DVD-Rs are released or people buy aftermarket GC clamshells.

Dual-layer is wise, as consumer level dual-layer DVD writers seem to be a bit off, and jerry-rigging one to write PSP disks would be even more difficult.

Standards prolifiration is a bad thing on computers, but it is a necessary thing on consoles.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[andrewleung]

introduce ANOTHER disc format?! how about OPEN formats for starters?! i don't see any other systems using their format

i betcha that the mini-dvd format for GC is closed AND protected by matsushita... yah, it's a COINCIDENCE that the ONLY other maker of GC is them... the combo DVD player, Game Player Q system geez, i wonder why?!

do we see some parallels here?!
sony --> beta --> UMD
matsushita/panasonic --> vhs --> gc-dvd

it's natural in this area to make a new format...

side note: these pictures were sourced from watch impress japan the first few hours of Sony's E3 announcement. The rest of the story is here. The story's in japanese but slides are english. lots more specs there.

now, why am i not surprised psp insider already got scooped...

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[EnVisiCrypt]

Actually, using the technology from the GC discs wouldn't involve giving money to Nintendo; AFAIK the GC discs are just 3" DVD's. Nothing special.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[BigBir3d]

So I guess it is Sony being Sony then...

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please.

MiniDisc is the perfect data storage form factor. I forget precisely how much it could hold--I have audio MD gear, not data--but it was the perfect size and shape for portable data. It needs a slightly more durable shell (the little metal thingies don't hold up perfectly, alas), a lot more capacity, and speed, and we're in business.

Either that, or USB keychains need to get a lot cheaper.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[Anonymous Coward]

introduce ANOTHER disc format?! how about OPEN formats for starters?!

Why? Are you going to be making games for the PSP? No? Then what do you care?

The whole notion of open data storage formats is only of marginal utility. For general-purpose data storage devices like recordable/rewriteable DVD's and whatnot, an open format is good. Means there will be more hardware and software support, which means writing data to that format for long-term storage would be a wise, or at least not-unwise, investment.

But for stuff like this, it's simply not important for the data storage format to be open, and in fact it can be a severe liability when it comes to piracy. It's a lot easier to mass-produce illegal copies of a game or a movie or what have you if the format is open and devices for reading and writing are widely available. If the machinery to produce PSP discs costs $100,000, you're a lot less likely to have a problem with piracy.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[analog_line]

The gamecube is safe for now, at least until Mini DVD-Rs are released or people buy aftermarket GC clamshells.


Actually, the media type is only part of the copy protection scheme. At least one rumor I heard had it that the data on the disc has to be an exact size down to the bit or the Cube won't boot the game. Apparently the only way developers can burn their stuff to disc is on burners that Nintendo owns directly, so the format is a closed book to all but Nintendo and the industrial spies lucky enough to get hands on the specs. I'm sure there are many more hangups built in as well.

Apparently a lot of the work done in development of the cube was bent toward preventing copied discs from working, as the N64's cartridge format was a flop, and proved singularly easy to copy once someone built a system/got hands on a N64 ROM dumper. And it's arguable that the wide copying of Dreamcast games without the need for a mod chip helped bring that system to it's knees.

Forcing a disc to be a specific size probably negates the way that the Dreamcast games were able to be copied, by ripping out stuff from the 1GB GD-ROM discs enough that the game would fit on a 750MB CD-ROM. I wouldn't be surprised if the exact size of a GameCube disc is some maximum determined size plus an arbitrary amount of bytes in order to not allow anyone who gets a standard sized mini-DVD from being able to get that exact number of bits it needs to recognize the game as authentic.

For example, if this were done with regular CDs, requiring a 754.234 MB total disc size, which is just over the regular 750MB disc size. Probably would cost Nintendo extra, but if that's what they're doing, I expect they find it worth it.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[Zed2K]

Doesn't the disc spin in the opposite direction on the gamecube also?

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[RevAaron]

The GC discs aren't quite just 3" DVDs. It's pretty much that, except the data is read from the outside in, rather than the inside out. A smart copy protection measure that has been the only one to hold up in current and last generations' disc-based gaming systems.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[RevAaron]

There was never any drives for storing data on MiniDiscs. However, I do agree it wouldn't been perfect- how great would it be to have a re-recordable disc like that which could do MP3s and other files and audio? I'm not sure how much a MD would've held in data- a MD holds 72 minutes of compressed music. It's a lossy compression that degrades over time with successive digital copies. You could probably only get 100-200 MB of data on the MD to reliably retrieve and copy.

The closest things that I've seen for storing data on MDs was a SCSI drive for directly ripping and burning the audio from and to a MD. One could use some conversion or stenography scheme to make your data into some audio format the MD would believe. Reconsitute on the other end. Mmm, mmm, good. This would probably decrease the data capacity a fair amount, though.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[RevAaron]

Yup, it does.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[EnVisiCrypt]

Ah, but Sony wouldn't have to employ any of that to get the extended storage benefits.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[NintenDoctor]

Actually, it doesn't. Both CDs and GameCube discs spin clockwise. This is easily shown with a GameCube and a top-loading CD player like most portables. I can't verify on DVDs since I don't even have a DVD player, much less a top-loading one, but Howstuffworks shows it spinning clockwise.

What seems a little more likely is that they're read outside-in rather than the standard inside-out.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[Yorrike]

The GC discs are also written in such a way that the angular momentum of the drive is constant. So no matter where the laser is reading from, the disc is spinning at the same speed.

CDs and DVDs speed up the further out from the centre you're reading.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[suraklin]

Actually there was. The standard mini disc holds 140 MB of data

minidisc.org

The data side of the format seemed to catch on less than the audio side did(which is not much anyway, sadly)

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[acidrain69]

Not true, PC's have had this for a while with CD & DVD drives. It's called CAV and CLV drives. Constant Linear Velocity or Constant Angular Velocity.

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[willtsmith]

It's a REAL shame too.

If Sony had provided PC drives AND openened up licensing, it would have been a PERFECT replacement for the ubiquitous but now VIRTUALLY USELESS floppy.

Mini-Discs have come into the $2 range do to their utility in Audio Recording. That seriously beats both Zip(100-250) and LS-120(240).

Come to think of it, a 3.5" format MiniDisc that would act like a floppy would STILL kick ass since CD-RW STILL doesn't work at the BIOS level. AND CD-RW is STILL a NAKED format (no shell means scratches).

Re:PSP UMD vs. GameCube Mini-DVD

[willtsmith]

From the photos, it appears as if this format has a permanent casement. (I could be wrong, the casement COULD be removeable).

Given that this device's prime demographic are adolescent boys, a media format WITHOUT a durable casement is probably DOOMED!!!!!

Beyond that, I think we all get pissed off handling CD/DVDs in general as they are just SO DAMMED FRAGILE.

I was very GLAD to see that one of the new Ultra-DVD formats has a hard case in the spec. This is probably since it is aimed squarely at media production and data archiving folks who need DURABLE formats. But beyond that, It will certainly be nice to have something that CAN be scratched and say ... OH WELL!!!!

GC Portable

[sidesinger]

It would be cool if the next gameboy read gamecube discs, so all my great gc games, which by then would be useless on the next nintendo console, could be put to use.

Discs in a hand held?

[Ese L0C0]

It seems to me that if you have discs in something that you are going to be carrying around and moving and bumping, etc......Won't they have to develop a way for the disc to not skip or jump...? The whole thing seems to be cool this is my only query.... I love Sony stuff...Playstation 2 is definitately better than the GameCube......So if Sony can pull it off then Nintendo is gonna have some serious developing to do....

Re:Discs in a hand held?

[macdonaldorama]

These discs look strikingly similar to Sony's MiniDisc format. I used a MiniDisc walkman for years and I honestly can't remember ever hearing it skip once. If this new format is in any way related (and it's a good guess that it is) I wouldn't be too worried about skippage.

Re:Discs in a hand held?

[NeonSpirit]

I would assume that Sony will build on the MiniDisc technologies. The MZR-900 has a specified 66 hours playback. With music continuous read is required ( with anti-skip buffer ). With games I would assume there would be burst read into RAM of some sort, when you get to a new level or whatever.

I am wondering how save games will be handled, with Sonys history I would guess a limited internal memory with memory stick for transfer.

Wow

[rlowe69]

I don't know about anyone else, but when I heard that the PSP discs were like CDs but smaller I didn't have any problem picturing them IN MY HEAD. *yawn*

Re:Wow

[Lazyhound]

Perhaps if you had read the article, you would have noticed that they're more like MDs than CDs.

Oh wait.

Re:Wow

[rlowe69]

I did read the article. What does a minidisc look like? It looks like a CD but smaller. Thanks for sorting that all out.

Re:Wow

[C32]

Actually it looks like a MO disc but smaller :p

Re:Wow

[ndnet]

Look again. It's looks more like a new MO-style cartridge. It has a built in BIOS chip which will prevent copying. Now, while I'll agree that it's round and shiny, they aren't *that* similar.

Scratchless

[zemmix]

Finally someone is putting the discs in protective casings! No more having to worry about buying used games that are all scratched up because Johnny 5 year old got to them. If the PSP is supposed to the the 'Walkman' of the 21st century then Sony has to come out with a UMD recorder sooner or later so that we can burn our MP3s to disc and play them on our new walkman.

Three things are certain:

[uradu]

Death, taxes, and Sony forever pushing new proprietary formats. You'd think that Pavlovian learning would have set in by now.

Re:Betting All

[Lazyhound]

Er... The format doesn't really make that much of a difference in terms of actual development., and companies still have to buy the cartridges and the equipment to write to them (from Nintendo or a partner thereof, I presume).

Optical discs

[n0wak]

The best thing (for Sony, at least) about using Optical Discs is that we, the consumers, will be forced to buy extra proprietary Sony memory. Over priced memory cards were an issue with the PS2; they are likely to be an issue with the PSP. Granted, I believe that they said they will use memory sticks, so at least there's SOME support for those. But not owning any Sony products (other than the Playstation), they're completely useles to me outside of the PSP capacity. Not to mention their added burden, when you have a large library of games (switching memory cards/backing up saves on newer memory cards/ all the annoying crap I've had to deal with the PS1 and PS2 -- I don't think that lends itself to portability too well).

Re:Optical discs

[willtsmith]

One must face the underlying economics of selling game consoles ....

Sony LOSES MONEY on EVERY PS2 they sell.

They make the money back by effectively "Taxing" the games that are sold for PS2 and selling accessories. It's exactly the same in the printer business.

I guess what I'm saying is that you can either LIVE with their pricing structure. OR, you can buy a mini-laptop with the latest NVidia/ATI chipset and do your portable gaming that way at 10x the price of their comparitively VERY INEXPENSIVE hardware.

Re:Optical discs

[n0wak]

Sony does NOT lose money on each console sold, they actually make a profit. Same with the GameCube. It's only the XBox that is sold at a loss (blame Microsoft). http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02. html

Re:Betting All

[NintenDoctor]

With cartridges, you can get things like these. This is great for homebrew development, which would prove more difficult on an optical-disc format that cannot be flashed like these carts.

Note: using this to hold ROM images of games (especially recent ones) you don't own is bad. ROMs are great for nostalgia, but the GBA is new and GBA games cost $30, so just buy the things.

Re:Betting All

[willtsmith]

Unlike the BetaMax days, Sony now licenses it's technologies. Both Mini-Disc and Memory Stick have third-party vendors.

The strategy is simple, if you can make just as much money licensing a technology as you can selling your own, it doesn't matter. As a matter of fact, it's easier.

Re:Betting All

[willtsmith]

Who says that no-one will rip apart one a PSP, learn how the drive mechanism works and develop a "ripper" for PSP games.

Of course, running them will be an altogether MORE difficult matter.

Re:Ugly.

[willtsmith]

Well, squares don't generally appear in nature. Which means the square casing you suggest is definitely NOT-NATURAL as you suggest it SHOULD be!!! But the shape of their NEW disc format looks like the profile of MOST hills.

The memory stick is blue/purple/white. I believe it complements the color scheme on their cameras. Additionally, it makes it VERY EASY to locate the stick when you open the side compartment which is internally BLACK.

BTW, the shape of the memory stick is roughly equivalent to that of a plant cell. So it too is a NATURAL shape. :-)