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UMD Format's Death Rattle Begins
Next Generation reports that Wal-mart is dumping the UMD format, because no one was buying movies with the media. Above and beyond that decision, the studios are unimpressed as well. From the article: "One unnamed president of a major studio is quoted as saying, 'No one's watching movies on PSP. It's a game player, period.' Universal Studios Home Entertainment has ceased UMD production. One exec told Reuters, 'Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb.' Paramount is also considering its future with PSP's format. An exec said, 'We are on hiatus with UMD. Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather than the rule. No one's even breaking even on them.'"
At least Betamax had some technical reasons for people to consider it better than VHS. UMDs cost the same as (or more than) DVDs, with less resolution.
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"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Seriously. The PSP is niche at best, and the media price isn't all that cheap, I imagine. Add in the fact that the UMD flicks were rather pricey at retail, and you get a flop.
I'm surprised that the studios actually did release movies on UMD. I'd have waited to see how that whole PSP market panned out first.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
well stone the crows... the format was effectively dead, in that it required you to have a PSP... whereas you could go out and purchase a portable DVD player that took your existing disks for a fraction of the cost of a PSP... the only people who were in the market for UMD then were those few PSP owners who were stupid, or else didn't have an existing DVD player and TV to watch them on...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I think studios saw sales spikes from novelty purchases ("Hey, my PSP can play movies! I should try one") and quickly flooded the market with the same kind of crap they were able to sell at the begining of the DVD market. But no one wants to rebuild their catalogs on UMD like they did on DVD. I think there really is a UMD movie market, but assuming it's a duplicate of the DVD market is probably a bad idea.
Dude, I think I can see my house from here.
I have a PSP but own no movies. It's like the only people that would buy movies for PSP either fly on airplanes or are frequent passengers on long car trips. The percentage of those people is like .0002 of every PSP owner, I'd imagine. Even then, I don't think the battery life lasts more than 2 movies (?). It's practically useless. Bad, very bad, business decision on Sony and the movie industry's part.
My name is Wootzor von Leetenhaxor
A proprietary format that is similar in price to a DVD but (I'm assuming) a fraction of the resolution is failing. Mean while, you can purchase the full resolution DVD, Buy a Memory Stick (which aren't terribly priced now as I rexcall), and convert the movie to a PSP format and put it on the stick. I for one am not surprised. With the push for GPU companies to support hardware encoding, the conversion time may eventually not even be a problem for those that do go this route.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
Nobody's buying them? But I thought Sony said that they'd sold 8 million UMD movie discs, and that they couldn't even keep up with demand. And that was over six months ago. Are you saying that they weren't being honest?!?
This guy's the limit!
It makes me wonder how much Sony (and now MS with the 360) are paying to make their brands look popular.
And I don't think it's untrue when I say that a sizeable amount of the hate for Nintendo comes from the way these shops are set up.
* Most evidence suggests the DS far outstrips the PSP in sales, but I avoided saying that because that's not the point I'm trying to make.
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This is a preview of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray for movies.
Normal people will not bother for a high-def, high-priced, super-DRM'd version of a movie that is available on regular DVD.
I predict it will sell like bonkers for backup media, though.
And they had such a good track record going into this too, what with the MiniDisc, MicroMV and its predecessor Digital 8, BetaMax...
UMD was invented by a can't-miss tech company and supplied the market of people who wanted a second full-price, lower-resoultion copy of hit movies for their myriad of UMD players. So, you know, I'm shocked.
You beat me to it. Why anyone would consider the PSP to be a portable movie player is beyond me. Another cost for a different media, a typically Sony proprietary format, with a screen that's a lot smaller than most portable DVD players. For crying out loud, I recently bought a DVD player with a 7" 16:9 screen that could double as a portable video game display (I/O cables were included) for less than $100 -- and I don't have to purchase the same movie again on UMD!
The fact that Sony actually expected people to double-dip for an inferior format is staggering. Of course, this comes from the same people who brought us Beta, MiniDisc, and music CD rootkits.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
The problem with the UMD adoption has been the freaking price! I am not going to pay $20-$30 for a UMD movie when I can pay $15 for the DVD and rip it to my memory stick.
The approach they should have taken would be to bunlde the UMD with the DVD for an extra $5. When you buy the movie, you have paid for the rights to view it privately. The UMD is just another piece of $5 media.
Oh well, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
~.Evanrude
Really, who didn't see this coming? Movies that required a $300 device to play and were lower resolution than DVDs? Sony did not push the format any further. They didn't make cheaper players for the UMDs to make them an alternative mobile option to larger, and easier to scratch, DVDs. They also, of course, didn't license the technology to anyone else to expand the market. What do they say about people that repeatedly do the same thing but expect different results each time?
Here's what could've made the PSP *the* device to own: the ability to burn your own UMDs with photos or videos or whatever without the need for any proprietary hardware or software. A disc-based, portable image/video sharing device -- properly marketed and with proper competition from other companies -- could have created a new "must have" device that would be almost as ubiquitous as cell phones.
This mega-corps are gonna have to stop thinking about what they want (expensive, proprietary, restricted devices) and start thinking about what consumers want (afforable, open, and easy-to-use devices), or else I will continue to write angry rants!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Blockbuster Video's UMD cases have slots for two UMDs for a reason, you know.
If they would start including the same special features as found on DVDs, using two UMDs to do it if necessary, I would buy more UMD movies.
I found this story about 18 hours after watching the Battlestar Galactica miniseries on a PSP on a plane. So, there's at least one person watching movies on the PSP. Of course, I ripped it to a memory stick and didn't watch it from UMD (in fact, I've never watched a UMD movie).
/. effect)). In fact, at the conference I just attended, there was "contention" for my laptop and I was stuck with just the PSP. It actually turned out to be adequate (though a chat client would have been nice). Text entry was a little annoying, but that's about it.
I'm really disappointed in Sony for their positioning of the PSP. It has so much more potential than as a vessel for movie sales. I take it with me whenever I travel and use it as my primary entertainment, Web, and email device (using a home-grown Web mail app with a UI designed specifically for the PSP - one of a few Web apps I've developed to deliver content in PSP-sized Web pages (sorry, no links as my server can't handle the
I really wish Sony would get on the ball with a suite of productivity/connectivity apps. They don't need to be complex, just enough to talk to IMAP/Exchange/iCal/Chat and get me the info I need one the road (I'm not in sales, so my needs are modest). Or even just offer an open development kit so those of us with fulfilling day jobs can hack together little PSP tools.
Productivity + Games + (non-UMD) Movies + Music in one small device is great for travelling...
*sigh*
-Chris
This is a persistent myth that has gone on for decades, and has become "accepted wisdom". Betamax did have higher-quality output (though not by much), but it was certainly not a superior format, at least IMHO. The true test of any technology, is "does it meet the consumer's needs?". In the case of Betamax for a long time, the answer was "not as well as the available VHS machines", not even close for "regular folks". For the extremely limited market of Videophiles, Beta may have been better, but that couldn't sustain the market.
In technology, a common axiom is "Cheap, Fast, Good, pick two." VHS was Fast (shipped worthwhile features MUCH faster than Sony did), and MUCH cheaper. Beta only had "Good".
For starters, there were too few makers of machines and the price was too high. In addition, the first Betamax player was quite feature-poor. The damn thing didn't even come with a clock. You had to buy that as an add-on feature. VHS was ruthless about exploiting this.
2nd, and perhaps most importantly, the capacity was too low. It took quite some time before Sony shipped a tape that could run longer than ONE HOUR. This was colossally stupid. Sony KNEW how to extend it, but the morons in Sony design thought one-hour was an acceptable limit. VHS shipped the 4-hour capable T-120 right out of the gate, with quality that was acceptable. While the quality at the lower tape speed wasn't as good, it was doable for just recording soaps, or whatever. When Sony got wind of the VHS's recording time, they shipped a two-hour Betamax machine, using of course a slower tape speed to extend the time. Of course, this also eliminated most of Betamax's quality advantage.
Time and time again, all Betamax had was slightly superior video quality (VHS and Beta both made continuous improvements to the machines, so Beta wasn't THAT far ahead.) Also, Betamax decks kept the tape threaded at all times, which put a LOT of wear on the tape during Rewind/FF operations. To top it off, Sony made a LOT of mistakes about simple features. VHS was first to ship a pause button on the remote, the first with the longer recording time, the first with a standard programmable timer, the first with an infrared remote, the first with front-loading, the first with a camcorder that didn't suck, feature-wise, the list goes on.
In summary, all Beta had going for it was video quality, but couldn't back it up with features worth a damn. This was compounded by colossal errors in finance, OEM relations and marketing.
SirWired
This is the thing fascinating me about this news: Even Wal-Mart, every time I've gone in there in the last year or so, is pushing UMD movies above the DS games. I've been to Wal-Marts in a few areas and all of them have had the UMD movies right up front and clearly visible in a big flashy display, while the DS games are just kind of unceremoniously stuffed at the back of the aisle.
This always disheartens me a little, and my response is usually just "Huh. Well, the PSP may be trailing the DS in total market share and trailing the GBA in day-to-day sales, and it may have a game library roughly as vibrant as the Jaguar, but I guess those UMD sales must be really popular. After all, if they weren't popular, why else would Wal-Mart be giving then so much well-placed shelf space?"
I'm still wondering this. Going from this big flashy UMD pushing I've seen recently to just nothing seems like a startling 180. If the article is right that they weren't selling well, why was Wal-Mart displaying such enthusiasm about UMDs up until the moment they dropped them? Were they displaying them thus because sales were sluggish, in hopes they could actually start to move units? Were they just not thinking about things very clearly? Is something going on behind the scenes here? What?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That still doesn't explain the Betamax failure, though.
By the time I saw my first home video recorder, the early problems of Betamax had been eliminated. The machine had a timer, multi-hour tapes were available, there was even a multi-load option to put 4 tapes in a stack and have it use them all while you were on vacation. The tape was automatically unthreaded once a certain threshold of FF/RW was hit--and in fact, many VHS decks had started to keep the tape threaded initially, because a 1 second pause to thread or unthread the tape each time you hit a button is damn annoying when you're skipping around trying to find a particular point.
Video stores were about 50/50 Beta/VHS. There were other manufacturers selling Beta decks. And Beta still had far better video quality--maybe you couldn't see it on lousy US NTSC TVs, but on PAL systems it was very obvious.
Yet VHS still won. So I don't buy the argument that alleged early deficiencies of Betamax account for its failure.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I was very excited when the PSP first came out because the premise of the UMD media was so great. I have become rather tired of scratched DVDs the refuse to play, and the premise of a smaller disk that includes a protective shield was quite attractive. I had hoped the sony would open the UMD so the consumers could use them not only for PSPs but also for data storage in general. I could see the UMD replacing compact disks and supplementing DVDs for data storage on a grand scale (they hold 1.8 gigs). If sony would permit the use of UMD as more than a proprietary format, I would think that they would have a great success. I suspect the reason that they haven't done this is to thwart pirates...
Irregardless, it would be rather nice to be able to put music videos or other movies on a tiny disc that you could watch just about anywhere.
Why do we today use digi beta in the production environment if VHS was better? Beta evolved in the video production environment where VHS couldn't reach. Beta SP, Digi Beta, Beta-SX, HD-Cam. VHS digital is not bad but not as good.
plus the rasons you explain why vhs excelled were because of sonys poor choices, not because Beta couldn't do it. It could have been done but sony tried to hold on to there baby to long and ended up smothering it in that market.
Of course if you are technical you can just rip and compress a DVD then shove it on a memory stick.
And to get even more technical, ripping a CSS encrypted DVD to a PSP compatible format is a tort and crime in the United States, Australia, many countries of the European Union, and other developed countries that have implemented the WIPO Copyright Treaty.
... Just not on UMD. I've been disappointed by the catalog, so I just convert my DVDs to MP4 PSP format, put them on my 2G stick and watch them anywhere I go. I prefer video files anyway, because they start in an instant, whereas UMD movies require spin-up and seeking. I think Sony should have made all media downloadable, including games (with DRM of course), put emphasis on larger flash storage (maybe 1G standard), and they could have saved a lot on the hardware costs. Plus, the units would have been much thinner.
I've had a PSP on me since the launch. It's replaced my MP3 player and given me lots more stuff to do. I got Daxter yesterday and it's fun!
The new high capacity batteries mean that I have to charge it only once every two commute days now.
If you take a look, every single failure can be tracked back to the same cause: Sony's obsession with kowtowing to Hollywood rather than the consumers. Beta went down in flames because Sony didn't want people to have a recording time long enough for a movie. "One hour is enough for a TV show." Beta video tape.
8mm video tape. (By the time they did this, VHS owned their lunch.) Magnetic audio disks. (Low-capacity, hard to use, lousy recording time(again!) DAT.(OMG, perfect copies of the *sound* AARGH! Piracy!!!, Can't let this loose!) Memory stick.(Copying controls and, *really* slow load times, somebody might load mp3s after all...)
Sony's earned the failures by not having the cojones to tell Hollywood off.
I mean, seriously. When Sony had to try so hard a couple months back to extoll the massive "success" of UMD in every media outlet known to man, that should have been your first clue. Then when they finally wised up and thought to include the UMD for free with a DVD it was too little too late. (many had been calling for this from day 1)
UMD and Blu-Ray are both losers. They are expensive, offer no real benefit to the majority of consumers, and did I mention expensive... add in the low acceptance of the PSP in general and you have a big loss. I expect the Blu-ray to shake out the same way. FTR HDDVD most likely won't blow the doors down at your local retailer either.
Consumers are speaking loud and clear, and have been for over a year with the piss poor game sales. It takes Joe sixpack a little longer to get fed up with mediocrity, but eventually they do. Welcome to that time Sony and MS... best of luck with $500+ systems and $60+games.
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You're comparing apples to oranges.
Betamax failed in the marketplace, but Betacam did very well in the professional market. Note that these are VERY different technologies. Betamax battled VHS and lost, but Betacam competed against MII (the professional version of VHS) and won.
Sure, Betamax and Betacam may have the same sized tapes, but the video signals on them are very different.