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Another Sony Format Bites the Dust
Lam1969 writes "Reuters is reporting that Universal Media Disc, Sony's PSP-only movie format, is about to kick the bucket. While the discs' novelty factor resulted in strong sales shortly after the PSP's May 2005 launch, interest rapidly dropped and movie companies are no longer interested in producing titles. From the article: "Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said one high-ranking exec: 'It's awful. Sales are near zilch. It's another Sony bomb -- like Blu-ray."'"
Because just this December I was travelling to Colorado in a car, and guess what I was using to watch movies? That's right, a PSP with UMD discs. I admit, they can be tedious; just like many other technologies, one piece of information (a movie, a book, an album, etc.) per storage device is starting to become obsolete (notice how companies put more and more bonus content on DVD's) because of the vast amount of space available on modern media. The UMD disc was inconvenient in this respect in that it held one game/movie per disc, and it was not writable, and not supported by practically any player other than PSP--a console which in itself isn't all that great.
Overall, I'm glad that this format, among others, is becoming extinct. The closer we get to a universal storage format (flash drives seem to be the popular candidate), the faster we'll get to complete integration of information. Benjamin Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, said in the article, "We're hoping the format's going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback." I, on the other hand, hope not.
SACD is freaking the best digital sound format on the market AND it's 1 bit (DSD). How cool is that?
not too cool.
Why 1-Bit Sigma-Delta Conversion is Unsuitable for High-Quality Applications
Single-stage, 1-bit sigma-delta converters are in principle imperfectible. We prove this fact. The reason, simply
stated, is that, when properly dithered, they are in constant overload. Prevention of overload allows only partial
dithering to be performed. The consequence is that distortion, limit cycles, instability, and noise modulation can
never be totally avoided. We demonstrate these effects, and using coherent averaging techniques, are able to display
the consequent profusion of nonlinear artefacts which are usually hidden in the noise floor. Recording, editing,
storage, or conversion systems using single-stage, 1-bit sigma-delta modulators, are thus inimical to audio of the
highest quality. In contrast, multi-bit sigma-delta converters, which output linear PCM code, are in principle
infinitely perfectible. (Here, multi-bit refers to at least two bits in the converter.) They can be properly dithered so
as to guarantee the absence of all distortion, limit cycles, and noise modulation. The audio industry is misguided if
it adopts 1-bit sigma-delta conversion as the basis for any high-quality processing, archiving, or distribution format
to replace multi-bit, linear PCM.
Funny that that high ranking exec was from Universal Studios.... now where have I seen that name before. Oh yeah, front and center on the HD-DVD roster!
Is it not simply sad to see a high ranking executive reduced to trash talking? How desperate is he?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think you're being unfair on minidisc - it still has several advantages over other formats (although they're now outnumbered by disadvantages).
Compared to CDs, minidisc is small - that might not sound like much, but it means I can slip a MD player in my jeans pocket, my shirt pocket, hold it comfortably in my hand, whatever. For portable music, that's a must - CDs can never be as portable.
Compared to MP3 players, the sound quality is vastly better (OK, maybe "vast" is an overstatement, but for someone into hi-fi, try listening to a decent MD recording or a decent MP3 recording - the MD is clearly better; even my 9-year old deck sounds better than any MP3 I've heard, and I've heard a few). Most consumers don't care much about this (which is why you see so many Ipod owners with the original, nasty, low-quality earphones), but some people do. You can also get MD hifi units to put next to your CD player, which I've yet to see for MP3 (although I'm sure someone has made one somewhere); related to that, for MP3 players, you really need a computer for them to be worthwhile. You may be able to record from line-in on some of them, but that's not what they're designed for. I like listening to music on my stereo, not my computer. I still buy CDs - not MP3s. And I like my portable music player to sound good and be usable with my home stereo and music collection - all this fits much better with MD than it does MP3. Lastly, you exaggerated the price for MD units. I've never paid more than £1 for a minidisc (blank; although the new data versions are about twice that), and I've been using it since 1997. I've also never paid more than £170 for a player - hifi or portable - and for that money I've never had to buy the cheapest one, but have managed to get a good mid-range unit (my MD deck is 9 years old and still sounds comparable to CD, just about). That makes it better value than any MP3 player, for my needs. My current MD portable is about the size of an Ipod nano, give or take, and cost £150 two years ago. It sounds far better, and the battery lasts for days on end. It holds far less music, granted, but I personally prefer listening to an album or 3 several times per day than 200 unique tracks; if I wanted that, I'd listen to radio.
I know none of these reasons are likely to hold much weight with 95% of consumers, but if i was sure the format had a future, I'd still buy it (I'm not, so I don't anymore - my current units will be my last)
You're 100% right in saying that sony messed up with marketing the format, though: first it was touted as a replacement for CD when it should have been replacing cassette tape, then they tried selling pre-recorded discs. When MP3s started getting popular, sony held out and refused to give the few remaining MD fans a proper MP3 compatible unit - as far as I know the ones that currently exist are still crippled with poor software and DRM.
As you pointed out, this is par for the course with sony. MD, Memory Stick, the list goes on. Apart from anything else, it's bad business.
If they had added a UMD slot to the PS3 they could have kept it alive, even if the PS3 UMD slot only played movies not PSP games.
They chose not to do that and so now they have to live with that choice.
I was ready to buy into UMD as a portable movie/game format until they announced that PS3 would NOT have a slot.
MP3 doesn't retain the very high or very low frequencies as well, in my opinion.
... listen to what you are saying - if you heard someone else make a comment like that wouldnt you think they were a twat?
...
When MiniDisc came out in its first incarnation of Atrak was booed by audiophiles for suffering the EXACT SAME inadequacies (lack of top-end and bottom-end frequencies) as your are describing with regard to MP3, but - just like the Atrack system has improved over the years so has MP3 and the myriad of other codec's floating around these days.
but when I'm sat in a dark room concentrating on the music, or listening to each chord through a decent pair of headphones, it's that sort of thing that i'll pay money to improve. MP3 doesn't cut it for me (yet).
I can understand forking out for a decent music system its easy to tell the difference between a plastic midi-hifi and a decent seperates system!.But your comment is borderline obsessive. You sound so obsessed with the sound quality and the finer intricacies of the sound; Do you actually enjoy music? Good music is good music. Its a shame you judge it chord by chord or frequency by frequency. You sound like an obsessively biased audiophile fanboy who's more interested in tweaking his stereo than actually enjoying music (as opposed to listening to the inadequacies of your set-up). I cant imagine what it must be like to be so distracted by the details of the sound that i couldnt enjoy my music collection!
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp