PSP UMD Movies discontinued??

[Orrimarrko]

Sorry if this belongs somewhere else, but I didn't see it anywhere.

I just talked to the managers (friends of mine) at a local Circuit City and Target.

Apparently, Sony (and the third party publishers) have stopped all production of PSP (UMD) movies.

I was shocked, though not surprised...

Anyway, the Target had already returned the movies, but the CC was just selling them normally.

The CC manager said that he would expect a sale from most retailers relatively soon, especially places like BB that carry a TON of titles.

Anyway, just passing it along.

Peace,
Orri~

[Scorch]

They haven't stopped production.. retailers have just stopped carrying them.

Wrong forum.

[roc's feather]

Interesting, although not shocking. It was a terrible idea after all. The whole concept of portable gaming is that it's portable; It's something you can do in short bursts, on the go. At the bus station, in a waiting room, in line, etc. 5, 10, maybe 20 minute bursts. No one has time to sit down and watch 90 minutes of Napolean Dynamite or whatever. And if one was in the mood to watch something, why not on a nice TV, instead of a tiny psp screen? Dissappointing.

[Orrimarrko]

They haven't stopped production.. retailers have just stopped carrying them.

Wrong forum.

While you're probably right about this being the wrong forum, I posted it here only because I'm expecting some retailers to start lowering prices.

That's all. ;)

[Nealocus123]

Intresting topic, I didn't know this. I guess it makes sense though, although I did use these for long car rides / traveling...

[dbz4ever]

Shouldn't this belong to Movie section forum?

[Sarang01]

Interesting, although not shocking. It was a terrible idea after all. The whole concept of portable gaming is that it's portable; It's something you can do in short bursts, on the go. At the bus station, in a waiting room, in line, etc. 5, 10, maybe 20 minute bursts. No one has time to sit down and watch 90 minutes of Napolean Dynamite or whatever. And if one was in the mood to watch something, why not on a nice TV, instead of a tiny psp screen? Dissappointing.

However UMD Music could have easily worked. If Sony would've mainstreamed production of the PSP or just UMD players for UMD Music discs. Seriously the idea has definite potential. Charge a few bucks more than regular music with at least two m/v's and you'd be set. More if concert footage was included. Shit there's a C-Kay UMD I keep talking about. Charge $15 for that here and it would be reasonable, $10 would be a steal. I want both that and the Seo Taiji UMD but they're both region locked, shows Sony stupidity.

[SteveyWonderMac]

I remember reading about this awhile ago on Gamespot, but recently I saw a couple of interesting articles saying or infering that the opposite is going to happen. That production will continue, just that prices will be reduced. Warner recently decided to drop prices to $10 in Japan (I forget what it was in yen). They said sales increased by 10x. There was also an article by a Sony "Insider" that said UMDs failed because Sony took the back seat and let the industry (such as Warner, Paramount, ect) deal with UMD sales, which is why crazy prices resulted. The same article said Sony was going to try to bring UMDs back, this time taking a more active role.

[javeryh]

Another problem is that a fully charged battery is only good for one or two movies...

[mario23air]

UMD movies should cost $10 max. The reason the format isn't doinf well is because the price is too high. I would buy movies if they were between $7-$10.

[djinni]

I would probably buy anime if they didn't just have 2 episodes per umd (vs. 4 on dvd).

[Wolfpup]

I'm glad to see them go. They were really irritating when half (or more) of the PSP section was gunked up with movies instead of games. MUCH nicer now that I can actually find GAMES in the game section.

[rebenns]

If you want to watch a movie on the go, buy a portable dvd player. When the PSP came out, portable players were still quite expensive, so it seemed like a good idea to have UMD movies. Now, many portable dvd players are cheaper than a PSP, so UMD movies no longer make sense.

[sarausagi]

I think they make sense because you could take just one machine and an extra battery on a long trip and you'd have several things to do [internet, movies, music, media, games] If VideoNow type devices stayed on the market, there's no reason UMD should have been taken off

I think the problem is the placement of the movies, putting them by the games makes things confusing, in fact, I've seen more than once people buy a movie [like Spider Man 2 or X-Men ]and then come to Wal-Mart with the UMD open saying "I thought I was buying the X-Men games" [no lie, I really have seen this]

If they had placed the movies [especially new releases] along side DVD's, it would have made a lot more sense, dropping the price $5 on disc would have helped even more

And the screen may be small, but I haven't seen a better looking screen on an entry level priced portable DVD player [anything $79 to 100 something] Plus at least it is wide screen, lots of movies keep the original aspect ratio.

[Blackout]

No way in hell I would pay $20+ for a UMD. Id rather just buy it on DVD. UMDs should have been $10 each. Another problem with the PSP is that the games cost too much money, everything costs too much.

[GizmoGC]

When a UMD costs the same price as a HD-DVD or Blu Ray title there is a serious problem.

[ZR0 Limit]

The whole concept of portable gaming is that it's portable; It's something you can do in short bursts, on the go. At the bus station, in a waiting room, in line, etc. 5, 10, maybe 20 minute bursts. No one has time to sit down and watch 90 minutes of Napolean Dynamite or whatever. And if one was in the mood to watch something, why not on a nice TV, instead of a tiny psp screen? Dissappointing.
what's disappointing is that i don't think you know what you're talking about. i'm on the go, i want to watch something while i'm traveling, so where exactly am i going to get a nice tv, and how exactly am i going to lug it around? if i were in the mood to listen to something, i should forget about my mp3 player and just carry my pc with me instead, right?

btw, no one's telling you to sit there the entire 90+ minutes to watch a movie on the PSP. you can still be at the bus station, waiting room, in line, etc., and watch 5, 10, maybe 20 minute bursts of the film. it's not like you can't turn the thing off in the middle of it and then have to start back from the beginning when you turn it back on. that defeats the concept of something being portable.

However UMD Music could have easily worked. If Sony would've mainstreamed production of the PSP or just UMD players for UMD Music discs. Seriously the idea has definite potential. Charge a few bucks more than regular music with at least two m/v's and you'd be set. More if concert footage was included. Shit there's a C-Kay UMD I keep talking about. Charge $15 for that here and it would be reasonable, $10 would be a steal. I want both that and the Seo Taiji UMD but they're both region locked, shows Sony stupidity.
no. pre-recorded UMD music would have done about as well as pre-recorded MD music... which is saying that it would've tanked hard. it has potential, but so did the MD and that didn't work out well (even though it should've). it's really needless what with people being able to download what they want, or just buying the cd and ripping it.

and about your Crystal Kay/Seo Taji shit - shut up about it. if you haven't already done so, you could've found the videos, converted them, and put them onto your memory stick like the rest of us are doing with our videos. stop being such a retard about it.

[BryceDraven]

Thank god for Spiderman 2 that came with first verisons of PSP because waiting for PAX to open toke forever and I had to waste a couple hours watching a movie. XD Well, the movie idea is.. ok it's just, they should be a lot cheaper. Who wants to waste money just to watch a movie on the PSP? I rather just put them on my memory card. Maybe if they made it so you could play the movies on your TV by connecting the PSP to the TV. THEN you could use the PSP like a DVD player.

[Sarang01]

what's disappointing is that i don't think you know what you're talking about. i'm on the go, i want to watch something while i'm traveling, so where exactly am i going to get a nice tv, and how exactly am i going to lug it around? if i were in the mood to listen to something, i should forget about my mp3 player and just carry my pc with me instead, right?

btw, no one's telling you to sit there the entire 90+ minutes to watch a movie on the PSP. you can still be at the bus station, waiting room, in line, etc., and watch 5, 10, maybe 20 minute bursts of the film. it's not like you can't turn the thing off in the middle of it and then have to start back from the beginning when you turn it back on. that defeats the concept of something being portable.


no. pre-recorded UMD music would have done about as well as pre-recorded MD music... which is saying that it would've tanked hard. it has potential, but so did the MD and that didn't work out well (even though it should've). it's really needless what with people being able to download what they want, or just buying the cd and ripping it.

and about your Crystal Kay/Seo Taji shit - shut up about it. if you haven't already done so, you could've found the videos, converted them, and put them onto your memory stick like the rest of us are doing with our videos. stop being such a retard about it.

Yes and it would've looked like shit comparatively. I want the full res. out of it, not what's done with all the video coming from the memory stick. If you can tell me about a homebrew mod that does that as well as having pause, fast forward, rewing and all that shit I'd be interested but so far I've heard the only product that can do that can only do play.
I disagree on comparing it to MD mainly because all MD had going for it was smaller and if I remember the prices were quite competitive with CD and had less data on them. With the UMD we're talking about a system that has more of a draw than just a smaller cd player with perhaps shittier sound, we're talking about a nice portable screen with it that plays games, movies and some music with music video's. Given the space of the UMD, Sony could clearly sell a better sound product than a cd for albums around as well as including better looking videos. I'd love to argue for SACD but one of the biggest fuck up's Sony did with that was not slowly incorporating that into their portable cd players and paying others to do the same. WHY they put it strictly on home units baffles me. I mean your thoughts here but when you go home if you don't read a book or surf online don't you usually watch something? My point being is the average person doesn't just slap a cd in the player, usually they grab their cd player or iPod and are on the go listening to something.
Also most likely you listen to music on your computer and how many of those drives can play SACD?
All I want to see happen is a BETTER format replace the cd for Optical Media hence my UMD Music suggestion since I really haven't seen DVD-Audio take off at all and that's because DVD tech hasn't been streamlined into portable cd players except for a few Chinese products.

[sarausagi]

Yes and it would've looked like shit comparatively. I want the full res. out of it, not what's done with all the video coming from the memory stick. If you can tell me about a homebrew mod that does that as well as having pause, fast forward, rewing and all that shit I'd be interested but so far I've heard the only product that can do that can only do play.
I disagree on comparing it to MD mainly because all MD had going for it was smaller and if I remember the prices were quite competitive with CD and had less data on them. With the UMD we're talking about a system that has more of a draw than just a smaller cd player with perhaps shittier sound, we're talking about a nice portable screen with it that plays games, movies and some music with music video's. Given the space of the UMD, Sony could clearly sell a better sound product than a cd for albums around as well as including better looking videos. I'd love to argue for SACD but one of the biggest fuck up's Sony did with that was not slowly incorporating that into their portable cd players and paying others to do the same. WHY they put it strictly on home units baffles me. I mean your thoughts here but when you go home if you don't read a book or surf online don't you usually watch something? My point being is the average person doesn't just slap a cd in the player, usually they grab their cd player or iPod and are on the go listening to something.
Also most likely you listen to music on your computer and how many of those drives can play SACD?
All I want to see happen is a BETTER format replace the cd for Optical Media hence my UMD Music suggestion since I really haven't seen DVD-Audio take off at all and that's because DVD tech hasn't been streamlined into portable cd players except for a few Chinese products.

How in the world are you saying SACD was a fuck up because they didn't intergrate into the portable CD players? There's no point in having multi channel audio when you only have two headphones, and even that, DTS stereo tracks would be utterly pointless as most headphones could not reproduce the fidelity of 24 bit audio. Plus the chipsets would be too expensive for portable use and require more power to have as long a battery life as the average portable CD player. SACD was never meant to be a mainstream replacement for the audio CD, it was meant to be the leading format for multichannel and high fidelity stereo reproduction. If you have an SACD deck it's because you have a good receiver and good speakers and time to listen to music at home.

As for MD, yes, it has less space natively than CD, 140 MB vs 700 MB, but here is the sad truth. The majority of CD's have nothing but dead space on them. I haven't seen one major label, popular CD to go past 44 minutes. Plus, MD was built with compression in mind, once you apply the proper MD compression, a MINIDISC can hold more than 240 minutes of music at a higher quality than 192 KBPS mp3 can output. At the lowest compression possible, a MD can hold 80 minutes of music, at a higher quality than CD can. Most people could not notice difference between compressed MD and regular CD, and you would have to have actual testing equipment to tell the difference between CD and non compressed MD. Due to psychoacoustics, MD sounds better on a whole, especially since in most songs, the mid tone sand low tones are brought out more without getting rid of the highs and boosting the bass too much.

As for DVD Audio, it's utterly inferior to SACD and I hope it stays as dead as it is right now. Multichannel audio is pretty much done and over with in the US, but I sincerely hope if a format gets a revival, it is the SACD. Since the PS3 includes native SACD support, I can see SACD making a comeback and taking its rightful place as the superior format. Bundling it with a native console should bring down the price of production, so home SACD units will be more affordable, not they already aren't. A single DVD/SACD set up from Sony costs you only around $60, if you have the speakers and the receiver, there's no point in not having SACD support

I don't think in today's hip hop centric music market, SACD can succeed though, 96 kbps mp3 is enough for such complex wonderful music, why would anyone care about multichannel or high fidelity stereo? Mmm, a cheap pair of Koss earbuds and a hot mix CD with Ne-yo and Rhianna.

[Demolition Man]

I don't think in today's hip hop centric music market, SACD can succeed though, 96 kbps mp3 is enough for such complex wonderful music, why would anyone care about multichannel or high fidelity stereo? Mmm, a cheap pair of Koss earbuds and a hot mix CD with Ne-yo and Rhianna.

http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000E6UK5K.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1139281338_.jpg

Someone please give this the SACD 5.1 disc it fully deserves. :D

[sarausagi]

http://ec3.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000E6UK5K.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1139281338_.jpg

Someone please give this the SACD 5.1 disc it fully deserves. :D

If only, after "Dark Side of the Moon" in SACD it pains me to listen to anything by Pink Floyd [or solo efforts] in 2 channel CD..

What is worse, when Dark Side came out, I sold every Pink Floyd CD I owned [except Animals and The Final Cut] thinking they'd get their SACD releases soon, and I've been waiting years now and still nothing

So everytime CC has their $9.99 sale, I say, "Okay, time to rebuy the lot" but I can't bear it because I'm still holding out for the SACD's...

[Demolition Man]

You know there are the DTS CDs for "Atom Heart Mother" and "Wish You Were Here" that are taken from the quadraphonic 8-tracks. They still sound great even today. :D

Plus there is "The Wall" movie on DVD that has a 5.1 mix. And Roger's "In The Flesh" on DVD. :D

[Sarang01]

How in the world are you saying SACD was a fuck up because they didn't intergrate into the portable CD players? There's no point in having multi channel audio when you only have two headphones, and even that, DTS stereo tracks would be utterly pointless as most headphones could not reproduce the fidelity of 24 bit audio. Plus the chipsets would be too expensive for portable use and require more power to have as long a battery life as the average portable CD player. SACD was never meant to be a mainstream replacement for the audio CD, it was meant to be the leading format for multichannel and high fidelity stereo reproduction. If you have an SACD deck it's because you have a good receiver and good speakers and time to listen to music at home.

As for MD, yes, it has less space natively than CD, 140 MB vs 700 MB, but here is the sad truth. The majority of CD's have nothing but dead space on them. I haven't seen one major label, popular CD to go past 44 minutes. Plus, MD was built with compression in mind, once you apply the proper MD compression, a MINIDISC can hold more than 240 minutes of music at a higher quality than 192 KBPS mp3 can output. At the lowest compression possible, a MD can hold 80 minutes of music, at a higher quality than CD can. Most people could not notice difference between compressed MD and regular CD, and you would have to have actual testing equipment to tell the difference between CD and non compressed MD. Due to psychoacoustics, MD sounds better on a whole, especially since in most songs, the mid tone sand low tones are brought out more without getting rid of the highs and boosting the bass too much.

As for DVD Audio, it's utterly inferior to SACD and I hope it stays as dead as it is right now. Multichannel audio is pretty much done and over with in the US, but I sincerely hope if a format gets a revival, it is the SACD. Since the PS3 includes native SACD support, I can see SACD making a comeback and taking its rightful place as the superior format. Bundling it with a native console should bring down the price of production, so home SACD units will be more affordable, not they already aren't. A single DVD/SACD set up from Sony costs you only around $60, if you have the speakers and the receiver, there's no point in not having SACD support

I don't think in today's hip hop centric music market, SACD can succeed though, 96 kbps mp3 is enough for such complex wonderful music, why would anyone care about multichannel or high fidelity stereo? Mmm, a cheap pair of Koss earbuds and a hot mix CD with Ne-yo and Rhianna.

See I was more excited about SACD in general because I heard about sounds you'd hear in terms of clarity that only came through in the studio sessions which I'm guessing could be heard just as clearly on a pair of headphones as well. Explain to me exactly what type of channels we're talking on SACD, also please explain to me about HDCD since I'd like to know how it sounds on a real set up that makes use of it even though I know it's uncommon. As for price why would it be such an issue, looking at how much cheaper even computer chipsets have gotten on the whole. Granted this is specialized I'm sure but I would think the parts in general for it have gotten cheaper.
Do you know where I can find more foreign SACD around too sarausagi? In general they seem to be uncommon unless the artist is REALLY popular.

[sarausagi]

See I was more excited about SACD in general because I heard about sounds you'd hear in terms of clarity that only came through in the studio sessions which I'm guessing could be heard just as clearly on a pair of headphones as well. Explain to me exactly what type of channels we're talking on SACD, also please explain to me about HDCD since I'd like to know how it sounds on a real set up that makes use of it even though I know it's uncommon. As for price why would it be such an issue, looking at how much cheaper even computer chipsets have gotten on the whole. Granted this is specialized I'm sure but I would think the parts in general for it have gotten cheaper.

What type of channels? SACD has encoded information for six channels of audio, the center, two fronts, two surround rears, and a subwoofer. Listening to SACD on headphones is mostly pointless because you lose 4 channels of audio and have to compress it all down to 2 channels. The problem with this that unless the SACD was encoded for two channel audio [which most aren't] or it is a hybrid [meaning a regular CD for car/portable use but also an SACD for home use] you won't hear most of the music [you'll miss instruments, or percussions, or vocals, whatever is coming out of the channels your head phones can't reproduce]

As for HDCD, it is not truly a multi channel audio format, but it is highly encoded 24 bit vs 16 bit audio, on the right CD/DVD player or computer connected to the right audio equipment, it can reproduce more high fidelity stereo and is also more suited to dolby pro logic output than regular CD. It is a very subtle improvement from regular CD, not the huge jump in quality and direction that SACD has. Taken directly from Wikipedia...

High Definition Compatible Digital, or HDCD (also known as High Definition Compact Disc) is a patented encode-decode process that endeavors to improve the sound quality of standard audio CDs. A HDCD-encoded CD usually, but not always, has the HDCD logo printed somewhere on the back cover. A relatively high-quality sound-system is required in order to take advantage of the subtle improvement that HDCD is intended to accomplish.

[adamsappel]

I was browsing at Suncoast yesterday, and the clerk told me if I wanted anything on UMD to buy it before January. He said they were told to burn all the remaining stock (as in put a lighter to the disk, not just toss it out). I haven't heard anything so drastic anywhere else. It could be prior to a rollout of new, cheaper titles, but it sounds (if true) more like a total abandonment. I think I'll go back after Xmas and try and work a deal. Or end up dumpster diving.

[icruise]

I only have the Spiderman UMD that came with my PSP, but I would actually like to pick up some if they would just go on clearance somewhere. I'd buy quite a number of they were $5 or so.

[Purkeynator]

If Sony has abandoned the UMD movies, then why are there 20+ new umd movies on the new and upcoming movies list on Sony's website?