Sony UMD movie format on the brink says Reuters

[Bob Crabtree]

Sony PlayStation Portable's days as a hand-held movie-viewing device might be numbered, according to Reuters, which reports that the flow of movies on Sony's Universal Media Disc format has slowed to a trickle and claims that two major studios have already stopped releasing movies on UMD.

Reuters also reckons that US shops are reducing the shelf space they give over to UMD movies and that the retailing giant Wal-Mart is set to drop UMD completely.

Find out more in this HEXUS.headline then let us know how much credence you'd give to this Reuters report.

[Lee H]

yeap, I believe it as UMD is as much use as a chocolate fireguard in a sauna

Why release a format that can only be used on 1 device - i.e PSP, charge more for the films and series depending on what it is.

If UMD was cheaper then it might have been a little bit more successful, but people do not want to buy a film they already own again, just to play it on 1 special device (PSP) that is why people are getting various media players that can play AVI and various other formats for their mobile movie viewing.

Well Played Sony.... what's that now....2 format's you've released that have been killed off

[Salazaar]

Well Played Sony.... what's that now....2 format's you've released that have been killed off

Isn't that three now? Betamax, MiniDisc (as a pre-recorded format) and now UMD...

Edit: Four maybe, if you count ATRAC3

[Mike Fishcake]

I can just picture some poor guy sitting there staring forlornly at his Betamax video recorder, cradling his PSP movie discs whilst transferring his minidiscs onto his atrac3 player.... who then goes and cheers himself up by buying a blu-ray drive.

[directhex]

if sony had sense, the psp would be MD-based; thereby re-energising MD as a format, getting a customer base from the MD crowd, and taking advantage of existing MD accessories like cases etc

[Bob Crabtree]

I can just picture some poor guy sitting there staring forlornly at his Betamax video recorder, cradling his PSP movie discs whilst transferring his minidiscs onto his atrac3 player.... who then goes and cheers himself up by buying a blu-ray drive.

ROFL

[Bob Crabtree]

We mustn't forget the Sony Elcaset either.

[nick_1]

Surely you can't forget about all those Super Audio CDs or DVD Audio disks people are buying these days We can't blame Sony for DVD-A but they were involved with Super Audio CDs.

Oh ok it was a cheap shot, but someone needed to take it.

Nick

[BeoWulf]

I kept seeing them in asda (the UMD). And If I saw someone looking at them with the intention to buy. I would laugh at them till they moved away. I like to think I cost sony a few sales seriously though, people have gotta be idiots to buy the things in the first place, especially when the same film is on dvd 10-15quid cheaper on the rack next to it.

[atrull]

don't forget sony's other ****e 'mp3-killer' whos name we shall not mention

[pp05]

I can just picture some poor guy sitting there staring forlornly at his Betamax video recorder, cradling his PSP movie discs whilst transferring his minidiscs onto his atrac3 player.... who then goes and cheers himself up by buying a blu-ray drive.

lol

Yes and play a sony music cd which came with bonus features as rootkit..now onto pc and it doesn't work.

[BeoWulf]

Hehe, Sony... doing Apple mac's work since (whenever it was implemented).

[autopilot]

Lets not forget Sony's stupid memory sticks either.

Not content with The Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Pro Duo, and now another bloody one is out!

Most Sony phones coming out will yse the smaller version. Like the Pro Duo was waaaay too big anyway, eh.

FFS Sony, not only are they vastly over-priced, but i have to keep buying a new bunch if cards everytime i buy a new device - even if it's another Sony product. God damn it

[dom_xbox]

Yeah fault sonys media.. but you cannot fault their devices... i got a cool "watchman" its a cross between a triangle and a block.. (a triangular block cut in half if you will)... and its..

still in its box..

[Funkstar]

i used to be a big fan of the memory stick format, especially pro as it is pretty compact and can be very very fast if designed right.

I'm actually a little peeved at all the memory formats to be honest. do we really need miniSD or microSD? Lets at least hope that they are about as small as is practical to handle so there is no reason for manufacturers to get any smaller.