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Target Is Dropping UMD Movies |
Listed in: UMD Movies Tags: Lik-Sang, memory stick, Sony
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A couple of days ago, a Target employee's juicy piece of information spread like wildfire on the net: Target is getting rid of UMDs and has started pulling the poorly-supported format from shelves. While there's no official word yet from Target, Gamepro has reported that the rumor has been confirmed. It's not like we haven't seen it coming - Sony's portable UMD movie format has struggled for acceptance since its release in 2005. Add to that the fact that retail giant Wal-mart considered dropping the UMD movies from their shelves. As if that wasn't enough, Lik-Sang.com has stopped carrying UMD movie titles as well. It'll be interesting to know how Sony spins this story around. But with well-known retailers pulling out UMD titles, the final blow has been dealt. One of us here at QJ speculated that Memory Stick sales will increase, possibly stabilizing the market momentarily to then see a fast drop in memory card prices as the movies (and games?) start being released on memory stick.
Via Gamepro
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Now on topic, personally I could care less about the UMD movies. I can also see why they aren't doing to well in the first place. Sure it's nice to have a portable device to play a movie, but it sucks to pay full DVD price for something with such a small screen, and really only useful for portable viewing. If they made UMDs only contain the movie itself and charged like $5-$10 (average movie ticket price) then I can see them selling. But not many people are going to want to buy two different versions of a movie just so they can get a big screen version at home and a portable version for the PSP. Now, I can see maybe buying package deals, like a DVD with a UMD for an extra $5 or something. But to ask full DVD price (sometimes more) for something only useful outside of the house, it's just asinine.
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As far as i'm concerned, rip a DVD yourself (or download it, seeing as how i believe you're legally allowed to download a movie if you own a legit copy) and just run it off some homebrew. No reason to buy an additional copy you'll get very limited use out of.
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sidecomment:Kee p It Real, represent the ghetto
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Dont expect the movie industry to do anything soon about downloading movies, and the riaa still wont come down on the 15 dollar albums that it costs like 1.25 to make.
They shoudl just put them on sale if they have so many of them
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Second, memory sticks that are the right size are still priced at the very least 50 - 150 bucks (1-2GB). The UMD disc is 1.8GB. The only way selling movies on memory sticks would succeed is if the price dropped by leaps and bounds. This is not going to happen anytime soon.
For all you people that like ripping movies to your memory sticks and filling them up - then good for you, but the general public does not want to spend the time doing this, most will not have the tech know how of doing it (although it is simple), and finally memory sticks for me are better suited for pics, mp3s, and personal video clips (small ones - not full length movies)
When Sony releases the connect between the PSP and TV for the UMDs will begin to pick up again. Studios that have said they are dropping the format have also said they would support it again when Sony releases the ability to connect the PSP to the TV and not by means of using the stupid projection stuff out already.
Anyway - I like UMD movies and do not want to see them go. I also get tired of people saying that the PSP is meant for games and shouldn't be used as a DVD player. It is a portable entertainment system and there is plenty reason for it to play UMD movies as well as games.
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has ripped off movies of the shelves
not cool!!
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"I realized that my local Target, in Westminster Maryland, no longer had UMD Movies. They haven't had any for the past two weeks and the last release was Underworld Evolution. I must say, it's a little disappointing, I enjoy picking up a few different movies every month.
I know that everyone is whining about how UMD Videos are too much to carry around, cost too much and just aren't supported by other device readers, but seriously, they aren't marketing to you. They are marketing to individuals like me, who enjoy quality over quantity, so take a chill pill.
Don't like the format, so what, don't buy it. Use whatever alternative you want and come up with something better(hence the PMP format for v1.5). We all have our fixes.
Let's say you have a 4Gb pro duo, with an encoded video using PMP format on good quality, you can only fit 4 real movies in PMP. Although, most likely, you'll only have the time to pop one on, considering the time it takes to decrpyt, encode and than copy to such a format(this doesn't apply to everyone of course, because some of us have amazing systems, but many of us just don't have the best computers on the market). The UMD just works when you need something on the fly, where as memory stick media is for those of us who have time to wait.
Consider the fact of you being a frequent flyer, do you have time to pop in a video to your laptop, encode, copy it over and than add it all to your PSP, not likely. Other propose using external sources to capture and store your content using NetServer technology or USBHost technology, but some of us just don't have access to the wireless world 24/7. It's mostly about convience.
Also, consider the release of movies formatted for PSP via Sony's current Mem Stick quality playback. The highest possible video resolution is 320x240(unless hacked and Sony probably wont do that). It just seems like an unlikely alternative for people who enjoy quality. Also, if Sony releases movies via online distribution, piracy would consume the PSP video viewing world, it's already an issue, but with a digital copy of these movies, hacking would become commonplace and these movies would be found on every torrent and P2P network across the WWW.
Just be mindful that the UMD Movie is still a great alternative and doesn't take up that precious memory stick space that we all have. The UMD provides the protection against some piracy while maintaining the best possible playback. You also get multiple audio levels, extra content and multiple language options, so it provides that little extra lacking in the homebrew video playback. Love don't hate folks! It's so much easier."
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or any umd games. Memory sticks are all you need.
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