NEW YORK, 3:11 AM, THU JUL 24 | 71 POSTS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS | tips@gizmodo.com | RSS
UK | FR | NL | IT | DE | ES | JP | AU
Posts Tagged “

Umd

”
cellphones

Indian Spice Phone Has Optical Disk Drive For 2.5 Hour Movies

It's really unlikely that this Movie Phone from the Indian cellphone maker Spice would make it anywhere besides India, but it's an amazing phone because of what it's got on the back: an optical drive. This h.264 optical drive loads into the back of the phone much like UMDs into a PSP, and can fit a 2.5 hour film into one disc. There's going to be 40 movies available in India at launch, which will be followed by 1,000 more movies later. We only have one question, which will probably be the only time anyone on earth ever asks this question: Why didn't they just go with UMDs instead of making a proprietary format? [Tech Digest]

7:00 PM on Mon Feb 11 2008
By Jason Chen
4,996 views, 38 comments

Latest by n/a: @w00zzy: Maybe they are not thinking about selling movies & the phone for you ... more »

umd

Sony Stands By UMD, But Not Too Close

Sony announced last week that, yes, it's still releasing UMDs, baby! Partnering with MTV, PSP owners will soon be able to purchase "Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection," volumes 2 and 3; "Jackass," volumes 2 and 3; "Wildboyz," volumes 1 and 2; "Viva La Bam," volumes 2-4; and "Aeon Flux: The Complete Animated Collection." While Sony has to know that UMD has become a game-only format, small, thematic releases like these aren't really going to hurt/help the format or the bottom line. It's like gambling on the penny slots after losing for a few hours of $20 blackjack. [reuters]

8:41 AM on Mon Jan 28 2008
By Mark Wilson
2,531 views, 19 comments

Latest by Klappstuhl: Well, Movie UMD's are usefull if you have the new PSP Slim & Light. They get cheap fast, and once you got your hands on one, you can watch it either on the TV or on the go. Movie UMD's more »

interview

Sony's Jack Tretton Talks About UMD, Rips Movie Studios


Many of us expected the a new PSP to have on-board storage to allow for a less UMD-reliant experience for music and gaming. In this clip, SCEA President and CEO Jack Tretton tells us what's gone wrong with UMD, and more importantly, how Sony plans on reviving the struggling PSP media format. He sorta lays the smackdown, so it's worth a watch. The only hole in his logic seems to be that Sony prices UMDs fairly high as well. [kotaku]

3:21 PM on Sat Jul 14 2007
By Mark Wilson
7,633 views, 23 comments

Latest by Aaron Martin-Colby: Again, Tretton illustrates why it's pointless to listen to anything any executive from any company on Earth says. You know they know the same things you know, but they have to babble in marketing double-speak or, if not that, speak as more »

sony

Unconfirmed: PSP Slim to Offer 8GB Internal Flash, Improved Everything

Ash over at Kotaku has the scoop on a tarted-up PSP supposedly headed our way sometime soon. According to his sources, the new PSP isn't PSP2, but a slimmer, faster version of the original. More »

1:50 PM on Fri Jun 8 2007
By Jason Chen
25,249 views, 34 comments

portable media

Kotaku Confirms Rumor: UMDs Pulled From Target Stores

Following up a post from yesterday, we heard a Target employee noticed prerecorded movies distributed on Sony UMDs (an acronym meaning UnMitigated Disaster, um, rather, Universal Media Disc) were suddenly absent from the store where he worked, and from other Target locations, too. More »

12:34 PM on Thu Jul 13 2006
By Charlie White
314 views, 6 comments

home entertainment

Rumor: Sony UMD Movies Vanish from Target Store Shelves

Our pencil-necked gamester in-laws at Kotaku gathered a rumor today, where an employee of the vast retail empire Target noticed that Sony's proprietary UMD movies had suddenly disappeared from his store. Could it be the doomed format's death rattles are beginning to bear their certain, inevitable fruit?
I work at a local Target store, at the electronics department. I walked in today and noticed something missing, other than my desire to be working, it was the PSP UMD movies section. Thinking it was moved I searched then finally decided to ask around. To my suprise, my boss told me that Target wasn't going to be selling them anymore. Now I'm not sure if its in every store, but I decided to give the other targets a call in my city, and they also said they had pulled them. So, not sure what that means, but with so many people saying the UMD movies are pretty pointless, and sales being sluggish, I cant help but wonder if PSP movies are soon to go the way of the Betamax.
We saw this coming months ago, as did nearly everyone else. Maybe one of these days Sony will finally realize that every proprietary consumer format it's introduced has tanked. Add one more to it with the UMD, where its absence from Target is probably just the beginning of its one-way trip to the ash heap of history. – Charlie White More »

12:35 PM on Wed Jul 12 2006
By Charlie White
358 views, 4 comments

Latest by jrghoull: its like i've been saying....u can only get SO inventive with ways to screw the consumer. because when you keep pushing and pushing for every last cent like companies seem to be doing even more and more of now a more »

portable media

UMD: I'm Not Dead Yet

Ah, but you are, aren't you, UMD. You're fine for the PSP, but we wouldn't want to put you in anything else, nor would anyone else. It seems a poll by NPD found that 40% of PSP users bought the PSP to view UMD content but haven't actually purchased any UMD content. So essentially they're saying that nothing on UMD is worth buying and that Sony should just give up. Or something like that. More »

5:09 PM on Tue May 2 2006
By johnb
237 views, 11 comments

portable media

UMD Movies Hitting the Skids

We could have told you this would happen a year ago, but people are just getting it into their heads that UMD movies are failing. While they are fine for video games—who cares what the media looks like?—they're a horrible choice for movies. Movies, on the whole, are purchased once and played at home. Therefore, offering Spiderman on DVD and UMD is a silly idea. If I care that much about Spiderman, I'll rip my DVD and stick it onto my PSP in some other, non-legal manner. Otherwise, I suck it up and watch it while sitting quietly on my couch. More »

1:20 PM on Thu Mar 30 2006
By johnb
366 views, 11 comments

Latest by inajeep: I only buy ones used or $~15 so this is good news for me. I might be able to find some cheap ones soon. I knew this would fail and not for the other valid reasons already more »

portable media

UMD's Slumping Performance

Another Sony proprietary media has deemed itself a failure. Variety is reporting that many studios cutting down on UMD releases in the future. Studios include Sony Pictures (??), Paramount and Warner. The studios are saying that the UMD is a failing because the amount of "piracy" happening. I like to think it is failing because it is a bad proprietary media format. More »

3:11 PM on Fri Feb 17 2006
By Travis Hudson
373 views, 15 comments

home entertainment

Sony Sets Blu-ray Pricing

If you've been wondering what a Blu-ray disc is going to cost you once it hits the markets, Sony has deigned to let the world know. As the first studio to put forth a price (as well as a marketing strategy), Sony revealed that it will also bundle formats together for better flexibility. More »

10:30 AM on Wed Feb 8 2006
By tgrumet
432 views, 4 comments

portable media

The First of the PSP Porn Reviews

Our squirmy brother Fleshbot pointed out this delightful look at some good, old-fashioned PSP porn complete with Custer's Revenge-esque sex antics involving sperm. Called "The Palace of the Virgin," this title features "adventures that involve [said Princess] touching various body parts belonging to some seriously ugly Japanese dudes." Now, thanks to our early colonizing, Christian influence, Japan has outlawed all kinds of full-frontal action, so all the sex is pixellated beyond recognition. I learned this the hard way at a Toyko hotel after paying $20 bucks for "in-room entertainment." So there is no visible junk. More »

2:02 PM on Wed Jul 20 2005
By johnb
5,742 views