Sony intros Memory Stick movies as Target KO's UMDs

[tomato]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154015.html
"As national retailer pulls UMD movies from shelves, Sony begins to offer very limited selection of direct-to-memory movies for its portable."

Ack, the rumours have proven true... goddamn Sony, introducing yet another propriatary format.... have they not learned from Beta (better than VHS, but still lost :(), SACD, or Mini-Discs?! Too many formats = consumer confusion = non-purchasers!

And, most PSP users already convert movies onto their memory sticks.... but this is the "catch":
"purchasers of the packs will be able to copy only one of the four films onto their new memory sticks--the others will then be locked. "The code given with the MSEP will unlock one of the four movies," a Sony rep told GameSpot. "Through a special Digital Rights Management [solution] designed by Sony Electronics and SCEA, this [movie] is then downloadable for the PSP."

Seriously, WTF?! I predict that Sony's Movies on Memory Stick will do WORSE than UMD's.... after all, why pay for a film when you probably already have it on DVD? Just convert it to mpeg4 format and copy it to your memory stick and voila! You just saved yourself mucho $$$

[Kougar]

My feeling on this matter are expressed here :mrgreen: http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9119&highlight=sony (http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9119&highlight=sony)

Frankly, the only thing they did was pull another "Sony", as I'm going to start calling it. No one in their right mind would pay that much of a premium for a movie they can ONYL use on the PSP. It'd still be cheaper to buy the memory stick, buy the DVD, then buy the DVD drive to burn the movie onto the memory stick, not to mention much less hassle. ;)

[tomato]

Whoops, guess i should've used the "Search" function first... sorry about that.

[werty316]

The ability to play movies on the PSP never really was backed by the retail market and I doubt this will catch on when you can watch movies on the big screen at a theater or at home with better sound.

[Kougar]

No worries Tomato, I don't care anymore about post counts or that junk, I'm just posting now.That was all just getting absurd... Just trying to help keep down the duplicates though, we get lots of them here!

The ability to play movies on the PSP never really was backed by the retail market and I doubt this will catch on when you can watch movies on the big screen at a theater or at home with better sound.

Some big retailers *cough* Walmart *cough* tried to back the PSP movie thing, and it was a complete failure. Most of the other retailers had enough sense to not even try to push it themselves....

[tomato]

The initial UMD release was VERY successful... I guess the early adopters really bought into it... I received a PSP at launch for my birthday, but never felt the urge to take the plunge into UMD's.... they're just as expensive (or more!) than the equivalent DVD, and the DVD has more content/extra features.... plus, the DVD you can watch everywhere, whereas the UMD can only be played on the PSP...

I also received Spider-Man 2 for the PSP with the hardware... and actually found it a little hard to sit there and watch an entire film on the little screen... big as it is for a handheld console, watching anything but an action or comedy film (or anything with detailed text) would seem like a chore...

[Kougar]

The initial UMD release was VERY successful... I guess the early adopters really bought into it...

Guess it only took them once before they too realized the DRM protection that Sony uses... :mrgreen:

I hear you about the tiny screens, I still don't have any personal interest in even trying to watch a video on a screen that small. 17" CRT isn't so bad, but any of those would drive me nuts... I had a hard enough time trying to watch one of the new Video iPods over the shoulder of a classmate during a class, the shadows were pretty bad, at least from my viewing angle... completely ruined that episode of LOST he was watching :wink:

[tomato]

I hear what you are saying about the iPod Video as well... yay, you can watch videos on your iPod now.... enjoy your vids on our barely 2" screen! My wife got caught up in the iPod Video hype and was dead set on getting one for herself... until I took her into the local electronics shop and showed her how small and eye-straining it would be to watch anything longer than a music video on that tiny, tiny screen... she agreed and got an iPod Shuffle instead :P (still supporting that damn iPod though)

The only use, movie-wise that I have gotten out of my PSP is watching a movie on a longer road trip, and even that was a little hard if we hit a stretch of bumpy road :?