I love movies on UMD, it's such a nice compact format!

Kind of makes me wish they would release movies on Cartridge for Nintendo Switch, but i know it will never happen.

You can hook up your PSP to a TV via component for great picture and dolby stereo surround, or I also like to take the commuter bus to work (1.5 hours each way) and watch a movie on UMD.

One of the best things about UMD is that NO ONE really collects them, so they are dirt cheap ($1-$5) at local thrift stores and play and trades. They also don't scratch easily because of the protective casings, and come with nice media booklets and cases as media did before 2010 or so.

Anyway, happy to see these have their own category here.

I bought a component video cable for my PSP and the quality was so bad I never hooked it up again. Not because of the format, it just seemed like a terrible output. The built in screen is awesome though.

It's not bad on a CRT or if you help it for games. That said the resolution is very small so yeah.

Worth getting the component and trying again. They look like DVD quality of the era through the RGB cables.

But yes agree the built in screen is most often the way to go!

I think I’d have to have a pretty small screen to think a UMD was a DVD. I’ll try it again though some day. Maybe I just need to adjust something or it could be a crap cable. I couldn’t find the official Sony one at the time.

That might actually make a difference, but it still won't be great.

That's one of the nice things about them. PSP games can cost quite a bit, but the movies generally don't.

In the US they pushed the PSP very very hard and flooded the shelves with movies because they were easy to make. Game selection was terrible at most stores right from the start though. Lots of FPS military BS and top shelf Sony stuff but almost nothing cool could be found without preordering it or importing. For the last two years in stores it was mostly the same Greatest Hits reprints just sitting there.

At one point it seemed rather pointless to buy UMDs and carry them around since you could just load mp4/AVC videos off of the Memory Stick. But now I can see that UMDs are collectors items, pretty cheap too for some titles.

I only have a few UMDs: American Pie, House of 1000 Corpses, Pulp Fiction, Cowboy Bebop and some others.

I had the component cables and it was stilled sealed so I got rid of them.

I should have kept it though or perhaps get the composite but I don't mind the screen for PSP anyway.

I only have Dead Leaves, Evangelion 2nd impact and Dark Crystal and Labyrinth UMDs. the other stuff is digital but I hardly got into the PSP when it was out. I probably need to revisit it.

PSP movies over component through my DVDO looks absolutely solid.

I have something like 60 UMD movies that I originally bought for when my wife and I were travelling. We don't travel much now, but still watch the movies from time to time.

I started collecting UMD films about a year ago, I currently have 20. I'm really satisfied with the video quality on the big screen. On my 42 inch LED, the difference with the DVD is almost non-existent. Obviously, given the same component video connection, if the DVD is upscaled by a Blu-ray player it has an advantage via HDMI connection, but in this case it is a meaningless comparison. Only on the audio side is it rather inferior to DVD, not only due to the presence of only the stereo format, but often the audio level is of a low audio level. And I have to keep the volume level on the TV pretty high. Having said that, I really like these UMDs, they cost very little now and it's fun to collect them... I think I'm not wrong in saying that it is the only video format here in Europe to be available only in NTSC, but obviously this is not a problem... Daniele

I never had a PSP so maybe I am wrong about mentioning this but could the low audio level be due to the volume control on the unit being set low? I would assume these game systems had variable audio outputs so maxing out the volume level would be a requirement to hook it up to a TV or audio system.

You made me doubt, I have to check. Thank you