LaserDisc Database
https://forum.lddb.com/

Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a format? => NO
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=8830
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Author:  signofzeta [ 17 Jan 2020, 20:42 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

IMO it makes a pretty great Blu-ray player. It’s fast at least.

Author:  pokefraker [ 18 Jan 2020, 07:27 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

signofzeta wrote:
IMO it makes a pretty great Blu-ray player. It’s fast at least.

That, all the house of the dead games, and the now unobtainable Scott Pilgrim video game are what keeps mine plugged in.

I will argue if you get the appropriate lightguns, House of the Dead 1-4 and Overkill are all stellar on PS3, and ~$100 for the move controllers, light guns, eye toy, and games beats buying the arcade cabinets which would cost you tens of thousands.

Author:  ventrra [ 18 Jan 2020, 17:05 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

pokefraker wrote:
I think the fact that there's no solid database of UMD's should warrant its addition to the website, but I would understand if the coding effort just wasn't worth it for you Julian.

I'll agree with this. I own some UMD movies (but no games!) for the PSP and it would be nice to have some sort of actual database for the movies on it, but I can see that it might be difficult for it to be added to this site.

Author:  signofzeta [ 18 Jan 2020, 18:29 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

I think at this point “difficulty” probably isn’t an issue. He has total mastery of his site at this point. My hunch is that admin found a magazine or something that could be used to get the list going and he’s more interested in whether or not UMD fits the character of the site.

To me it doesn’t. To noobs LD looks like a “failed” format but that’s nonsense. It was the absolute best format for 15-20 years and only succumbed to DVD, which was released almost 20 years later. UMD is a failure. CED is a failure. HD-DVD is like a failure squared. But if we are going to lump all that stuff together, even then UMD still seems like a joke because it simply isn’t a “home theater” format. It’s a...doodad.

Does anyone have even an approximate guess at how many UMDs were released? I sure don’t. There were a lot of American ones even though nobody bought them at full price so I assume there must be several hundred JP releases. If there are 3400 UMDs then for sure SOMEONE should catalog them and why not lddb but if there are only 250 then forget it.

Is it possible to be curious about something while having no interest in it? That’s how I feel about UMD. I’m sure there are some crazy/surprising titles out there. Non-fiction titles, TV box sets, etc.

Author:  deadlegion [ 18 Jan 2020, 19:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

signofzeta wrote:
I think at this point “difficulty” probably isn’t an issue. He has total mastery of his site at this point. My hunch is that admin found a magazine or something that could be used to get the list going and he’s more interested in whether or not UMD fits the character of the site.

To me it doesn’t. To noobs LD looks like a “failed” format but that’s nonsense. It was the absolute best format for 15-20 years and only succumbed to DVD, which was released almost 20 years later. UMD is a failure. CED is a failure. HD-DVD is like a failure squared. But if we are going to lump all that stuff together, even then UMD still seems like a joke because it simply isn’t a “home theater” format. It’s a...doodad.

Does anyone have even an approximate guess at how many UMDs were released? I sure don’t. There were a lot of American ones even though nobody bought them at full price so I assume there must be several hundred JP releases. If there are 3400 UMDs then for sure SOMEONE should catalog them and why not lddb but if there are only 250 then forget it.

Is it possible to be curious about something while having no interest in it? That’s how I feel about UMD. I’m sure there are some crazy/surprising titles out there. Non-fiction titles, TV box sets, etc.


I have seen numbers mentioned around 400 but I'm guessing that's not including all the Japanese adult stuff and the odd visual novels. The odd interactive stuff is probably more interesting than movies/tv shows that are simply stripped down versions of DVD releases missing extras etc due to format capacity limitation.

Author:  signofzeta [ 18 Jan 2020, 21:47 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

I’m pretty sure it’s a lot more than that. I have...I think four of them, two of which came with games, one I got for $5, the other I was paid $10 to take (weird shipping situation).

Author:  deadlegion [ 27 Jan 2020, 00:39 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

signofzeta wrote:
Is it possible to be curious about something while having no interest in it?


I think it's definitely possible to be curious but have no serious interest in collecting. I'm like that about a lot of things tbh :lol:
Comes down to money and space.

Author:  tweeg [ 29 Jan 2020, 09:23 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

muzer wrote:
Is it possible for an "I don't collect them but I feel they should still be added" option? :D

I feel the same way, owned a couple dozen at the height of my PSP collecting. including a Euro import that wasn't released in North America, but now only have a couple remaining that I held onto for old times sake.

It was a great concept on Sony's part, but the battery life of the PSP (all three UMD drive models) simply couldn't make it even for ninety minutes of continuous playback on a full charge. To avoid the limited battery life on the PSP when watching a movie, the ideal way to watch a movie was to dock the PSP in a charging dock station with power amplified speakers. But let's be honest, odds are you weren't going to lug around a charging dock plus the PSPs charger brick with you when you're out somewhere, so it kinda defeated the purpose.

Even so, that battery life issue aside, it was a format that got quite a lot of releases during it's lifetime with the period of time that it got video release support extremely varied across the different global release regions. Very much worth noting the UMD video releases were almost entirely region free despite all of them being marked on their packaging as region specific. Sony knew it was pointless to place the region lock coding on the UMD videos as all it would take for a consumer to defeat the region lock was going into the PSP's system settings and changing the country setting to that of a country within the Sony Region marked on the UMD case. As such, there are only a very few games and video UMDs that got released early in the PSP system life that actually have region coding on them.

Author:  forper [ 31 Jan 2020, 09:17 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

tweeg wrote:

It was a great concept on Sony's part, but the battery life of the PSP (all three UMD drive models) simply couldn't make it even for ninety minutes of continuous playback on a full charge.


That's a whole lotta suck.

I had a PSP I got for free for signing up to internet in Japan. I hacked it and had like 25 games on the drive. but never did any UMD movies, glad I never bothered. I still kinda want a Sony portable DVD player with seperate wired LCD screen

Author:  xtempo [ 31 Jan 2020, 13:26 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

forper wrote:
tweeg wrote:

It was a great concept on Sony's part, but the battery life of the PSP (all three UMD drive models) simply couldn't make it even for ninety minutes of continuous playback on a full charge.


That's a whole lotta suck.

I had a PSP I got for free for signing up to internet in Japan. I hacked it and had like 25 games on the drive. but never did any UMD movies, glad I never bothered. I still kinda want a Sony portable DVD player with seperate wired LCD screen

How did you get games on the system storage without the memory stick?

Author:  deadlegion [ 31 Jan 2020, 14:45 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

There's no need to use a Sony memory card on those consoles, well except the Go model anyway (it uses M2 iirc but I'm not sure).
Single and dual micro SD adapters have been available for years now. Largest combo I have atm is 2x 16GB (so 32GB total) but I know people have run larger than that.

Author:  signofzeta [ 31 Jan 2020, 21:24 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

tweeg wrote:
muzer wrote:
Is it possible for an "I don't collect them but I feel they should still be added" option? :D

I feel the same way, owned a couple dozen at the height of my PSP collecting. including a Euro import that wasn't released in North America, but now only have a couple remaining that I held onto for old times sake.

It was a great concept on Sony's part, but the battery life of the PSP (all three UMD drive models) simply couldn't make it even for ninety minutes of continuous playback on a full charge. To avoid the limited battery life on the PSP when watching a movie, the ideal way to watch a movie was to dock the PSP in a charging dock station with power amplified speakers. But let's be honest, odds are you weren't going to lug around a charging dock plus the PSPs charger brick with you when you're out somewhere, so it kinda defeated the purpose.

Even so, that battery life issue aside, it was a format that got quite a lot of releases during it's lifetime with the period of time that it got video release support extremely varied across the different global release regions. Very much worth noting the UMD video releases were almost entirely region free despite all of them being marked on their packaging as region specific. Sony knew it was pointless to place the region lock coding on the UMD videos as all it would take for a consumer to defeat the region lock was going into the PSP's system settings and changing the country setting to that of a country within the Sony Region marked on the UMD case. As such, there are only a very few games and video UMDs that got released early in the PSP system life that actually have region coding on them.


It’s been a while but the only JP UMD I have is one that came with a Macross game. It is most definitely will not play in my US machine and I wouldn’t really describe it as an early title.

Are you sure about changing the region in the settings? Is it limited like it is with DVD drives? I ask because I seem to remember every game being region-free but movies being region locked to the drive itself and there being no hack for it. I was able to extract images with a JP PSP and then play the ISO on my US system but I couldn’t rip them with the US system because it didn’t want to mount the disc at all.

It’s been a while so my memory is hazy...this is a blue “Madden” 2000 series, btw. The game is the LE of Macross Ultimate Frontier.

Author:  makmak16 [ 05 Feb 2020, 19:25 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

About a year ago I went looking for a complete list of UMDs. I found one which had, I think, all releases worldwide. For the life of me I can't find the list now. I think there was somewhere between 1,200-2,000 UMD Videos.

This guy has 970 English language releases.


I personally have around 100. I know you can get a composite or component output for the 2000 and 3000 series PSPs as that is what I use to watch mine. My friend has several docks as well as one that you would install in a car with a screen that mounts on the headrest. All aftermarket I believe.

Now correct me if I'm wrong as I've never done this before, but I think you can also wirelessly connect a PSP to a PS3 kind of like screen sharing.

Spending ~$100 for a player set up plus $5+ per movie for a format with less than desirable resolution in this day and age doesn't seem so far fetched for this forum or its members.

Author:  signofzeta [ 07 Feb 2020, 21:10 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

I just want to see a complete list to verify that Good Times Season 1 is in fact the most f-ed up UMD release.

Seriously...just think about that. You’ve got the newest gadget from Japan and you want to watch movies on it’s awesome little/huge wide screen and you want...a 30 year old Normal Lear show about super poor people. And yeah there is a DVD but some middle class Monster Hunter fan wants it on UMD? He’ll have to charge his battery 40 times to get through the series. Who the heck is this person?!?

I love Good Times and the PSP, but I find UMD illogical and UMDs of Good Times 10x as weird.

Author:  forper [ 08 Feb 2020, 00:14 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

:lol:

I've got some sitcom stuff on Laserdisc and that seems kinda wrong also in a way..

Author:  admin [ 11 Mar 2020, 11:41 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

All right... after 2 months, we really only got 12 people to express direct interest for the format.

Clearly not any significant traction to spend a lot of time expanding the formats.

We can keep the Forum Section (Universal Media Disc) for discussions but the ratio of work needed vs. the interested user base just doesn't make a compelling case.

I'll close the votes.

Julien

Author:  deadlegion [ 11 Mar 2020, 12:53 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

I can't remember voting tbh :lol:

Yes please, I collect these. - nope I don't actively collect them, but I could say this about plenty of things I pick up on a whim.

I have a few but I don't really see the point. - yes I do have some, but I do see a point in adding titles. I've seen more UMD movies irl than CED or even VHD.

Author:  rein-o [ 11 Mar 2020, 14:35 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

admin wrote:
All right... after 2 months, we really only got 12 people to express direct interest for the format.

Clearly not any significant traction to spend a lot of time expanding the formats.

We can keep the Forum Section (Universal Media Disc) for discussions but the ratio of work needed vs. the interested user base just doesn't make a compelling case.

I'll close the votes.

Julien


Good

Author:  tweeg [ 30 Jun 2020, 04:38 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

signofzeta wrote:
tweeg wrote:
muzer wrote:
Is it possible for an "I don't collect them but I feel they should still be added" option? :D

I feel the same way, owned a couple dozen at the height of my PSP collecting. including a Euro import that wasn't released in North America, but now only have a couple remaining that I held onto for old times sake.

It was a great concept on Sony's part, but the battery life of the PSP (all three UMD drive models) simply couldn't make it even for ninety minutes of continuous playback on a full charge. To avoid the limited battery life on the PSP when watching a movie, the ideal way to watch a movie was to dock the PSP in a charging dock station with power amplified speakers. But let's be honest, odds are you weren't going to lug around a charging dock plus the PSPs charger brick with you when you're out somewhere, so it kinda defeated the purpose.

Even so, that battery life issue aside, it was a format that got quite a lot of releases during it's lifetime with the period of time that it got video release support extremely varied across the different global release regions. Very much worth noting the UMD video releases were almost entirely region free despite all of them being marked on their packaging as region specific. Sony knew it was pointless to place the region lock coding on the UMD videos as all it would take for a consumer to defeat the region lock was going into the PSP's system settings and changing the country setting to that of a country within the Sony Region marked on the UMD case. As such, there are only a very few games and video UMDs that got released early in the PSP system life that actually have region coding on them.


It’s been a while but the only JP UMD I have is one that came with a Macross game. It is most definitely will not play in my US machine and I wouldn’t really describe it as an early title.

Are you sure about changing the region in the settings? Is it limited like it is with DVD drives? I ask because I seem to remember every game being region-free but movies being region locked to the drive itself and there being no hack for it. I was able to extract images with a JP PSP and then play the ISO on my US system but I couldn’t rip them with the US system because it didn’t want to mount the disc at all.

It’s been a while so my memory is hazy...this is a blue “Madden” 2000 series, btw. The game is the LE of Macross Ultimate Frontier.

Interesting, I'm not familiar with that specific title. I own a standard black model 1000, 2000, and 3000 PSP systems and they've all been able to play what few imports I've bought over the years. Can't play UMD's on my 2000 anymore though as the UMD drive lid sensor switch physically broke, I swear the 2000 model was simply cursed with defects. This was my 2nd model 2000, a warranty replacement no less! And one of my friends had the red 'God of War' edition model 2000 and the Wi-Fi chip died on that like a month after it went out of warranty. Gaming forums are loaded with horror stories about the slews of hardware issues the model 2000 experienced.

PSP Model 1000 - 3000 (the UMD models) all use Sony's Memory Stick Pro Duo memory cards, which topped out at 4GB. As already noted by someone else, you can get a after-market 3rd party memory card adapter that will let you use much higher capacity cards, though that may require you to install a "CFW" (Custom Firmware) on the original three system models. The PSP Go, final model with no UMD drive, will natively accept higher capacity card via third party adapter. PSP Will also play MP4 A/V files, provided they're encoded within specifications it can handle decoding. At the system's popularity peak back in the 2005 - 2007 range there were DVD publishers who actually offered free PSP compatible video trailer downloads. Somewhere I still have a couple of those archived that came from Central Park Media's website, as they were one of those publishers offering that.

As far as TV UMD season sets go, only season set I can for certain recall seeing on a store shelf for PSP was 'Family Guy: Season 1'. I remember my local Wal-Mart had that and it was a packaged in a funny little box. Have never encountered it, nor any other UMD season sets, in person since.

Author:  takeshi666 [ 30 Jun 2020, 16:59 ]
Post subject:  Re: Would it be worthwhile to add UMD as a supported format?

signofzeta wrote:
I just want to see a complete list to verify that Good Times Season 1 is in fact the most f-ed up UMD release.

Seriously...just think about that. You’ve got the newest gadget from Japan and you want to watch movies on it’s awesome little/huge wide screen and you want...a 30 year old Normal Lear show about super poor people. And yeah there is a DVD but some middle class Monster Hunter fan wants it on UMD? He’ll have to charge his battery 40 times to get through the series. Who the heck is this person?!?

I love Good Times and the PSP, but I find UMD illogical and UMDs of Good Times 10x as weird.

That sounds delightfully bonkers.

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