Sony Universal Media Disc (UMD)
Universal Media Disc: great idea or another Sony proprietary monster?
Sony is a company that just loves proprietary formats. If it can't make a proprietary format with 100% control of content then it seems Sony isn't interested. Only a company with this kind of industry muscle can get away with it time and again even if it doesn't always work out. It's unclear yet whether UMD is going to benefit from lessons learned from Sony's Beta and SACD experiences, but this could be a little different.
The Universal Media Disc is an optical storage format owned by Sony and so far only used in the Sony Playstation Portable. The discs look like miniature DVD encased in a plastic housing.
- Dimensions: About 65mm wide 4.2mm high. Disc is only 60mm in diameter
- Weight: 10grams
- Capacity: 1.8GB. Single sided, dual layer.
- Encryption: AES 128bit
The primary purpose for the disc is to store games for the PSP. But since the PSP is capable of playing back video on its beautiful TFT LCD display it makes a great portable media player.
Sony bundled a free copy of Spider-Man2 in the first million PSPs sold to kick off the portable gaming machine's ability to playback movies as an alternative to a portable DVD player. The UMD format has already taken off as an alternative to DVD. Poor box office showings and the wild growth of DVD sales starting to slow down, film studios are hungry for a promising source of revenue. They may not get this from the upcoming high density optical storage formats for some time with a format war looming between Blu-Ray and SACD, but they're willing to try UMD. It's a little ironic that Sony, the company that stands in the way of the progress of the next big thing in optical storage with its Blu-Ray, is now cashing in with an interim alternative to DVD.
As of September '05 over 8 million UMD movies have been sold. Successful sales numbers of UMD movies has enticed all the major studios to release their property in the new format. Fox, Universal, Paramount, New Line, HBO and Warner have all joined the game. Once the numbers are counted, UMD video is projected to have generated roughly 250 million in '05 alone. Next year you'll see an even more diversified selection hit UMD, porn. Vivid co-founder Steven Hirsch says he's waiting for Sony to open UMD to less mainstream entertainment.
The real test of the format's popularity will be whether or not any other manufacturer but Sony is interested in licensing UMD for their own devices. So far the UMD only appears in Sony's PSP. Although the product's sales have been a smashing success with over 10 million sold worldwide since its release, the market penetration will have truly made it when you start seeing other media devices include a UMD player. Sony curiously omitted a UMD player from its own PlayStation3 gaming machine but should compensate for this with PS3/PSP communications. Interactivity promised by Sony could include UMD movie playback through their gaming machine.