Tag archive: UMD

As reported by Kotaku earlier today, Sony is ditching plans to allow new Vita owners to download PSP titles that they currently own on UMD disc. Sony rolled out this program in Japan at launch during December 2011 and all Japanese owners can register their UMD titles on the Vita by paying a fee based on the value of the game, thus Japanese owners can avoid having to repurchase the titles at full cost on the PlayStation Vita digital download… Read More

Last month, we reported on Sony's somewhat vague plan for handling UMD-based games with the PlayStation Vita, which doesn't support the primary media format used by its predecessor, the PlayStation Portable. Today, Sony offered up some concrete details about the company's plan to handle PSP owners' transition to Vita's UMD-less world — and we suspect it's going to disappoint more than a few PSP… Read More

When Sony first launched its PSP gaming system in late 2004, its Universal Media Discs were expected to be the wave of the future, with both game developers and Hollywood studios on board to release titles on the disc-based format. Sadly, it didn't take long for Hollywood to jump ship, leaving the PSP to fly solo in the world of UMDs. Given the impending launch of the PS Vita, which will play games in either a cartridge or downloadable… Read More

According to a recent statement from Sony, battery life for the new PlayStation Vita will range between three to five hours when playing games.  Using the device for only video playback offers up to five hours and listening to music in standby mode offers up to nine hours of playback. In addition, these tests were performed at the default screen brightness without Bluetooth enabled. It also doesn't account for 3G or Wi-Fi use for online… Read More

Sony's got some breathing room now that its PlayStation Vita is only releasing in Japan this year, with US and Europe releases to follow in early 2012. The company seems to be using that time well too, going straight to the fans to get a consensus on what the hoped-for peripherals are. Feedback is being collected on the Japanese PlayStation Vita community site (via Andriasang), which currently has 556 responses and counting. Even if you… Read More

Next week at E3 we will finally learn (most likely) whether or not Sony's upcoming handheld gaming device, codenamed NGP is called “PS Vita,” as recent rumors have suggested, or something else entirely. All sorts of pre-E3 preview reports are coming out now about various games for the upcoming portable, but one fact about the device itself has emerged that ought to make longtime Sony product supporters happy. It has now been… Read More

One year after being launched in the United States with the Playstation Portable, Sony's Universal Media Disk (UMD) is in jeopardy as studios back away from releasing UMD movie titles and mainstream retailers lose interest in stocking UMD movies. Universal Media Disks are a proprietary technology from Sony capable of storing up to 1.8 GB of data in a form factor similar to Sony's MiniDisc. UMD is the defacto storage medium for… Read More

“As a movie player the Sony takes it all a notch above the standard set by the excellent PMPs produced by Archos. Widescreen and superior resolution via UMD are just two major points. I don't knowhow good video quality can get via the Pro Duo card for those who trade movies, but it is pretty obvious that the quality of the source file may not match what Sony Entertainment is throwing on UMD. Finally, the UMD format that Sony offers… Read More

“The UMD optical disc format used by Sony for the PSP handheld has been successfully cracked, though extracting information seems of little importance given blank UMD media and UMD writable drivees are not currently available. As to those hoping to play PSP games on your desktops through possible emulation, that seems trivial at best, considering most PSP games are simply ported versions of existing console titles. Also of note, UMD… Read More