Awesome video man. I love UMD movies. I started collecting them about a year ago or so. I finally got some of the ones I’ve been wanting for a long time such as : Daft punk interstella 5555, Evil dead 1 & 2, Halloween, Inglorious basterds, and Ghost in the shell. I even bought a Japanese PSP just to play all of the other region locked movies haha.
I avoided UMD and many other Sony anti-consumer proprietary formats when they were mainstream but recently started collecting PSP's, GO's, Vita's, Minidisc's now that they are all broken and unlocked. Back in the day UMD movies being as expensive or more than DVD's while only playable on Sony PSP's was a deal killer.
@Billy William there do exist 3.5 inch IDE and SATA UMD drives. Sony had also made an at home UMD player prototype that Sony showcased when the PSP was announced, sort of like a portable DVD player, but it wasn’t released.
In the early 2000s sony announced they were entering the handheld console market with a system that could provide home console quality games on the go, using an optical drive as opposed to cartridges. Nintendo said that it wouldn't be possible. So not to be outdone sony doubled down and actually built it, making this weird ass format that accommodates games, music and movies. For that I do love it, purely just as a big F-you to Nintendo. I also love these because these would have _only_ existed in the early 2000s and no other time: too late to be completely novel and groundbreaking but too early to be completely destroyed by streaming services.
Yeah, I feel the same about minidiscs (although they didn't fail as such they weren't as huge as they should've been). I used to record my mate's gigs on a minidisc recorder and it's still the best quality live recording I've ever done!
In this case, the main flaw was the price. Portable DVD players already existed, and while customers are willing to accept a somewhat compromised experience for a handheld device, charging the same as a proper DVD with no other benefit was a deal breaker.
It's a shame that so much thought and time was put into the system games and movies. So many put down a lot of money for these movies and games and there's nothing to play them on any longer. Sony should make a small player so fans can once again bring them to life.
More then half of the movies on the catalog you showed were never released. Also why would you compare it to a box set and not a regular dvd case. Next to a box set , yes it’s going to look way smaller.
They did not so much fail bit definitely did not succeed. UMDs could have really made it if they came out around 1997/98 with VHS resolution at a VHS or even at DVD price.m along with various dedicated players, But like the CEDs. Only a small dedicated fan base stuck around for it.
Awesome video man. I love UMD movies. I started collecting them about a year ago or so. I finally got some of the ones I’ve been wanting for a long time such as : Daft punk interstella 5555, Evil dead 1 & 2, Halloween, Inglorious basterds, and Ghost in the shell. I even bought a Japanese PSP just to play all of the other region locked movies haha.
Cool! Yes it's a lot of fun hunting down some of the weird and wonderful UMDs out there!
Thank you for this beautiful trip to history!
Great video. Interesting subject, with some great points. A strange concept, really when analysed.
I avoided UMD and many other Sony anti-consumer proprietary formats when they were mainstream but recently started collecting PSP's, GO's, Vita's, Minidisc's now that they are all broken and unlocked. Back in the day UMD movies being as expensive or more than DVD's while only playable on Sony PSP's was a deal killer.
@Billy William there do exist 3.5 inch IDE and SATA UMD drives. Sony had also made an at home UMD player prototype that Sony showcased when the PSP was announced, sort of like a portable DVD player, but it wasn’t released.
In the early 2000s sony announced they were entering the handheld console market with a system that could provide home console quality games on the go, using an optical drive as opposed to cartridges. Nintendo said that it wouldn't be possible. So not to be outdone sony doubled down and actually built it, making this weird ass format that accommodates games, music and movies. For that I do love it, purely just as a big F-you to Nintendo.
I also love these because these would have _only_ existed in the early 2000s and no other time: too late to be completely novel and groundbreaking but too early to be completely destroyed by streaming services.
And then the PSP stuck around until 2014/15. Truly one of the best handheld consoles of all time.
why do they always fail with beautiful products
Yeah, I feel the same about minidiscs (although they didn't fail as such they weren't as huge as they should've been). I used to record my mate's gigs on a minidisc recorder and it's still the best quality live recording I've ever done!
@@TimLeeSongs im getting the mini disc off Ebay .. I so much love them
In this case, the main flaw was the price. Portable DVD players already existed, and while customers are willing to accept a somewhat compromised experience for a handheld device, charging the same as a proper DVD with no other benefit was a deal breaker.
It's a shame that so much thought and time was put into the system games and movies. So many put down a lot of money for these movies and games and there's nothing to play them on any longer. Sony should make a small player so fans can once again bring them to life.
The UMD just a minidisc inside of proprietary casing?
Oo, I'm not sure to be honest, although it would make sense with them both being developed by Sony I guess?
@@TimLeeSongs For what I remember it's a dvd tech in MiniDisc's disc format.
The casing is different to not put MD in UMD and the other way around.
More then half of the movies on the catalog you showed were never released. Also why would you compare it to a box set and not a regular dvd case. Next to a box set , yes it’s going to look way smaller.
Ha, it was just what I had to hand. Didn’t realise half of these weren’t released, how weird. Thanks for watching.
They did not so much fail bit definitely did not succeed. UMDs could have really made it if they came out around 1997/98 with VHS resolution at a VHS or even at DVD price.m along with various dedicated players,
But like the CEDs. Only a small dedicated fan base stuck around for it.