DVD vs UMD

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:44 am

Last night I saw a TV ad for some movie that stated it would be available on both DVD *and* UMD. This confirmed the stories I've been seeing about how UMDs are selling big, in some cases even outselling the DVDs of the same title.

The news listing over at Home Media Retailing has several articles about movie houses moving to release on UMDs including this one: Why Not More Anime on UMD?

(One blogger's experience with UMDs here.)

It doesn't look like this will affect AMV making for the next several months to a year. It's just something to keep an eye on.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 10:31 am

Well, based on that blog report - the target consumer base for UMD are those that are too dumb to realize they've been ripped off... I forsee large profits.

narcted · Post by **narcted** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:54 pm

Well, for one UMD's are usually sold at retail price right now because of the demand. Meanwhile DVDs are sold for less than retail. Not only that, Samurai Champloo and Gungrave, for example, you only get 2 episodes. For less you can get 4-5 episodes on DVD plus extra content. Also the greater price for anime DVDs than mainstream DVDs and my money will still go for the DVD.

Reminds me of when DVD became avaliable back in the day. Yeah, we all were asking when anime was coming out on DVD. Anime industry also took a wait and see approach on that. Also Pioneer owned all the pressing rights to DVD at the time and only approved limited but mainstream titles.

TaranT · Post by **TaranT** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 2:23 am

Sometimes the UMD is cheaper; depends on the title. At dvdplanet.com, the Ah My Goddess movie on DVD is $22.50 and on UMD it's $14.00.

Qyot27 · Post by **Qyot27** » Wed Oct 05, 2005 4:18 pm

I think the real thing concerning AMV making in regards to UMD is quality and resolution. Has anyone confirmed that the UMD has a 480x272 res or, like one of the comments in one of the linked articles, 720x480 like DVDs? Also, if it is 720x480, is it MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, or AVC?

I mean, up to this point, I've just heard that UMD has a resolution of 480x272 and uses AVC, but since I don't have a PSP or any UMD movies nor do I know anyone that has them I don't know if that info is correct. If it does use AVC, that would mean better quality than DVDs at a comparable resolution and bitrate, but considering a large share of quality-conscious editors put their stuff on DVDs or at least at DVD-res settings, having to upscale from 480x272 to 720x480 is still going to screw over the gains from using AVC, and any better quality remaining from it will probably not be anything to shout over in comparison to what you'd get from DVD. The only advantage that would make it stand out in my mind is if UMD has a native 23.976 framerate or at the very least the anime UMDs are authored correctly with a proper 3:2 pulldown. But considering the companies we're talking about here, I'd say that's really unlikely.

I think next-gen DVDs (whether HD-DVD or BluRay end up winning out) are going to be what makes more of an impact in AMV making than UMD. I really don't think cost is going to play into this in the long run, and as has already been pointed out, standard DVDs tend to hold more content than UMDs.

devilmaykickass · Post by **devilmaykickass** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 8:25 pm

It's just something new and trendy. And dumb.

shirohamada · Post by **shirohamada** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:03 pm

uhh can you rip umd ?

you might as well get the dvd and put it on memory stick

DeinReich · Post by **DeinReich** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:23 pm

TaranT wrote:Sometimes the UMD is cheaper; depends on the title. At dvdplanet.com, the Ah My Goddess movie on DVD is $22.50 and on UMD it's $14.00.

Unfortunatly, this isn't always the case. Some are now comming with game demos (the Stealth UMD comes to mind) to play on the PSP, but the price more than triples, as the Stealth UMD w/ game demos runs upwards of *gasp* $60!

I would not be supprised if there will be stand alone UMD mobile players comming out, if the format continues to sell. I personally think it would be great if the rumored iPod Video could play UMDs as well, but I do think that there will be stand alone UMD mobie players comming.

Kusoyaro · Post by **Kusoyaro** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:50 pm

Do UMDs also have their own proprietary compression? That would certainly complicate things for AMVers.

risk one · Post by **risk one** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:48 pm

Qyot27 wrote:I think the real thing concerning AMV making in regards to UMD is quality and resolution. Has anyone confirmed that the UMD has a 480x272 res or, like one of the comments in one of the linked articles, 720x480 like DVDs? Also, if it is 720x480, is it MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, or AVC?

According to this article http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/umdguide/ but the compression is mpeg4 avc. Since the psp screen is 480x272, I think that's the resolution the umd's are encoded in. On the other hand 1.4 gig DVD rips always look very nice, so I imagine it would be feasible to make a very nice encode on 1.8 gig with DVD resolution if you have the movie master to encode from. Either way mpeg4 is going to be much worse in recompression than mpeg2. They've also added a 128 bit layer of encryption to keep our groping hands of our property, so ripping is going to be a lot of trouble. All in all I don't think it's worth it.

I think next-gen DVDs (whether HD-DVD or BluRay end up winning out) are going to be what makes more of an impact in AMV making than UMD.

That is if the DRM can be worked with. I've been hearing a lot of bad buzz about that. And it depends on the compression they'll use. It could be that the video quality will be better than DVD, but the effects of recompression will show worse. I don't really care about the next generation technology. I can do everything I want with a decent DVD, and I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of consumers feels the same way.