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Information about Universal Media Disc

UMD (Universal Media Disc)

A UMD
Media type:Optical disc
Capacity:900 MB (single layer), 1.8 GB (dual layer)
Developed by:Sony
Usage:Games, movies, music
Optical disc authoring
Optical media types
Standards
Enlarge picture
The front and rear view of a UMD
The Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on the PlayStation Portable. It can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of data, which can include games, movies, music, or a combination of these. It is considered the first optical disc format to be used for a handheld video game system.

Overview

Specifications

ECMA-365: Data Interchange on 60 mm Read-Only ODC – Capacity: 1.8 GB (UMD™)[1]
  • Dimensions: approx. 65 mm (W) × 64 mm (D) × 4.2 mm (H)
  • Maximum capacity: 1.80 GB (dual layer), 900 MB (single-layer)
  • Laser wavelength: 660 nm (red laser)
  • Encryption: AES 128-bit

Regions

DVD region coding has been applied to most UMD movies, although this restriction mechanism is not required for game releases, developers do have the ability to encode games, although very few do.
  • Region 0: Worldwide (in-flight-movies, cinemas, ferries, etc.)
  • Region 1: United States, Canada
  • Region 2: European Union, Japan, Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland
  • Region 3: Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore
  • Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Mexico, South America
  • Region 5: Russia, Eastern Europe, Pakistan, India, the majority of Africa, North Korea, Mongolia
  • Region 6: Mainland China

Digital Rights Management

In an effort to combat piracy and maintain exclusive control, the UMD Disk format is proprietary, and neither blank media nor media writers are available to the public.

Applications

The primary application for UMD discs is as a storage medium for PSP games, although the format is also being used for the storage of motion pictures, and to a lesser degree, television shows for playback on the PSP. The video is encoded in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, with the audio in ATRAC3plus.

The BBC began releasing a number of its TV titles on UMD in the UK, including The Office, Doctor Who and Little Britain.

Some adult films have been released on UMD in Japan.[2] Sony does not officially approve of such content, however, the enormous market in Japan for these releases is supporting the PSP's sales. Sony has thus refrained from taking action.

Circumvention

Despite Sony's efforts, the UMD format has been cracked. Using a combination of unsecure firmware and reverse engineering, the Sony PSP can now use a variety of homebrew games, and backup ISO images. Each disc uses a file system whose format follows the ISO 9660 standard. The ISO image can then be stored on a Memory Stick, and run via a special disc emulator program, such as Devhook. The ISO images cannot be burned to UMD discs as UMD writables and burners are not available. The same game will load much faster when stored as an ISO image on a Memory Stick when compared against the original UMD.

Sony has attempted to halt this type of exploitation by updating the firmware. Versions 1.51 and later of the PSP firmware have attempted to patch the exploit. Recent games also come with a 'software switch' that force users to update before the game can be played. This has also been circumvented: some applications for 1.50 report the firmware version as being more recent than it actually is, or firmware spoofing, bypassing the need to update. This has since been fixed by Sony and no longer works. Firmware versions 1.5 to 3.71 have been decrypted and 1.50, 2.71, 3.02, 3.03, 3.10, 3.30, 3.40, 3.51, 3.52, 3.60 and 3.71 have been converted into custom firmwares. These firmwares allow people to run ISOs that they own from their XMB interface in addition to other homebrew available.

Criticism

Although the UMD discs offer large capacity and the capability to store quality audio/video content, the format's proprietary nature and the lack of writers and blank media have spawned criticisms. Comparisons to Sony's MiniDisc format have brought forth further criticisms; for instance, the sliding shield which prevents direct disc contact on MiniDiscs is absent from all UMDs released to date, though it is an option according to the ECMA specification.[1]

For security reasons, and to protect DVD sales, Sony had no plans to support UMD playback on normal televisions.[3] This feature has now been added to the newer PSP-2000 model series, which can output at a resolution of 480p using proprietary component cables (sold separately) which should increase the sales of UMD format movies. The PSP-1000 series cannot output to a TV set without either a third-party modification that requires the removal of the faceplate among other hardware modifications, or a device such as the Nyko PSP-to-TV adapter that uses a CCD camera to display the PSP screen on a TV using RCA connectors. It has yet to be seen if such products will help poor UMD movie sales.

The smaller capacity of the UMD discs necessitates that bonus content from DVD releases be removed in large part or entirely before the movie is released on UMD for PSP playback. This has made the UMD movie releases a difficult sell in the face of affordable portable DVD players that can output to TV sets and can play the full-featured DVD releases. UMD movie pricing was also originally higher than DVD pricing, although UMDs have largely fallen to a more reasonable price. Due to the slow sales of UMD movies, some retailers, such as Tower Records, began offering incentives on UMD purchases, such as “buy one, get one free” deals.

In February 2006, Paramount Home Entertainment, Warner Home Video, and even Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced that they were cutting back releases for the PSP, citing disappointing sales of about 50,000 per title.[4] In March 2006, Reuters reported that Wal-Mart was considering abandoning sales of the format, and that Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Image Entertainment had ceased production.[5][6] Other studios have reportedly terminated their production to the format as well.

In mid-2006, Target began pulling UMDs from shelves and replacing them with a section of independent movies selected by the Independent Film Channel.[7] While not yet effective at all stores, the response from the corporation was that the UMDs will be shipped back to distribution centers to fulfill online orders through the Target website.[8] PSP games on UMD discs will be unaffected by this change and will still be carried by all Target stores.

In September 2006, a lower pricing on 22 movies led to a tenfold increase of sales in Japan, suggesting one of the main causes of slow sales was the high price tag.[9]

References

1. ^ Ecma International (June 2005). Data Interchange on 60 mm Read-Only ODC—Capacity: 1,8 Gbytes (UMD™) (PDF).
2. ^ PSP procures porn in Japan. GameSpot.com (June 2, 2005). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
3. ^ Taylor, Jim; Johnson, Mark R.; Crawford, Charles G. [2006]. DVD Demystified, third edition, McGraw-Hill: New York, 9:71. 
4. ^ Michael Kwan (February 17, 2006). Sony PSP UMD movie sales not so hot. mobilemag.com. Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
5. ^ Thomas K. Arnold (March 30, 2006). Sony's Universal Media Disc facing last rites. Reuters. Retrieved on 2007-07-20. (Archive)
6. ^ UMD about to be ditched by Wal-Mart?. Engadget (March 30, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
7. ^ Target Rep Confirms: UMDs "Discontinued" Nationwide. GamePro.com (July 19, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
8. ^ Target shifts UMD space to DVD. Video Business (July 20, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.
9. ^ UMD price drop leads to sales jump in Japan. Engadget (September 7, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-07-20.

External links

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megabyte or Mbyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to either 106 (1,000,000) bytes or 220 (1,048,576) bytes, depending on context. In rare cases, it is used to mean 1000×1024 (1,024,000) bytes.
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gigabyte or Gbyte (derived from the SI prefix giga-) is a unit of information or computer storage meaning either 1000³ bytes or 1024³ bytes (1000³ = one billion). The usage of the word "gigabyte" is ambiguous, depending on the context.
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video game is a game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a video device.

The word video in video game traditionally refers to a raster display device.
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Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects.
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optical disc authoring, including DVD authoring, known often as burning, is the process of recording source material—video, audio or other data—onto an optical disc (compact disc or DVD).
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optical disc is a flat, circular, usually polycarbonate disc where data is stored in the form of pits (or bumps) within a flat surface, usually along a single spiral groove that covers the entire recorded surface of the disc.
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Disc At Once, Track At Once, Session at Once (i.e. multiple burning sessions for one disc), or packet writing modes. Each mode serves different purposes:
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Disc-At-Once, Track-At-Once, and Session-At-Once.

CD Disc-At-Once

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Laserdisc

Laserdisc (left) compared to a DVD (right).
Media type: Optical disc
Encoding: Various
Developed by: MCA
Usage: Video storage

Optical disc authoring
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Compact Disc

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Media type: Optical disc
Encoding: Various
Capacity: Typically up to 700 MB
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CD-ROM (an abbreviation of "Compact Disc read-only media") is a Compact Disc that contains data accessible by a computer. While the Compact Disc format was originally designed for music storage and playback, the format was later adapted to hold any form of binary data.
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MiniDisc

The Sony MZ1 MiniDisc player, the first to hit the market in 1992.
Media type: Magneto-optical disc
Encoding: ATRAC, linear PCM (with Hi-MD)
Capacity: 80 min (standard MiniDisc), up to 45 hours of audio (1 GB capacity) (with Hi-MD)
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DVD

Media type: Optical disc
Capacity: 4.7 GB (single layer), 8.5 GB (dual layer)
Usage: Data storage, audio, video, games

Optical disc authoring
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  • Recorder hardware
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DVD+RW DL is a rewritable optical disc with storage capacity of 8.5 GB. DVD+RW DL discs employ two rewritable dye layers.

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