Universal Media Disc

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 thereof.

Information

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. Individuals have found a way to hack the format, which caused the release of pirated ISO images of games in Asia (see Circumvention below).

Specifications

ECMA-365: Data Interchange on 60 mm Read-Only ODC - Capacity: 1.8 GB (UMD™)

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-style region coding has been applied to most UMD movies, although this restriction mechanism is not enabled for game releases.

Region 0: (i.e., no region coding) Worldwide
Region 1: North America
Region 2: UK, Europe, Japan, Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland
Region 3: Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong
Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, South America
Region 5: Russia, Eastern Europe, India, most of Africa, North Korea, Mongolia
Region 6: China

Popular 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.

A large number of adult films have been released on UMD in Japan. Although Sony does not officially approve of such content, the enormous market in Japan for these releases is bolstering the PSP's sales, and Sony has thus refrained from taking action.

Circumvention

Despite Sony's best efforts, the UMD format has been cracked. Using a combination of insecure firmware and reverse engineering, the Sony PSP can now use a variety of homebrew games, and illegal copies of games and movies. 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. The ISO images cannot be burned to UMD discs as UMD writables and burners are not available. The UMD drive won't read CD-Rs or DVD-Rs.

Sony has attempted to halt this type of exploitation by updating the firmware. Version 1.51 of the PSP firmware attempts 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, bypassing the need to update.

As of August 2005, the first batch of pirated UMD ISOs have reportedly been seen in Hong Kong for as little as HK $20 (less than US$3, €2 or £1.50).

Recently, however, Sony has prevented new games from working on an ISO loader. It is said that the firmware versions (2.00/2.01/2.50) each have specific PRXs that these newly released games call for, and former versions (1.00-1.52) do not, which would give an error message of 'FFFFFD3'. Several methods have been used to make 2.00 version games playable on the 1.5 version firmware with moderate success. Recently, an ISO loader for the PSP, Devhook, has managed to successfully emulate the 2.71 firmware, allowing 1.5 users to use the PSP's web browser, and execute games that require 2.71 or under.

For firmware versions 2.01 to 2.60 another exploit can be used to run homebrew but thus far not pirated ISOs. A newly found exploit found in 2.5/2.6 firmwares has helped enable the creation of a 2.5/2.6 working downgrader. The downgrader returns the PSP to firmware 1.5.

Criticism

Although the UMD discs offer large capacity and the capability to store quality audio/video content, the format's proprietary nature and the unavailability of writers and blank media have spawned criticisms, especially of Sony's use of the word 'Universal' in the format name. Comparisons to the MiniDisc format, which Sony also designed, have brought forth further criticisms, for instance that the sliding shield which prevents direct disc contact on MDs is absent from all UMDs released to date, although it is an option according to the ECMA specification.

For security reasons, and to protect DVD sales, Sony originally had no plans to support UMD playback on normal televisions.

This feature has little bearing on game sales but may have affected the sale of UMD format movies. To allow the PSP to output to a TV set, it requires either:

a third-party modification removing the faceplate of the PSP among other hardware modifications that most PSP owners would be wary of performing, or
a rather expensive, blocky device which clips on to the PSP.

In addition, the smaller capacity of the UMD discs neccesitates that bonus content from DVD releases is generally removed entirely, or in large part before the movie is converted for PSP playback, again, making 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 UMD pricing has largely fallen into line. Due to the slow sales of UMD movies, some retailers, such as Tower Records, began offering attractive 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 are cutting back releases for the PSP, citing very disappointing sales of about 50,000 per title.

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. Other studios have reportedly reduced their commitment to the format as well. In light of these events, Sony is considering plans for improved PSP-to-TV connectivity.

In May 2006, Nyko released a PSP-to-TV adapter that uses patented technology to allow the same picture quality shown on the PSP to be viewed on a regular TV as well, as long as it has RCA input. The adapter also charges the users PSP while plugged in to the television set, and allows for stereo sound. It is one (if not the first) non-mod PSP-to-TV adapters that is sold in retail outlets (Circuit City and GameStop for now, although other stores will probably be added to the list of places that carry the adapter soon). It has yet to be seen if Nyko's product will help the poor UMD movie sales.

In Summer 2006, Target began pulling UMD's from shelves and replacing them with a section of Independent Movies selected by the Independent Film Channel. While not yet effective at all stores, response from various employees of the corporation say that the UMD's will be shipped back to distribution centers to fulfill online orders through the Target website. It is not certain whether the chain will carry UMD's again, though it appears for the forseeable future that Target will no longer carry the UMD Movie format. PSP Games on UMD discs will be unaffected by this change, however, and will still be carried by all Target stores.

References

External links

The Digital Bits Guide to UMD Movies including a list of movies available on UMD
UMD Talk contains UMD articles, news & resources.
Sony PSP Movie Sales Strong Article on the (shortlived) early success of movie sales on UMD from MP3 Newswire
Breaking news: Sony's UMDs aren't selling well News story about the disappointing UMD sales.
PSP Losing Movies

Audio storage | Video storage

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