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INFORMATION In an effort to combat piracy and maintain exclusive control, the UMD format is proprietary and blank media or media writers are not 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™) ( PDF )
Regions DVD -style region coding has been applied to most UMD movies, although this restriction mechanism is not enabled for game releases.
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 encoded in MPEG-4 format for playback on the PSP. The BBC began releasing a number of its TV titles on UMD in the UK , including '' The Office '' and '' Little Britain ''. A large number of Adult Film s 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 company's lower-than-expected PSP 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 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. For firmware versions 2.01 to 2.60 another exploit can be used to run homebrew but thus far not pirated ISOs. Unlike version 2.0, versions 2.01 to the current 2.70 cannot be downgraded to earlier exploitable versions. 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 criticisims, 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 UMDs. It is also curious that Sony chose to release 1 Gb "HI-MD" format discs and compatible players less than a year before the PSPs debut. A complete transition to the 1.8 Gb UMD discs combined with the availability of blank discs and UMD compatible MD players would have made more sense. UMDs cannot be viewed on television sets, either through a "set top" player or via an output cable from the PSP, a feature that has little bearing on game sales but may have affected the sale of UMD format movies. A third-party modification can allow the PSP to output to a TV set, but it requires removing the faceplate of the PSP among other hardware modifications that most PSP owners would be wary of performing. 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. EXTERNAL LINKS
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