 |
|
 FEATURE: "The Top Five Things..."
|
|
|
The UMD format is still in it's early stage of development. So far, it's proven that it can handle what a DVD can do...we've seen some UMDs with three commentaries, and some with two commentaries and more featurettes. We've seen
UMDs with special menus that utilize the PSP hardware, such as the smooth menus of The Rundown, the awesome intricacy of The Butterfly Effect and the just plain spectacular menus of Freddy vs. Jason. Ah, but that's just the tip of the iceberg folks. That's not even close to what the UMD format can do, and it's only a matter of time before studios begin to utilize the format better and give us more stuff that embraces the PSP. Here are some things that we would like to see on UMD Video sometime in the future; some things ported from DVD, others exclusive to UMD.  Such a no-brainer...so why do no UMDs currently have any? Let's face it: no one reads the developer's notes on a DVD. That's a special feature that dives into the making of the movie, some inside facts, etc. It's one thing to read them in a magazine article or on the internet, but to sit in front of your TV and scroll through 20 or so pages of text doesn't sound very inspiring. But place that exact same feature on a UMD, and you've got an article that's convenient to read anywhere you want to. It's a simple addition that will hopefully make it's way to UMDs at some point.  Very few UMD's utilize this feature...why? "Dolby Headphone is a new and powerful digital signal processing (DSP) algorithm that simulates the acoustic soundscape of a 5.1-channel home theater surround sound loudspeaker system through the use of an ordinary pair of stereo headphones. With Dolby Headphone, any multi-channel audio source can be converted into a special 2-channel Dolby Headphone soundtrack. The trick is that the two-channel Dolby Headphone soundtrack contains audio signals that have been manipulated to include sonic spatial cues and ambient information that trick our ears into believing that we're listening to a real multi-channel home theater loudspeaker system. The best analogy is that it's like watching a 3-D movie. The Dolby Headphone soundtrack is analogous to the 3-D encoded image and the special 3-D glasses that trick our eyes into believing that we're seeing a three-dimensional picture." -from timefordvd.com The fact is, very few DVDs have headphone tracks. Some that come to mind are Pearl Harbor, the T2 Extreme DVD...and...uh...well, the simple fact is very few DVDs are played back through headphones by the consumer to warrant more DH enabled DVDs. But UMDs...I'm willing to bet that nearly all UMD watchers use headphones. So why do very few companies mix DH tracks for UMDs? So far Lion's Gate gets the picture and has produced the majority of their UMDs with an optional headphone track (such as T2 and Total Recall). Heck, even one UMD had Dolby Digital Surround (Gone in 60 Seconds). Hopefully studios will get a better grasp at the audio side of UMDs and provide a good selection of options for the user instead of the 2.1 tracks we get now.  We're not just talking firmware updates... Wouldn't it be cool to have some downloadable content on a UMD? Some PSP wallpaper, or maybe a trailer to download on your memory stick so it would be accessible without the UMD, or even a music track or two. In fact, studio's wouldn't need to do too much to get some exclusive PSP content, since most of it is on the UMD already...just insert the movie and access it through the PSP menu to see a PSP UMD wallpaper in the background. And speaking of downloading music tracks...  How cool would this be? Many special edition DVDs these days come with an extra disc containing the movie's soundtrack, such as The Terminal and The Shawshank Redemption. But what if studios started to put the entire soundtrack on a UMD, so that you could access it through the PSP menu? Think about that for a second. The music would be exclusive to the UMD, and piracy would be virtually impossible without manually recording every single track. Music studios would love it since the music is only accessible when you have the UMD, and can only play through the PSP...so that you would purchase the soundtrack if you like it enough to listen to it in your car, on your MP3 player, etc. Movie studios would love to advertise the movie and soundtrack, all on one UMD. And the fact is, a full 70+ minute soundtrack would compress to lower than 40MB through ATRAC compression, which would easily fit on the 1.8 GB UMD. Essentially you would be getting the soundtrack for free, as an ultimate bonus feature. The legalities would need to be sorted out however, as studios would likely have to put only a couple of tracks on a UMD instead of the whole soundtrack. But still, it would be pretty awesome, no?  The future of UMDs? Hybrid UMDs would contain both a movie and a game demo, or even some interactive games exclusive to the movie. Improbable you say? Not when you consider that studios already do this for DVDs, such as some flash games located on the DVD-ROM section of the disc. Sony is taking one step forward (and one step back) with the November release of Stealth. That is a step forward for UMD technology as the disc will not only contain the Stealth movie, but a mini feature of Wipeout Pure that is fully playable and not really a demo, as it contains three modes and one track exclusive to the UMD (as well as one ship). The step backward is the price of $40...the same price as a regular PSP game. So it's not really a bonus at all, as you will be paying for it...and that's unfortunate. Porno UMDs in Japan already have simple minigames on them...it's only a matter of time before studios do the same. It's unfortunate that Sony has chose to charge an outrageous amount for a PSP/Game hybrid disc (should have been $20-30) but it is an important milestone in UMD movies. How cool would it be to watch King Kong on UMD in the future and jump right into the demo of the PSP game, then download some Kong wallpaper and listen to the soundtrack later on, all on the same UMD? If the format succeeds this Christmas, expect an incredible advance in UMD features. Only time will tell. 
|