Pandora's Briefcase: UM. D-on't know what to say about this one...

It never ceases to amaze me the efforts that some companies go to develop a new "standard" in recording media, even when there appears to be no interest from other companies to adopt. And there is one company that seems to love jumping in boots'n'all on a regular basis... and failing almost as regularly to set a new standard that others adopt!

And, no, my six-year-olds have not seen this film!

The Universal Media Disc (UMD) is an optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on their PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform. It can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of data and is capable of housing video games, feature-length films, and music. 

The first six movie titles released on UMD came out on April 19 2005. In the beginning, the format had the support of several studios, with 2005 and 2006 seeing many releases by studios not affiliated with Sony Pictures. In 2008, there were 11 UMD movies not distributed by Sony Pictures; by 2010, only two. Because UMD movies are only playable on PSP, and capacity excluded any aditional extras, the format wasn't very competitive against DVDs and later, Sony's own Blu-Ray discs, so Sony retired it.

The last UMD movie release, according to Wikipedia, was The Karate Kid , on June 11, 2010. It was only available as part of the PSP Holiday Pack, a limited-edition system bundle. A list of the video titles released in the year 2005 (347 titles), 2006 (177 titles), 2007 (33 titles), 2008 (53 titles), 2009 (16 titles) and 2010 (2 titles, for a total of 628 titles) can be found here. (UPDATE: It appears that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1&2 were also released on UMD, in 2011!)

(Yes, Lee. I did have a choice in what was to be by single example of this format!)

The UMD, side on. Notice also that they are region-locked using the same regions as DVD.

Speaking of attempting to introduce new standards, you may have noticed a new feature for determining the size of objects in the photos on this site. The use of a Lego Minifig seemed appropriate, as absolutely everyone knows how big they are. Dubbed the "Nude Dude" by my children, it is necessary for him to be unclothed so that precise scale can be determined; a bulky overcoat, for example, would make him look bigger than he actually is.

To learn more about UMD (and see how much I ripped off Wikipedia), see here.

To learn more about Lego Minifigures, see here.