Lack of AV out the reason UMD failed

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tazzydnc

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#1 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts
I have a PSP and a video ipod.  I love them both.  PSP is such a great portable with games I never dreamed of playing on a portable (like GTA and burnout).  I have a 2gig stick which I use for game saves, demos, and to store a movie or two.  The ipod is great for TV shows but no way I'm watching a whole feature length film on that tiny screen.
I'm not saying UMD sucks or anything but personally there's no way I'd buy one when I can rip my dvds and put them on PSP/ipod.  Again, why buy a disc that I can only watch on my PSP?  I can buy the same stuff on DVD allowing me to watch it on my PSP, ipod, computer, and tv.  One feature I love about ipod is the AV out.  With a simple chord that can be purchased for $5 I can watch any content on my ipod on any TV - and the best part is it looks great.  
Why in in the heck did sony NOT include an AV out on the PSP?  It would have helped their propritary UMD format sooo much.  Rather than buy a DVD of a film in many cases I would have bought the UMD version as I would then be able to watch it on TV in still very good quality and on a portable player.  Sure it would never make it on my comp but no big deal.  TV is better anyways and the PSP's screen dwarfs the ipod.
AV out on psp would have completely turned around UMD sales on PSP.  That said what if sony released a device like PSP that played UMDs and had AV out & mem stick slot but lacked it's other capabilities? such a device would cost very little I imagine (75 bucks maybe)?  And would be the equivelent to a portable DVD player in many ways while also letting you watch UMDs on the big screen.
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RurouniSaiyajin

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#2 RurouniSaiyajin
Member since 2007 • 4951 Posts
I thought you could watch stuff on your PSP on your TV? They do it at Gaming events all the time. I think God of War: Chains of Olympus was showed off on a HDTV at Gamer's Day.
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tazzydnc

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#3 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts
I thought you could watch stuff on your PSP on your TV? They do it at Gaming events all the time. I think God of War: Chains of Olympus was showed off on a HDTV at Gamer's Day. RurouniSaiyajin

yea it's possible.  You can buy an accesory but its HUGE, is hard to get on and off, costs a fair amount and the quality sucks.  A much better one came out that is way smaller with much better quality but its like 150 bucks.
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SuperBeast

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#4 SuperBeast
Member since 2002 • 13229 Posts
There are a few products out there that allow TV output.....Off the top of my head I know of PSP2TV and Blaze PSP. If I remember correcty the PSP2TV device costs around $100 and the Blaze device is about $50.   Overall it doesn't matter, the UMD format is already dead and Sony knows it.  They would much rather see people buying their PS3/Blue-Ray players and movies these days.   
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#5 RurouniSaiyajin
Member since 2007 • 4951 Posts

yea it's possible.  You can buy an accesory but its HUGE, is hard to get on and off, costs a fair amount and the quality sucks.  A much better one came out that is way smaller with much better quality but its like 150 bucks.tazzydnc

I see.

Well, hopefully they consider this in their next handheld or work on getting a cheaper accessory to allow this. It actually would be pretty cool to play the PSP on the TV.

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tazzydnc

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#6 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts

[QUOTE="tazzydnc"]yea it's possible.  You can buy an accesory but its HUGE, is hard to get on and off, costs a fair amount and the quality sucks.  A much better one came out that is way smaller with much better quality but its like 150 bucks.RurouniSaiyajin

I see.

Well, hopefully they consider this in their next handheld or work on getting a cheaper accessory to allow this. It actually would be pretty cool to play the PSP on the TV.


 agreed.  Not just movie watching but game playing.
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B-bad

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#7 B-bad
Member since 2002 • 5705 Posts

I thought you could watch stuff on your PSP on your TV? They do it at Gaming events all the time. I think God of War: Chains of Olympus was showed off on a HDTV at Gamer's Day. RurouniSaiyajin
there are way to view your psp on you tv (with the psp2tv adapter or the other one that fit over the psp) or pc (if you hack it) they are using special dev. unit at the Sony gamer Day event.

 av out wasn't cause umd's of fail, pricing caused it to fail .... along with hacking. Coping/ripping/converting of dvd's isn't legal but most people do it. It's a cool format for movies but at such a high price it just didnt make since to most people when there were other option out there.

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death1505921

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#8 death1505921
Member since 2004 • 5260 Posts
Sony didn't want the piracy.It would make it way easier to rip somthing via AV out, than from a UMD,. How many comps do you know have a UMD drive?
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tazzydnc

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#9 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts

[QUOTE="RurouniSaiyajin"]I thought you could watch stuff on your PSP on your TV? They do it at Gaming events all the time. I think God of War: Chains of Olympus was showed off on a HDTV at Gamer's Day. B-bad

there are way to view your psp on you tv (with the psp2tv adapter or the other one that fit over the psp) or pc (if you hack it) they are using special dev. unit at the Sony gamer Day event.

 av out wasn't cause umd's of fail, pricing caused it to fail .... along with hacking. Coping/ripping/converting of dvd's isn't legal but most people do it. It's a cool format for movies but at such a high price it just didnt make since to most people when there were other option out there.


pricing was probably part of it but I'd be willing to pay much more for something I can also easily watch on my TV.
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tazzydnc

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#10 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts
Sony didn't want the piracy.It would make it way easier to rip somthing via AV out, than from a UMD,. How many comps do you know have a UMD drive? death1505921

I think a dead format is worse than an occasionally pirated one. 
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#11 CyRu5
Member since 2005 • 1092 Posts

[QUOTE="death1505921"]Sony didn't want the piracy.It would make it way easier to rip somthing via AV out, than from a UMD,. How many comps do you know have a UMD drive? tazzydnc

I think a dead format is worse than an occasionally pirated one.

Agreed.

and using a tv-tuner to "rip" via AV-out (it wouldn't be ripping... it would be recording), is a very crude method of piracy. Doing it digitally (ripping) would be MUCH more practical. I really doubt that was ever a cause for concern. the ipod has an AV out, and look how ridiculously drm-infected that is. The Zen Vision M has an AV out. The Zune has an AV out.

 I think AV out would have been a great feature for the PSP to have, and it would be MUCH more appreciated than the useless IR port. (what were they thinking? remember the GBColor's IR port? And how it wasn't in the GBA because of how useless it was?)

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#12 fynne
Member since 2002 • 8078 Posts
UMDs just couldn't compete with DVDs.  It was the same price (or more), had less features and was lower quality.  Plus you could only watch it on the PSP.  With a DVD I could rip it (mostly....kinda...legal...I think) and have the best of both worlds.
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CyRu5

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#13 CyRu5
Member since 2005 • 1092 Posts

UMDs just couldn't compete with DVDs. It was the same price (or more), had less features and was lower quality. Plus you could only watch it on the PSP. With a DVD I could rip it (mostly....kinda...legal...I think) and have the best of both worlds.fynne

I'll agree with you on pricing and features. UMDs really should have been cheaper than dvds, rather than equal or higher. They would have sold much better had they been $10-15 instead of $20-30. Ridiculous. And the complete lack of features? Simply unacceptable. Some UMD's managed to have special features on the disc, which was appreciated. The only one i can think of is Cursed, where the UMD matches the dvd in terms of special features, minus the audio commentary.

 Most UMDs are actually encoded at 720x480, same resolution as dvds. I find this very, very odd cosidering they are designed as a propietary format, playable on only one device which has a screen rez of 480x272, and has no AV output. Hmm. So, technically the back label that lists "DVD quality" as a feature, is correct, however it can be argued that quality shouldn't be counted as a 'feature', and they should just not list 'features' on the packaging when there really are none.

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tazzydnc

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#14 tazzydnc
Member since 2006 • 3874 Posts
yea I agree they should have been cheaper but I could care less about special features - especially for something I can only easily watch on a PSP.
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#15 Splash-Bar
Member since 2007 • 161 Posts

well, there's supposedly a UMD player that connects directly to the TV. http://www.psxextreme.com/scripts/news3/new.asp?NewID=387

But it's not in circulation as far as I've seen. 

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#16 CyRu5
Member since 2005 • 1092 Posts

I think it'd be better if it was a dvd/umd player. It would sort of soften the blow of purchasing a device that plays a (nearly?) dead format. Doesn't Sony make dvd players? I honestly expected them to do this a long time ago. Oh well.

I suppose the PS3 could get a USB UMD drive for watching umd movies. people could then use it to pirate psp games? Well, they could already do that with just their psp's and a big enough memory stick, so i don't think it's too much of a concern. 

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#17 Jorlen
Member since 2007 • 1013 Posts

Yeah. Lack of a video-out is one of my only compaints about this amazing portable console system.

I'd love to hear from Sony why they didn't add this. A couple of reasons I can think of: cost, no room on the psp board maybe?

Oh, and you can have a TV out device without the camera that actually just records the screen (which is ridiculous). It's more of a hardware mod for your PSP - I believe the product is actually called psp2tv and there's a hardware review on IGN about it. You have to dismantle your PSP and it looks complicated, but it basically gives you a sort of TV out port on the case in the end, and you can plug that to an adapter that allows it to connect to a TV. It's risky, kind of tricky to do and the end result is sort of lacking since the components of the unit don't apply any sort of smoothing effect, so the low res on your PSP becomes very obvious when seen on a big screen.