Sony Makes Blu-Ray-To-PSP Movie Transfer Official

[Bond]

LAS VEGAS -- The concept of copying a lower-resolution version of a film from a packaged media disc to a portable device is not new--in fact, late last year, Fox and Warner released the first standard definition titles to offer this capability (on Live Free, Die Hard and Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix, respectively).

Sony today demonstrated the next level of disc copying. At the company's booth at CES, Sony demonstrated how you could put a Blu-ray Disc movie into a Playstation 3 and copy the film to a Playstation Portable or a Memory Stick. "This way, you can have a portable copy you can take with you," explains David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

"There was always the promise of greater interactivity. You'll see that coming in the new year," Bishop added. In addition to the PSP copying example, Sony also demonstrated how you could download ring tones and new content to a BD Live player, using Men in Black as the example.

BD Live is proving to be a big catchphrase at the show: Panasonic announced its BD Live player yesterday, Fox showcased an early version of its Alien vs. Predator multiplayer game at the Blu-ray Disc Association's booth, and Sony showed its interactive Men in Black trivia game. The game was being played by two people in two locations on a Playstation 3.

Source: PC World

It's good to see Sony adding new features to its existing hardware

[Perfect Stu]

My cousin has talked about selling his PSP for cheap...this could be enough for me to pony up, I've got about 8 Blu Ray movies now which would be cool on the go.

[gekko]

Originally Posted by Bond

It's good to see Sony adding new features to its existing hardware

Is it? I don't see this feature on any of Sony's real Blu-Ray players, where the owners are truly investing into the movie format. Instead they put it on their game machine. It's a nice idea, but don't screw over the people who actually invested in your stupid technology. Any Blu-Ray player supporting memory cards should allow this. Not specifically Sony's PS3, Sony's memory sticks, and Sony's PSP. Let's not forget Sony, you developed the Blu-Ray Disc Association so it wouldn't look like you solely control this format. Play nice to the Samsung, Sharp, and Philips players.

I also like how he added "There was always the promised of additional interactivity." Yes, there was, but let's not excuse the fact that you're just now getting BD-Live which is over a year late, and you're still not at profile 2.0, which is equivalent to HD DVD's launch specs. Yes, the promise was always there, but your software wasn't done. Idiot.

[Angrist]

Backwards compatible with older Bluray titles?

And is the PSP battery any better these days? At launch I think you couldn't even watch a 3 hour movie on one battery.

[Dyne]

Originally Posted by Angrist

And is the PSP battery any better these days? At launch I think you couldn't even watch a 3 hour movie on one battery.

Well considering it doesn't even spin a disc to watch a movie, the original batteries could probably watch two three-hour movies.

They've also released a larger capacity for the original PSP and you could probably do about 3 movies.

The PSP slim has about the same battery life as an original with a newer battery.

[thatmariolover]

Originally Posted by Dyne

Well considering it doesn't even spin a disc to watch a movie, the original batteries could probably watch two three-hour movies.

They've also released a larger capacity for the original PSP and you could probably do about 3 movies.

The PSP slim has about the same battery life as an original with a newer battery.

UMD's do spin. I think that was what he meant.

[Angrist]

I meant that I heard the battery life was barely good enough to see 1 movie.
But that was back then, I think I recall something about improvements.

[Perfect Stu]

Originally Posted by gekko

Is it? I don't see this feature on any of Sony's real Blu-Ray players, where the owners are truly investing into the movie format. Instead they put it on their game machine. It's a nice idea, but don't screw over the people who actually invested in your stupid technology. Any Blu-Ray player supporting memory cards should allow this. Not specifically Sony's PS3, Sony's memory sticks, and Sony's PSP. Let's not forget Sony, you developed the Blu-Ray Disc Association so it wouldn't look like you solely control this format. Play nice to the Samsung, Sharp, and Philips players.

I also like how he added "There was always the promised of additional interactivity." Yes, there was, but let's not excuse the fact that you're just now getting BD-Live which is over a year late, and you're still not at profile 2.0, which is equivalent to HD DVD's launch specs. Yes, the promise was always there, but your software wasn't done. Idiot.

impressive

[Dyne]

Originally Posted by thatmariolover

UMD's do spin. I think that was what he meant.

He didn't specify on the memory stick or on UMD. I assumed off of the stick, because UMD's are not within the realm of the current discussion.

And we would be better off forgetting UMD's all together anyways.

[Bond]

Some more news:

When we heard about Blu-ray-to-PSP movie transfers getting all official we got pretty excited, even though the announcement was a little skimpy on the details: How big are the files? How long will it take to download a movie? How odious is the DRM? Most importantly, when? Well, we've got 'em all right here.

The deets: The movies are around 1GB (standard def and PSP-optimized) and take about 3-5 minutes to download via USB to the Memory Stick Duo in your PSP. Currently, the idea is that they aren't stored locally on your PS3. Sony expects it to be available sometime this year—nothing more fine-grained than that timewise, unfortunately

The sweet news: For now, the plan is that the service will be free and it "can be used potentially on any Blu-ray movie title." Hopefully that means it'll be available for every Blu-ray title.

The potentially bleh news: Sony is still in the processing of reviewing how the DRM is going to work, and how portable the copies are going to be (important, since they're stored on Mem. Stick Duos, which are pretty pocketable.) In particular, the number of copies you can make from each disc is still up in the air—so it looks like how many friends you can share with is definitely going to be limited.

DRM-wise it's nothing unexpected—given Blu-ray's emphasis on strong copy protection, Sony's obviously not going to give free reign with the PSP copies. But even with some limits placed on the service, it stands to be one of the best PS3-PSP connections yet.

Source: Gizmodo

I really like the potential of this feature.