Written by James Fohl

If you have been paying attention to the advertisements concerning new video releases, then you have probably picked up to the fact that not only are a lot of new home video releases being released in the popular DVD format, but they are also being released on something called UMD format.

If you are anything like the average consumer, you probably didn't give a second thought about the whole UMD situation. After all, you have a DVD player, and can go out and buy DVDs for it, so you are quite happy with the format.

But some people are probably curious to what the whole UMD format is about. After all, there really wasn't any big announcement about it, and electronic stores such as Best Buy do not have any huge selections of UMD players.

To start off, UMD stands for Universal Media Disc and is the format of media used in the PSP (Playstation Portable). Currently, there are no other appliances that utilize the small encased discs.

The format was designed primarily for the PSP (Playstation Portable) so that it would allow game makers and other media producers the ability to store a large amount of data in a small, cheap piece of media. Although the UMDs (Universal Media Discs) look small, they still have the ability to hold an amazing 1.8 gigabytes of data. That is pretty amazing when you consider the size of the UMD compared to a regular CD-ROM, which holds six hundred and fifty to seven hundred megabytes.

Since Sony not only releases the Playstation Portable, but also a wide variety of home videos in the DVD format, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out why Sony is releasing their latest movies in both formats.

Currently, there are more movies available for the PSP (Playstation Portable) than there are actual games. This is because it is relatively easy to convert already released videos to the format read by the PSP (Playstation Portable). Unfortunately, even though there is large list of movie titles available for the system, they are not very cheap.

Especially when you compare them to their DVD cousins. Because of the limited storage ability of the UMD format, the movies have to be compressed, and the features commonly found in DVD versions of the same films are usually nowhere to be found. Price is another factor. While you can pick up a DVD version of your favorite Sony movie, such as Spiderman 2 for $12, the Sony PSP UMD version usually is twice as much.

There are a lot of movies available for the Sony PSP (Playstation Portable), however all of these movies are also available on the superior DVD format. If you have a Playstation Portable, and have run out of games to play, then you could always go out and purchase a couple expensive movies. If however you are an avid movie fan looking for a portable video player, then perhaps you should lean towards a portable DVD player. Not only will you be saving movie on the hardware, but you will also be saving a lot of money on the movies, as well as having a much larger selection.