Relax, we’re not talking about games discs, rather the movie variety. It’ll probably come as no big surprise that major film companies Universal and Paramount have now stopped releasing UMD versions of their films, and many other studios, including Sony Pictures, are set to reduce the number of releases.

The format initially did fairly well, but now it would appear the novelty factor is beginning to wear off, and large US retailers such as Wal-Mart are said to be removing the format from their shelves. Another reason for the decline is that it is relatively easy to rip DVD movies to memory stick, meaning you can potentially have access to your entire DVD collection without spending a penny. A final consideration is whether people even wanted to watch movies on the go in the first place?

Let’s face it, most people will have bought a PSP to play games, so it’s no big loss in the end. The PSP may be capable of playing back movies and listening to MP3’s, but I feel sure many people have never bothered to do so. Playing films on a PSP isn’t a bad idea, but the PSP is probably just too big to be convenient as an MP3 player.

The movie studios pull out from UMD will also be down to the fact that just as DVD as got itself firmly entrenched in the consumers mindset it faces replacement by either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.

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