PSP Digital Copy Included on Sony Blu-ray Releases (Update)

[Shin-Ra]

PSP Digital Copy Included on Sony Blu-ray Releases
Posted September 29, 2009 08:28 AM by Josh Dreuth

Beginning with the November 10th Blu-ray releases of 'Godzilla' and 'The Ugly Truth', Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will include a digital copy especially for the PSP on all their Blu-ray disc releases. The announcement comes just days before the release of the PSPgo, Sony's latest iteration of their portable gaming platform which will - for the first time - have no removable media option.

The PSP digital copy will only be accessible on the PS3, and will only play on the PSP. For some releases, like 'The Ugly Truth', a separate DVD will be included for the PC digital copy.

Rich Marty, Vice President of New Business Development at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, commented, "This latest enhancement to Blu-ray and Digital Copy demonstrates the versatility of the format and its ability to deliver a multi-platform video experience. It also showcases the unique advantage that the PlayStation 3 brings to the Blu-ray consumer."

Source: Home Media Magazine | Permalink | Relevant for:

These are from the CES 2008 demonstration so the process or presentation may differ slightly now.

[androvsky]

Wow, I thought Sony started doing that with Men in Black, shows how many newer Sony blu-rays I've purchased. Still, isn't it kinda late to start doing this with Managed Copy just around the corner? Or is this something they'll continue doing since a straight copy of a PSP-specific file will be much faster than transcoding the whole movie?

[1cleans13]

Man, this is really neat... they should do it with every bluray release but that wont happen.

[Shin-Ra]

Men in Black used Portable Copy, on the Blu-ray via PS3?

[Rike255]

Neat! I'm going to enjoy this feature.

[Shin-Ra]

If the video's encoded at 720x480 res, like UMD video, there's a bit of future-proofing there and with other copy systems in place, the same video could be used for other portable devices without an extra DVD.

[fsavoie]

This is very nice! and about time!

[Maximus]

Should make it 640x480 h.264 @30p so it can be used on iPods and iPhones really. No reason to leave out the most popular media device in the world...

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Men in Black used Portable Copy, on the Blu-ray via PS3?

The thing is I thought it did when it came out... in the summer of 2008, months after this feature was announced. Some quick googling later, it turns out the reason why I thought that is because the movie used to demo the feature in January of 2008 was Men in Black. Guess it didn't make the final version after all.

January of 2008. Wow.

Should make it 640x480 h.264 @30p so it can be used on iPods and iPhones really. No reason to leave out the most popular media device in the world...

Apple doesn't use the same encryption system as Sony(as I'm quite sure you're aware), might as well make the current iTunes digital copies work on PSPs for all the trouble that would cause. Or better yet, Apple could support Managed Copy...

[Cplhicks]

Didn't the release say they will have an extra disc with digital copies for iTunes, etc on "select releases"? The way I see it is this-- going forward ALL Sony BRs will have a PSP copy, and big titles will have iPod etc copies too. I don't see this being much different than what they're doing now, except now we get PSP copies for everything. Plus, the PSP copies they did before were annoying because they required a PC AND IE (I hate IE). Being able to just use the PS3 will be much nicer.

[Sylin]

Couldn't Sony also implement a feature that if you insert a Sony Blu-ray movie that does NOT already include a PSP digital copy, it could retrieve one from the PSN Store?

[aygie]

Hands-on: Blu-ray Digital Copy for PSP

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/11/18/ha...-copy-for-psp/

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has finally debuted the first batch of Blu-ray discs that take advantage of Digital Copy for PSP. With this feature, people that own both a PS3 and a PSP will be able to copy a portable version of a movie directly from a Blu-ray disc to Sony's handheld. Well, almost directly.

There are a few steps you must take to activate the PSP copy. When you insert the Blu-ray disc into the PS3, you'll see two icons appear on the XMB, one that allows you to store a SD version of the movie to your PS3 hard drive. You must be logged on to the PlayStation Network and then enter a unique 12-digit code included with the disc. Once the activation process is complete, a 2GB file will transfer to your PS3. You can watch this movie on the hard drive (but why would you when you have the Blu-ray disc?), or you can copy it over to the PSP -- a process which takes about five minutes total.

The video quality of the "Digital Copy" is fantastic, especially on the PSP's smaller screen. Unfortunately, the initial batch of movies leaves a lot to be desired: Godzilla (the 1998 American version), The Ugly Truth and Angels & Demons. Hopefully, SPHE will start implementing the feature on some ... y'know, good movies in the future.

[Shin-Ra]

Sounds like they may be 720x480 UMD video quality files after all.

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Sounds like they may be 720x480 UMD video quality files after all.

What makes you say?

[Shin-Ra]

I don't think they'd drop the res and at the same time lower compression so much, bumping the filesize back up to UMD video (1.8GB max) levels.

But I'm making the possibly stupid assumption that all of them are around 2GB, it could well be that the resolution is lower and that they've increased the quality (compared to what it would be on UMD video) for a 2hr+ movie where I think quality struggled on UMD.

[aygie]

Get ya.