UMD+R and Homebrew applications running on the PSP!

UMD's are like MD, like magneto-optical disc?
Cause, the data density/structure is strongly different than dvd's...

 

UMD are high density CDROM. And yes, memory sticks will be *the* way. You'll need a 2gb card (1.6gb) formatted to theoretically play all games, that's ~$380 for a Sony memory stick or $190 for a Sandisk or other brand.

 

if UMD are high density CDROM, then it would and could be very possible to manufacture it.

And even very easy to dublicate.

 

It's far from impossible but still I wouldn't call it easy by any means, it's definately not. That is until somebody writes a few programs that do all the work for the proletariat.

 

People forget thet GD-ROM is technically a high density CD-ROM as well, and there's still no easy way to read or burn those. I wouldn't start saving for the new latest piracy apparatus just yet...

 

Well, it's likely (if not sure to some people) that the no apparatus will be required, just a firmware flash.

 

So, its not really the sequel of the classic MD (magnetic disc)... Wierd, the "UMD" name makes non sence...

 

UMD stands for "Universal Media Disc", it has nothing to do with Minidisc.

 

Sony obviously took a page from the Minidisc in the UMD's creation - the physical disc (size, more specifically), spindle/disk stabilizing apparatus, and drive/door mechanism are all extremely similar to Minidisc technology. It's a pity Sony didn't decide to stick with MD's magneto-optical format for the PSP - it would definately have staved off the pirates a lot longer than the current format.

 

Aren't Data MDs extremely expensive, not to mention basically pointless?

 

Why? Only recordable MiniDiscs are megneto-optical, and it only uses a magnetic head to record to the discs - all MDs (recordable or pre-recorded) are read by lasers. If UMDs were megneto-optical that would mean (a) recorders would exist and (b) recordable discs would exist - surely that would mean infinitely MORE piracy?

 

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. First, you are correct on the nature of MD - premastered discs are indeed produced in the same manner as normal CDs (with stamped aluminum foil bearing the information), while recordable discs are MO. However, I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that recorders would automatically exist for public use, as well as recordable discs. Unless you're thinking of consumer MD player/recorders and blank MDs? Even if that were the case, MD units and the PC-side software are locked down so tight with Sony DRM, you have a hard time keeping complete control over audio on the devices - data would be nearly impossible. Of course, this is also assuming that recorded MDs would fit in a PSP, or that a UMD would fit in a MD player to be copied/dumped.

 

I'm not sure where you're getting at either. Commercial UMDs are aluminium foil stuff like CDs. If it was a magneto-optical format, retail games and movies would still be aluminium pressed discs, but someone somewhere must have access to MO recorders and MO discs, otherwise it wouldn't be an MO format, now would it? I'm not saying recorders would be publicly available, but someone - be it developers or whatever - would have them.

If they used a variant of MiniDisc, I'm sure someone would hack something up eventually. Though I don't really know much about the format, I don't think there's much along the lines of DRM on recorders pre-dating all that NetMD/SonicStage junk. They have digital optical inputs. The format's been around about 18 years - surely by now someone's hacked something up to just write raw data to the discs somehow. Then again Hi-MD may be a lot more complicated.

What they've done with the UMD so far seems pretty damn piracy proof, much like the DC... if it couldn't read CDs. How do developers test games, though? Are there special test PSPs that can read some other easily writeable format, or are there UMD emulators or what?

 

I mentioned this in another thread, but developers can test games by burning to DVD-R and then playing that in a devkit (PSP devkits have both UMD and DVD drives in the towers) or they can submit a test build to Sony and pay for a short run of UMDs. Those test UMDs are pressed (just like retail discs) but do not have any labeling on the discs. They will run in any retail unit, thereby giving a developer a 100% accurate method of testing on real hardware.

-hl718

 

Ah, that makes sense. Didn't notice it in whatever other thread, sorry.

And I was thinking about the whole MD thing after that post. Greatsaintlouis, were you just talking about them using discs based on the MiniDisc format for the PSP, and not necessarily making any actual MO hardware? And I realised after that post as well, the digital optical in on MD recorders would usually go to the ATRAC encoder, and likewise any data coming from the disc would proabably go straight through the ATRAC decoder. If someone could totally bypass all the ATRAC decoding/encoding stuff then we'd be getting somewhere...

 

Yeah, that was my main point - the MO comment I made was me being half awake and thinking MDs were entirely MO based, not just the recordable ones (which is all we have here in the states - they don't sell prerecorded ones.) I was talking more about the MD audio/data format than the physical disks themselves, although like I said physically, the PSP's discs were obviously inspired by the MD hardware, at least in size and shape. And as far as earlier, pre-NetMD recorders go, it could be possible except that they can only handle 72/80 minute media - they won't read the MDLP standard at all, so even if they could be hacked to work with data, you'd only get the 120MB or so out of a disc. HiMD or MDLP would be the formats to work with, but again, Sony has those so locked down that they would definately keep pirates confounded for a long time.

 

Mini Discs simply cannot hold as much data as UMD discs.

That in and of itself is a reason to not go with it.

A UMD disc is more akin to a DVD than it is to a CD or MD.

-hl718

 

But UMD are ISO-9660 compliant rather than UDF.

 

something like 128 MB of data without compression if recall corectly.

 

How big is the image ripped from these UMDs? I assume they don't use all 1.8gig. Even if they did, the video and audio would get ripped to put it onto a 1 GIG SD.

I'm surprised how fast this thing got hacked; big thanks to Sony including just about every connection availible. Can't wait to play SNES games on it - don't really care for 'real' pircay