It’s two different things (thanks to Sony for the confusion). Sony’s UMD (Universal Media Disc) is proprietary. Hi-MD (Hi-Mini Disc) is a separate proprietary format. Sony could have scored major points with a lot of people and bolstered their own format by utilizing the Hi-MD format with the PSP.

Yeah, but isn’t the UMD very very thin? MD’s are thin, but not as much as it seems from the UMD pics…

Erik

Yeah, the MD is a little bit bigger.

MD (and Hi-MD) Dimensions
- 70 mm (W) x 67.5 mm (D) x 5.0 mm (H)
- 64 mm in diameter
- 305MB for MD
- 1GB for Hi-MD

UMD Dimensions
- 65 mm (W) x 64 mm (D) x 4.2 mm (H)
- 60 mm in diameter
- 1.8GB for single-sided, dual-layer (i.e. 900MB per layer)

One advantage of the MDs are that they are fully protected with a sliding sleeve. The UMDs are exposed.

[quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]

One advantage of the MDs are that they are fully protected with a sliding sleeve. The UMDs are exposed.

Exposed? so UMD is like a small CD/DVD kinda thing.. I hope that UMD disc are rewrittable.. sorry haven’t seen one yet.. 

Can you use PSP to play movies such as divx files and mp3s on the UMD ? Also how much do blank UMDs cost?

[quote author=“Archival”][quote author=“gr00vy0ne”]

One advantage of the MDs are that they are fully protected with a sliding sleeve. The UMDs are exposed.

Exposed? so UMD is like a small CD/DVD kinda thing.. I hope that UMD disc are rewrittable.. sorry haven’t seen one yet.. 

Well, exposed in the sense that there’s an uncovered section in the protective casing which allows dust and potential scratches to occur.

There is currently no writable or rewritable UMD discs available or any plans for it. There is also no DivX support either. It will play compliant MPEG-4 videos and play MP3s off of Memory Stick Duo cards.

Just a note of interest: A much improved SonicStage 3.0 will likely come bundled with the 2nd Gen models.

I’m so waiting for it….and I hope it’s a complete rewrite from the ground up.  :?

is sonicstage that bad?  can you just drag and drop?

The best way I can describe SonicStage is bulky…and for no reason.

Erik

The current version of SonicStage 2.3 is really more stable than its previous version. I really have no problem with the software although it could be further improved.

From what I have read… mostly vague information, the upcoming SonicStage 3.0 is really “light years” ahead of the current version.

Yeah, SonicStage 2.3 was decent compared to the crap they put out before. However, the interface was still clunky and wasted a lot of screen real estate.

hey groove, you think you can give me a pros and con on your MD player compared to a HD mp3 player?

how’s the sound quality of your md player?  MD’s have always fascinated me, but I never got around to getting one because of their lack of mp3 support

‘cause the price is quite steep with respect to their capacities

The pictures are back. Here’s a brief overview at CNET Asia .

Expect an official announcement by Sony on March 2, 2005. 

Here is a new HiMD unit.  The MZ-DH10.  This baby has a camera and full color TFT LCD :drool:

Here is a link to the site:   

Looks like this HiMD unit has everything.