Paramount Home Entertainment announced today the release of ten titles on Universal Media Disc , playable on Sony's PlayStation Portable.
SAHARA, the hit film starring Matthew McConaughey, is debuting August 30 - day and date on DVD, VHS and UMD. The first wave of titles, TEAM AMERICA, COACH CARTER and WITHOUT A PADDLE, is scheduled for release on August 9. In association with MTV Home Entertainment, "VIVA LA BAM: VOLUME 1" which centers on the fanatical and often extreme life of pro-skateboarder Bam Margera will be released on August 30.
In conjunction with Comedy Central Home Entertainment and Nickelodeon Home Entertainment, Paramount is distributing volumes of some of the hottest TV shows on DVD this year including: Comedy Central's "CHAPPELLE'S SHOW: VOLUME 1 UNCENSORED," "REN AND STIMPY VOLUME 1 1/2 ISH" and Matt Stone and Trey Parker's highly acclaimed "SOUTH PARK: VOLUME 1." In addition, Nickelodeon's runaway smash hits "SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: VOLUME 1" and SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS THE MOVIE will be landing on UMD later this year. The studio plans to announce additional high-profile UMD titles for 2005 in the coming months.
Sony wishes to promote its UMD format in a variety of portable applications, and is already using it in the PSP portable game machine. At its current 1.8GB capacity, it can provide full-length motion pictures of adequate quality, but eventually a much higher capacity will be desirable if not essential, in order to compete with flash-memory, hard-disk drive cards, and other miniaturized optical formats like the DataPlay format.