Sanctuary are planning five releases on the new UMD format designed to be used with Sony's PlayStation Portable, which launches in Europe and Australia next month. UMDs are 2.3 inch optical disks which can hold some 1.8GB of content, which I am told by some clever people is 140 minutes of DVD quality video. Although developed by Sony, the technology firm have made the format available to any content owners interested in making their stuff available in this way.
The five Sanctuary releases include three music concert recordings and two movies. On 1 Sep, the day the PSP launches over here, they will release 'Iron Maiden - Rock In Rio'. On 12 Sep you'll get 'INXS - Live Baby Live' and 'Bob Marley - Live From Santa Barbara', with cult movies 'Dune' and 'Blue Velvet' following on 3 Oct.
Commenting on their interest in releasing content using the new Sony format, Sanctuary Visual Entertainment's Commercial Director Spencer Pollard told CMU: "Sanctuary's audio-visual catalogue is very high quality and the titles we have chosen to launch with are great products and artists with huge fan bases. I am very excited to be working with Sony PSP at the launch and it demonstrates our ability to generate great coverage and explore new sales opportunities not only for our repertoire but for the future of the audio-visual market."