A little over a month ago, the first wave of Sony PSP movies were released supporting the earlier release of the new handheld gaming console, and if you ask me Sony has given the rest of the world more than enough to contend with as the Sony PSP offers superior graphics and capabilities no other handheld device has yet to offer.
I was sent five of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s initial PSP movie titles to review and look over and I finally have time to weigh in with my opinion.
The titles I received are certainly appropriate for the medium as Hellboy (The Director’s Cut), Once Upon a Time in Mexico, House of Flying Daggers, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and xXx were the first five films to be released by Sony for the PSP. Each of these films has an obvious draw to its target audience as violence and action dominate the mood.
With a 4.3 inch display it is hard to imagine that such a crystal clear and detailed screen could be possible, but the Sony PSP delivers 16.77 million colors in spectacular brilliance and also offers a dimming mechanism that allows users to conserve battery power while watching one of their movies as the PSP has anywhere from 3-6 hours of battery life making a feature length film an easy task for a fully charged battery.
As for sound, whether you are at home or on a crowded subway the supplied headphones are your best option as the on board speakers simply don’t supply enough sound to give you a full enough experience, and the lightweight headphones are hardly a nuisance especially if you use them in conjunction with the handy remote attachment allowing you to scan and skip tracks and adjust the volume.
The only setback to the UMD medium on such a small screen is its ability to capture quick movements. Along with a purchase of the PSP comes a copy of Spider-Man 2, which is a perfect example of what I am talking about here as action sequences, while caught perfectly on the screen simply seem to get a bit blurry due to the small size of the screen. This is hardly reason enough to abandon the idea of watching movies on the PSP but it is certainly something consumers should know.
On top of that, my only other complaint is the cost of the discs as they are currently being offered at Amazon.com at relatively the same cost as your standard DVD. This is going to be a problem due to the fact that many people will have most likely already purchased the DVD copy of these titles therefore causing them to second guess paying the same amount for a version that does not come with the special features and can only be played on a 4-inch screen.
As far as special features go the five titles mentioned above come with none, as do all of Sony Pictures UMD releases so far. While some of them do offer separate language tracks and subtitles they do not come with any director commentaries or featurettes. They do however contain a few additional trailers but that is all.
Buena Vista Home Entertainment however has also grasped the idea of the PSP even more than its own creator as they have announced several titles along the same lines as Sony, but they also have announced some that will come equipped with special features such as Kill Bill: Volume 2 which will include a deleted scene; From Dusk Till Dawn which will include deleted scenes, two music videos and two featurettes; Gone in 60 Seconds (Director’s Cut) which will include three featurettes. The list goes on and features I am sure will become a staple on all PSP movie releases in the future adding additional value to the pricy commodities.
The other major studios jumping on the PSP bandwagon include Fox, Universal, Lions Gate and Paramount, all of which have titles that have been added to our database. To stay up-to-date on all things PSP movie related just continually drop by the RopeofSilicon DVD Central where you will find, on the far right hand side of the page, the most recent 30 PSP movie titles added to the database, and it grows on a daily basis.
All PSP movie titles can also be found on their respective release dates in our DVD Calendar.
If you are a PSP owner then you already know that games and movies are just the start as there is much more to a PSP than just that including an MP3 player, picture viewer and even a way to download movies and trailers directly onto your device and there are a couple of cool places providing some cool goodies to play around with.
The first place is none other than the Lions Gate Films official website, which has a PSP section of its own where you can purchase their PSP movie titles as well as download trailers of upcoming films directly onto your device. The site currently offers trailers for several upcoming films, click on any one of the following titles to download the ZIP file with the trailer inside: High Tension, Crash, Rize, Undead and The Devil’s Rejects. Speaking of the Rejects there is even more you can do over at the official site.
Once on The Devil’s Rejects official site click on “Gallery” and find the link where it says “Download the Photo Gallery for your PSP.” Once done you automatically have a complete gallery of rejects at the touch of a button, what could be better.
The second place to go to get a continually updated amount of content for your PSP is 29Guide.com where they always have new goodies for you to check out such as Batman Begins goodies, the trailer for Brothers and the Massive Attack music video from Unleashed. The content is updated weekly, it is certainly a good place to keep your eye on.
If you are an RSS kind of person, keeping up with the 29Guide is easy with their RSS Feed.
If you know of more cool sites for PSP owners shoot them on over using our Contact Form.
