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Blu-ray format is getting the attention it deserves, it began with the news of Warner dropping the HD-DVD from the formats they support. This week in the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Sony allegedly said that some Blu-ray titles will include an optimized version of the movie for the PSP, giving Blu-ray a more desirable stake in the HD format war that seem to be getting into an end.

I read a couple articles about this and how some people are questioning why is Sony still using the universal media disk (UMD) format. I’m in the same bandwagon, but at the same time if I was an owner of a PSP and had some UMD games and movies, I would be very upset if Sony decided to quit supporting the UMD format unexpectedly.

The UMD format will face out, every media format does. The question is how is Sony dealing with this in the future, I think they should announce this sooner rather than later. With an announcement like this, they can safely transition to a UMD-free next-generation PSP, at the same time, we all know how Sony likes to stick to their strategies to proprietary formats.

A couple questions rise from this announcement, seems like you need to have a PS3 and a PSP to transfer the movie, will Sony allow this type of transfer over a computer with a Blu-ray drive? What about transferring from Sony Blu-ray players, and lastly is not clear whether the transfer is limited, like for a period of time or limited transfer to your PSP, etc.

Other interesting thoughts are, will other studios including a copy of their movies in iPod/iPhone format. I know there are some rumors about his already, but is not clear, on how the portable format will work on Apple’s products.

Whatever happens I’m happy to see that big companies and movie studios are getting the point where people want to have portability of their content. Leave your comments about this subject and don’t forget to subscribe, thanks for reading.

[Breaking News: Rumors are strong that Fox is including a portable copy for the iPod/iPhone on their DVDs.]

PSP slim is out, the cool thing is that is selling in bundles with a game which makes it an attractive purchase. Stores like Target and Electronic Boutique are carrying the new slimmer PSP at $199, bundled with either Star Wars Battlefront or Daxter, other bundles may become available in the future. The new PSP Slim claim to be 33% lighter and 19% slimmer, it shares much of the specs from previews versions and it comes in 3 different colors.

I own the previews version of the PSP and I’m very happy with the product, the new PSP claims to be faster and have better screen performance. If you travel a lot and have the opportunity of enjoying your media while you travel, the PSP is a great alternative to a Video iPod or even a portable DVD player. The beautiful TFT 4.3 inch display has a resolution of 480 x 272 pix, capable of showing over 16 million colors.

While the PSP is a great consumer device, it doesn’t have the popularity it deserves. With the use of UMD (Universal Media Disc) is not suitable for children, the disc are considered fragile and/or easy to break or damage. Meanwhile, its competitor the Nintendo DS has sold millions of units, the PSP is often advertised for teenagers or young adults.

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Movavi is a Russian company formed by a group of video enthusiast dedicated to sell video conversion software so you can enjoy your videos anywhere, you can convert videos to play on iPods, PSP, Zune, PDA, Cell phones, you name it. They have a good variety of software available only for the PC platform that specializes in video conversion, capturing, editing, among other features. The cool thing about this company and their approach to this market segment is their line of free web tools, you can get you videos converted for free and there is even a Macintosh Widget for your Mac.

I first heard of Movavi from Videomaker Magazine podcast, the guys at Videomaker are always in the look for cool free tools to share with everybody. After I heard about Movavi I immediately head over their website and setup my account, they help me creating a web video conversion tool for my website. I copied the html and pasted on my website, you can find it in the Studio [L] tab, and it works great. I’ve been able to convert video successfully to use on my site.

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Recently I got so out of control with my podcast subscriptions that I had to erase them all and start over. I’m not talking about issues with iTunes, the main problem is that I subscribed to too many of them. The ones that I was really behind were the video ones, I was watching almost 4 different shows of Photoshop alone. Some tech shows were easy to let go, since most of the time they start sounding too repetitive. Finally, I decided to clear out all my iTunes podcast library and start subscribing to my favorite show one at a time to make sure I have enough time to watch them all.

So I decided to put together a small list of tips for not to be a Podcast Junkie:

1. Define your passions, don’t subscribe to podcasts just because someone said is good.
2. If you like to try out podcasts, download the most recent show without subscribing.
3. If you have two podcast with the same topic, try your best to choose a favorite.
4. Familiarize yourself with your podcast management software.
5. Keep in mind the size of your portable player so you don’t overload it.
6. Value your time and make use of it wisely.

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As I mentioned on a previous article, I recently bought a PSP and I love it. Other than games and web browsing, one thing you can do is what videos on this thing. Encoding your home videos or any video is easy since you have various software options. Whether you have a PC or a Mac, software like PSPWare, PSPVideo9, or Missing Sync PSP are great solution to convert video to play on your PSP and sync other applications.

I started playing with some of those and immediately notice that the quality was less than acceptable, so I started playing with the video codec from FFMPEGX. My first try was a disaster; the second one was a little better but took my G4 nine hours to encode it. I started looking at my computer logs when I notice a line that said, “Conversion 720 x 468 is not divisible by 16, compression will suffer.” Literary just like that, then it hit me, right on my face; it makes a lot of sense, encoding aspect ration is one of the most important things to have clear.

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Just when I was getting ready to publish this post, I received a news item on my feed saying that Sony unveiled a new PSP which will be available on September. The new PSP is not the rumored PSP2 but a revision of the current one, is 19% slimmer, 33% lighter, has better battery performance, faster loading times for games and movies, and audio/video output. I haven’t seen anything else except for suggestions of three color choices; black, white, and gray. I have the current generation, what follows is my review.

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Please forgive me if I haven’t post anything lately; I’ve been working with a lot of stuff at the same time making my schedule a little wacky. I have many articles on the pipe to release this week, expect some talking about AVCHD, Bluetooth, iPhone, PSP, and more. Yes, I got a PSP and I’m enjoying it, it has contributed to my delays too. So far, the only game I have Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, but my review on the PSP is going to be more towards the equipment itself and the internet browsing capabilities.

I have been reading a lot about the outsourcing issues in the technology field, so you can expect some chatting about that too. In addition, I don’t know how familiar you are with 7^th Son, a podcast novel that really got my attention. I heard some interviews lately so I’ll be talking about this audio book and his author. To conclude I’m getting ready to put together some blogging tips that I have picked up around the web and are really working for me. So stick around for new and great content from LuMen Creative Group. Thanks.