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 UMD Awards 2005
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As 2005 draws to a close, we look back at some of the best UMDs of the year...and also some of the worst. Now, here are our choices in our seven major categories.  Best Video Transfer-The Nightmare Before Christmas Runners up: Black Hawk Down, Sin City It must be a challenge to encode beautiful looking movies for UMD, and I say that since there were plenty of movies released that suffered from strange color tinting, bad compression and lots of artifacts. Some movies that looked gorgeous on DVD (such as Robots) look completely washed out and broken on UMD, mainly because the studio did not take the time to properly encode the video. The DVD release of the Nightmare Before Christmas is not anamorphic, which really hurts the image when you look closely at the details. Buena Vista did not carry this transfer over to UMD however...they instead used a Region 2 DVD video transfer of NBC that was superior to its Region 1 counterpart. Take a look at the difference:  
The picture to the left is the US Region 1 release...and to the right is the Region 2/UMD transfer. Notice the astounding difference in colors...and it looks even better on the PSP screen. The question arises: is the US release more representitive of what the director intended the film to look like? I cannot say for sure, but I do know this: the level of detail and sheer color of the UMD release is amazing and is definitely the best video transfer of the year. Sin City also looked great and near high definition on the PSP screen, as did Black Hawk Down, which may have contended quite closely with the Nightmare Before Christmas had the video not been cropped from 2.35 to 1.78. And of course, as always, be sure to view these films or any UMD movie for that matter with the brightness turned up to 3 (high), or 4 (highest) if you plug in your PSP to an outlet.  Best Audio Experience-Black Hawk Down Runner up: The Incredibles From the zooming of each bullet firing in every direction, to the explosions and sounds of war, Black Hawk Down turns your headphones into an aural experience you won't soon forget. Loud, intense, and certainly one of the best sounding UMDs out there. The Incredibles comes in at a very close second, with great surround effects, terrific seperation and panning, as well as some good bass and action sequences. It brings the great sounding DVD experience right to UMD. We always recommend using external speakers or headphones for the best audio experience possible, as the onboard PSP speakers just don't do UMD movies justice. Make sure to crank up that UMD Video Volume to +2 as well in the main PSP setup menu!  Best Presentation-Freddy vs. Jason Runner up: The Butterfly Effect It says something when the menus and presentation of Freddy vs. Jason evoke more dread and atmosphere than the film itself! You choose which door you want to enter to start with, which will take you to either Freddy's blood-soaked menus or the chilly Jason menus. Each set of menus have their own easter eggs, as well as a cool room that has severed heads floating around in a jar (of their own respective kills) that you can choose to jump to that character's death. The Butterfly Effect had some great music and a cool X-ray type theme going on in the menus, but nothing tops Freddy vs. Jason when it comes to pure style. Excellent work by New Line...I can't wait to see what they have in store for future UMDs!  Best Extras-Elf Runner up: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Freddy vs. Jason Yes, Elf. New Line did a really great job on this UMD, with two very entertaining commentaries by Jon Favreau and Will Ferrell, deleted scenes and a quick behind the scenes look with Ferrell. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre features deleted scenes as well as three commentaries, but none of which are as enjoyable as the Elf extras. Freddy vs. Jason also had quite a number of deleted scenes with optional commentaries, and one commentary track. It looks like New Line is the frontrunner for cramming as many extras as possible onto one UMD disc...and I hope other studios quickly follow suit.  Best UMD Studio of the Year-New Line Runner up: Universal Studios Even though New Line only had one batch of UMDs to come out this year (5), they proved to be the best so far. With prices hovering around $13-18, great extra features and good picture quality, as well as a nice assortment of bonus features, it's easy to see why they are the best UMD studio so far. Universal has also been consistantly great with their UMD movies, keeping the aspect ratios of all films as well as enhancing the PSP menus and providing a solid experience with every one of their UMDs so far. Do not hesitate to pick up movies from these studios...they are all winners!  Best TV-UMD of the Year-Family Guy: Volume 1, Seasons 1-2 Runner up: Da Ali G Show, Season 2 TV on UMD is perfect for the handheld experience...they provide quick bursts of entertainment, after all. But it seemed that TV on UMD was a bit slow to start, with Buena Vista only putting out the pilot episodes of Lost and Paramount doing small "samplers" of TV shows that hardly seemed complete at all. But Fox has opened the gates with the 5-disc UMD boxset of Family Guy, complete with every commentary and the behind the scenes featurette from the DVD. With 28 episodes at a price that's actually ten dollars cheaper than its DVD counterpart, it's hard to ever go back to "samplers" again. Let's hope Fox will continue with more sets like these...Futurama, anyone? HBO also did a great job with Da Ali G Show Season 2 two disc that contained all of the content from the DVDs, at a reasonable $20 price. We can only hope HBO continues more releases on UMD... Best UMD Movie of the Year-The Nightmare Before Christmas Runner up: Elf Not only do you get an excellent video transfer and solid audio, but you get nearly an hour's worth of features, including a thirty minute short film by Tim Burton! The menus look fantastic and remind me of a pop-up book, and the style is unmatched. The Nightmare Before Christmas is a UMD that you absolutely must check out, just to see the future potential of UMDs. Elf also provided a great video and audio transfer, as well as some nice special features to round out this solid UMD. It just feels more complete than many of the movies out for PSP right now. Ah, but with all of these great UMD movies, there are bound to be failures. And with that said, we move on to... The Worst of the Year>> |