Official UMD Composer from Sony thread

[Xandu]

Official UMD Composer from Sony
All of you might be on the edge of your seats right now thinking of the wonders this tool holds and how it can change game development forever. But I'd hate to rain on your parade boys and girls, this software only allows developers to create images of UMDs that you then have to send to a UMD pressing facility to be mass-produced. The UMD composer will sell for 200,000 or about $17600 USD for the software around mid-June.

The UMD (Universal Media Disk) is the next-generation microminiature optical disk with the largest capacity of 1.8GB of data.

UMD video authoring tool The summary of UMD Composer and flow of authoringIt can draw up also the Javascript based game and the like on the UMD Video format
The test tool which plays back the UMD video image which it drew up. The picture and emulator of PSP are connected with the private cableThe PSP part of emulator has built in the function only of picture indication and button operationThe PSP part of emulator has built in the function only of picture indication and button operation

UMD Composer will feature the following components:

* Stream Composer: audio/video/subtitle encoding, multiplexing, clip information creation (multipass encoding support).
* Stream Viewer: a viewer for stream files.
* Playlist Composer: create playlist files.
* Script Compiler: compile UMD video scripts.
* Resource Compiler: create resource files from source XML, compiled scripts, PNG still images, etc.
* Interactive System Viewer: emulation of interactive menus and such in a PC environment.
* PSMF Composer/AT3 Tool: creation of video and sound displayed in the PSP's Cross Media Bar (XMB).
* Image Generator: create UMD disc images.
* Image Checker: verification of created UMD disc image.




Later on, UMD writers, blank UMDs, then Hacked UMDs like on PS2, what do you think?

[Klarth]

UMD writers and blank UMDs will never happen. Stop dreaming.

[Xandu]

A UMD reader has arrived:http://pspupdates.qj.net/-Official-U...g/49/aid/52672 , later on a writer, like the CD-R and DVD-R

[Realn0whereman]

you may not be able to make a umd of the data u have made but you can make an ISO ... sorry but im not discussing pirating anything so this thread should not be locked.. im only discussing the concept of an iso

[NEvolution]

[-Threads merged-] with previous UMD Composer thread.

[Siouxsie]

Meh. UMD of a an emulator would be good.

[Chrono6456]

Umm, i dotn get what this is? Just basiclly a really big UMD dumper, and creater?

[raigxi]

Originally Posted by Xandu6a

Official UMD Composer from Sony
Later on, UMD writers, blank UMDs, then Hacked UMDs like on PS2, what do you think?

I really dont think this'll happen, just because there's a pic of an actual UMD writer or w/e doesnt mean that they'll be out on the market, it just means that sony are showing us what they do when they press the UMD files sent to em, made using the UMD composer.

[Link88]

I'm assuming that it is 200,000 yen. I put that into a currency converter and it comes out to 1,881.20 USD not $176,000

[Siouxsie]

Hmm. $176,000 would be quite a lot of money...

[psycho]

Originally Posted by raigxi

I really dont think this'll happen, just because there's a pic of an actual UMD writer or w/e doesnt mean that they'll be out on the market, it just means that sony are showing us what they do when they press the UMD files sent to em, made using the UMD composer.

That's NOT a UMD writer. It's just a drive. It's the EXACT SAME drive that's in the PSP, just mounted in a computer-like case. (That entire 'computer' is just a huge PSP. A PSP emulator. The 'PSP' that plugs into the front of it is nothing but a screen and controls...). Sony has NEVER made a UMD burner or UMD-Rs, and they probably never will.

This system CAN, however, read a specially formatted UMD disc image off of a DVD-R (which is why the DVD drive is there).

Here's the comments I added to the front page Blog about the UMD Composer software:

UMD COMPOSER:
All this is for is making UMD _MOVIES_. It has nothing to do with creating games. This software will encode your movie source into the proper PSP format, encode your audio and then add subtitles and chapter stops if you desire. (And the software runs on any PC, the little PSP emulator is not required to use it...)

You then create your menu structure (which is basically just XML programming) and then run a few other tools that come with Composer to format all the files necessary for a UMD movie disc.

It will then format a disc for replication and allow you to burn that 'image' to a DVD-R for emulation in the little PSP computer, or send it to Sony for replication of discs.

Now, you _CAN_ extract an ISO image from the replication disc it creates (I have done this, it's not really that hard, but it's not just a simple 'Copy the file to your computer'. It created a disc with about 6 or 7 files on it, you need 2 of them.) I've converted Star Wars to the proper UMD Movie spec (using Kill Bill menus... ), and it works perfectly (and looks damn good...).

Also note, this isn't really new... It's been available for months (my Beta copy expired in Feb I think). In the Beta, I wasn't able to make it create a PMF file though (the options where there, I just couldn't get a source video file that the program liked...) I assume either I was doing it wrong, or it wasn't fully functional.

Neat program to play with, but not really useful unless you want to make your own PSP movies.

Oh, I don't who screwed up the cost, but it costs about $17,000 for the UMD Composer software. The little PSP Emulator computer costs about $5000

[Chrono6456]

Originally Posted by psycho

That's NOT a UMD writer. It's just a drive. It's the EXACT SAME drive that's in the PSP, just mounted in a computer-like case. (That entire 'computer' is just a huge PSP. A PSP emulator. The 'PSP' that plugs into the front of it is nothing but a screen and controls...). Sony has NEVER made a UMD burner or UMD-Rs, and they probably never will.

This system CAN, however, read a specially formatted UMD disc image off of a DVD-R (which is why the DVD drive is there).

Here's the comments I added to the front page Blog about the UMD Composer software:

UMD COMPOSER:
All this is for is making UMD _MOVIES_. It has nothing to do with creating games. This software will encode your movie source into the proper PSP format, encode your audio and then add subtitles and chapter stops if you desire. (And the software runs on any PC, the little PSP emulator is not required to use it...)

You then create your menu structure (which is basically just XML programming) and then run a few other tools that come with Composer to format all the files necessary for a UMD movie disc.

It will then format a disc for replication and allow you to burn that 'image' to a DVD-R for emulation in the little PSP computer, or send it to Sony for replication of discs.

Now, you _CAN_ extract an ISO image from the replication disc it creates (I have done this, it's not really that hard, but it's not just a simple 'Copy the file to your computer'. It created a disc with about 6 or 7 files on it, you need 2 of them.) I've converted Star Wars to the proper UMD Movie spec (using Kill Bill menus... ), and it works perfectly (and looks damn good...).

Also note, this isn't really new... It's been available for months (my Beta copy expired in Feb I think). In the Beta, I wasn't able to make it create a PMF file though (the options where there, I just couldn't get a source video file that the program liked...) I assume either I was doing it wrong, or it wasn't fully functional.

Neat program to play with, but not really useful unless you want to make your own PSP movies.

Oh, I don't who screwed up the cost, but it costs about $17,000 for the UMD Composer software. The little PSP Emulator computer costs about $5000

How can software cost 17 thousand dollars!?

[mannymix03]

Very easily it can, professional software can cost a lot of money

[psycho]

Yeah, Scenarist (the software most studios use to make commercial DVDs) costs $20,000.

The software packages for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD cost $60,000 _EACH_. For a CD of software...

That's the professional world for ya...

[idk2]

This will almost certainly turn into nothing unless sony opens up the umd format

[TeamOverload]

Yeah it's not much use, but I wonder what Sony would do is it gets cracked and bootleg copies appear.

[Chrono6456]

Originally Posted by psycho

Yeah, Scenarist (the software most studios use to make commercial DVDs) costs $20,000.

The software packages for Blu-Ray and HD-DVD cost $60,000 _EACH_. For a CD of software...

That's the professional world for ya...

Holy schiße! Man, what if you scratched the disk!?

[psycho]

Originally Posted by SpartanIIMark6

Holy schiße! Man, what if you scratched the disk!?

You don't. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Actually, they are very nice about replacement discs... (You can't run the software without the hardware lock, so they feel it's safe to send a second copy of the software.)

[Machina]

psycho, you know what your talking about, but then again i gotta disagree with you. First of all this is not for commersal use even if you had $17,000. and second like i posted in thee other thread, if you read the writing in the bottom right hand corner of the equipment it says development dock. hence devloping a "UMD" honestly there would be no point to realsing a peace $17,000 of equipment that just simply does the same exact thing as the program UMD Gen, for creating iso on the computer...that you can get for free.(im not encoraging piracy in any way...) ive anilized this picture and 2 others and ive come to the conclution that this is enfact a umd creater. no even if you got a hold of this... have fun trying to get sony to give blank umds.(this is somthing also thats highly debated. umds....burned or pressed...some say there the same thing...there not....)

[Art]

The hardware you are looking at is the development hardware used for creating games,
it has nothing to do with the UMD composer software that this thread is about.
and UMDGEN is for school kids who want to reduce the size of their ISOs, not
for film companies to authour their commercial movies with.. geeez.

[psycho]

Originally Posted by Machina

psycho, you know what your talking about, but then again i gotta disagree with you. First of all this is not for commersal use even if you had $17,000.

Trust me, at $17,000 this is the cheapest commercial/professional movie disc creating software out there. Like I said previously, the DVD creating software the the studios use costs $20,000, and the software that's currently available to make HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs costs $60,000 for EACH FORMAT (that's $120,000 if you want to make HD and BR discs).

Originally Posted by Machina

honestly there would be no point to realsing a peace $17,000 of equipment that just simply does the same exact thing as the program UMD Gen, for creating iso on the computer

UMD Composer (the $17,000 program seen in the first two pictures on PSPUpdates) does _NOT_ create ISO images. It creates something called a replication image. This is a set of files that you send to Sony that they use to create the UMDs you buy in stores (both movies and games). Trust me, _YOU_ can't find _ANY_ software on the internet that even attempts to do what this software does.

Originally Posted by Machina

enfact a umd creater. no even if you got a hold of this... have fun trying to get sony to give blank umds.(this is somthing also thats highly debated. umds....burned or pressed...some say there the same thing...there not....)

I don't have to 'get a hold of this,' I _HAVE_ one (well, access to several, actually). The hardware in the pictures is nothing more than a PSP Emulator. Much like the DVD Emulators the studios use to test DVDs before they are manufactured, this little computer allows you to play a UMD movie (and probably a game) on more-or-less PSP hardware without having to spend the money to have the little UMD discs manufactured. It does this by reading the Replication files (as mentioned above) off of a DVD-R. It can also play a normal UMD. It can _NOT_ burn (or in any other way create) an actual UMD disc. Trust me, there is no such thing as a UMD burner. Sony has NEVER made one (why would they need to, they own the equipment that makes the real discs).

The hardware in the picture is NOT a development kit, it's just an emulator. All it does is pretend to be a PSP. The $17,000 UMD Composer software makes the UMD movies (encodes the video, helps you create the menus, etc). It's installed and run on any PC. You don't need to have the little PSP computer seen in these pictures.

[Art]

There are pics of this unit arount the net toted as development units.
Are you saying the PSP development kit is all PC software?
I suppose you still need the hardware in the pics to test the game anyway don't you?

[Calum]

This is old news anyway, that umd maker has been out a while, and also the umd drive is a dvd drive, they do eevrything on dvd then send it off to sony for umd pressing, a company was interviwed about it, and art you wouldnt NEED the sdk hardware, its just a blank psp connected with a cable that goes to the screen, 1.5 users could just emulate the iso they have made

[Art]

He said it wasn't an ISO.

If that is all true, and the "replication file" is what gets sent to Sony, and is unaltered
prior to mass production, wouldn't that mean that the private key and signature algorithm
are present in the SDK software distributed to all official developers?

Or do Sony apply the finishing touch to the replication file prior to pressing the UMDs...

[Siouxsie]

Well, if Sony does give out the key, then someone could set up a fake software company, get the key, and we could have lots of nice homebrew. Unfortunately, that won't work.

[Art]

Not exactly, that fake software company has to sign an agreement and get their ass sued off if they break it.
but it does seem a risky way to do it..
I'd say they have to do the encryption at their end.

[Calum]

Yeah well im sure its an iso, if only i could find that interview, well they said basically they make the iso burn it all to a dvd, and put it in that dvd " umd " tray, play it on the "Hollow" psp, if its fine they send it off to sony to be finished up with like

[psycho]

Originally Posted by Art

He said it wasn't an ISO.
wouldn't that mean that the private key and signature algorithm
are present in the SDK software distributed to all official developers?

Or do Sony apply the finishing touch to the replication file prior to pressing the UMDs...

It's almost an ISO image. UMD discs are dual-layer discs, so here's an example of the files created by UMD Composer for a movie disc:

CONT_L0.IMG (32 KB)
MDI.IMG (2 KB)
UMD_AUTH.DAT (1 KB)
USER_L0.IMG (880 MB)
USER_L1.IMG (620 MB)

Now, the first three are little files that I haven't really explored. It's the last two that you'd be interested in. USER_L0.IMG is an 'image' of layer 0 of the UMD, and L1 is layer 1. What you have to do is concatenate these two files together, and you have your working ISO image (I tried it, it works). I guess if we are talking about a small movie or a game that's less than 900 MB or so, all you would have would be USER_L0 which by itself would be an ISO... I've only worked on the movie side of things, so I'm not 100% sure what a game replication image would look like.

Encryption on the movie discs is done by Sony at the replication facility. I'm pretty sure games work the same way... Sony isn't stupid enough to pass out their encryption key. Instead, the provide these PSP emulator computers that will play unsigned code.

As for the SDK, I believe the actual PSP SDK is a hardware/software add-on for the TOOL system (which is the huge, PS2-looking computer used to code games for the PS2). Without TOOL, you wouldn't be able to do much with it anyway... Haven't seen that in person tho, so I can't really speak from experience.

[Art]

Thanks, that is interesting info.
Well I have seen the Tool but only prior to the PSP existence, and it was
being used for PS2 game development. It's like a PC with a 'PS2 card' in it.
Apparently, software is uploaded to it over a local web page the same way we at
home would configure our ethernet modems and routers... at least that's if I heard
correctly. They have a significant price tag.

@Calum, If you find that interview, I'd like to read it.. I can't find it.

Cheers, Art.

[Machina]

ahhhh i see now phsyco, i agree. and i didnt mean that umd gen to make iso just to view what the umd is all about...never mind