I’ve commented in the past that I perhaps don’t share Sony’s vision of the PSP as the de facto standard for portable video, not least because nobody in their right mind is going to buy UMD movies when they’re only playable on the PSP and I’m certainly not because they’re not in their OAR, but Bandai may have cracked the way to make them a success, albeit still on a far more limited basis than other, more mainstream, formats.

According to Engadget they’re going to be releasing a special set for anime series Eureka 7 which will have the standard DVD package, but for ¥1,260 (£6.16) extra you can get the same thing with another copy of the series on UMD. Obviously exchange rates have to be accounted for, but I’d pay £10 or so more for a movie that I really liked in order to own it on both formats. I’ve seen Spider-Man 2 on it so I know how much better the UMD movies can look than the low-bitrate MP4 files that a DVD rip would give and although this wouldn’t increase the liklihood of me repurchasing my DVD collection on UMD I’d definitely consider it for new releases.