Anchor Bay backs UMD with six films

Independent home entertainment company Anchor Bay has announced plans to release six films on Sony's Universal Media Disc (UMD) format for PlayStation Portable - with more to come.

This August 23rd in the USA, best-selling horror films Halloween and Evil Dead along with Time Bandits will be released, along with a trio of Manga titles - Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire and Ninja Scroll.

All six titles have a suggested retail price of $19.98.

"The format has done well in its early stages," Anchor Bay's senior vice president of sales Ray Gagnon said in a statement. "Our demographics match up very nicely with those of the PSP adapter and as such, we are confident our films will be successful on the UMD format. This slate is only the beginning from our company."

Anchor Bay is just the latest of many companies to back - or at least trial - UMD as a mechanism for the distribution of digital film content, with major studios including Fox and Buena Vista having recently announced plans.

Sony has even managed to attract the interest of pornographers in Japan, although the company recently distanced itself from that content, which it described as "utterly undesirable".