Even though there's been all kinds of doom and gloom about the future of the UMD movie format, with a lot of the major studios largely bailing on UMD, we were kinda heartened to get a pre-E3 press release from Silver Platter, who bill themselves as 'the indie UMD label'.

There's a good recent interview with the founders on the Video Business website, in which it's noted: "The Venice, Calif.-based company thinks core PSP consumers will eat up the 35 titles it’s releasing this year on UMD, the PSP’s format. The line primarily consists of extreme sports discs priced relatively low at $17.95." Title include neat skate vid The DC Video and the amusingly named Teddybear Crisis snowboarding vid.

Also: "Further underscoring its faith in PSP titles, Silver Platter is opening a 1,000-square-foot retail outlet near its Venice headquarters. Dubbed UMD Lab, the store will hold 50 to 75 UMD titles, including its own and major studio offerings. PSP hardware, accessories and game software also will be sold. A Wi Fi-equipped gaming lounge will let customers test the wares." Whoa... hopefully, margins will be good enough to bring all kinds of weirdness to UMD - like 8-track!