There seems to be a lot of information out there in random places for PSP video encoding. I’m going to try to consolidate the links I’ve found so far. Let me know if you run across other useful information:
PSPVideo9 - One stop video conversion program.
Transcoding from DVD to PSP.
Sharpening your final output (Nice overall results, though I’d imagine high compression will decimate the end effect again.)
That’s all I have for now, really. I’ll edit in other stuff as people add it.
Okay, it’s a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I just did up a little media guide on ExtremeTech dealing with pics, music, and movies on PSP.
It should walk everyone through the basics, and list a few gotchas and stuff.
Since Jason popped the SSP cherry, here’s my round-up, minus any actual instructions: http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/psp/sony-playstation-portable-psp-omegapost-036821.php
Nice comprehensive beginners guides, guys, but not very much info on specifics of good/better video encoding alas.
Quick question, Jason? Is ATRAC literally only writeable with the sony program? And is there any reason to prefer it (better sound fidelity per MB than MP3 or somesuch?)
If anyone’s interested, newegg.com seems to have Sony Pro Duo 512MB cards for $72, shipped free, with a $15 mail-in rebate, in stock.
thanks for the tips, Jason – I’d created a /photo directory on the root of my memory stick and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. I also noticed the low volume when converting video – I’ll have to experiment with that as well as the image-sharpening software.
I actually do have some specifics about the video ecoding settings and such. Basically, all the tools out there appear to be usings the same encoder (ffmpeg), so pick the front-end you like best. Some stuff about resolutions, bitrates, and frame rates are in the guide I linked.
AFAIK, the Sony tool is the only one that does ATRAC3, and yes, ATRAC3 Plus tends to be a bit better than MP3 at lower bitrates. I think the PSP is capable of playing back MPEG4-AAC as well, but possibly only as part of a video file - not in the “Music” directory. Someone with more time than me should double check that. :)
sluggo - that software doesn’t really sharpen images, it just scales them to a maximum of 480 pixels wide, so you don’t scroll so much. On really large images, the PSP scrolls a low-res version of the image, and then takes a few seconds to “res in” that part of the image, making it all sharp and purty. It can be annoying, and it seems like something a firmware update could really help out with (cache the image to PSP’s RAM instead of pulling off the memory stick so much).
I downloaded and installed PSPVideo9 but when I try to launch it I get an immediate error – “the application failed to initialize properly” – any idea what could be causing this problem?
EDIT: I found the solution on the PSP forums. Just encoded my first video onto the PSP, it was an absolute snap. This thing is fucking brilliant.
psp video 9 seems to work ok. I have one issue though. If I try and crop out the black bars in anamorphic material then the aspect is all out of wack and people are streched thin.