Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Any Sony Playstation Portable experts here? (Video format question)

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Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-10-2016, 06:11 AM:

I have just repaired a PSP for a neighbour's daughter, and replaced the original 2 GB memory stick with two 16 GB micro SD cards in an adapter; all working fine.

She wants to play video from the 'memory stick'. I've tried lots of different formats, but it won't play any of them.

She has some Windows software which was never installed, still sealed, it has no documentation, not even a help menu. It rejects any format that I've tried feeding into it. The software is RaPiZ Video Converter.

Tried looking on Google, several suggestions, which either recommend software which no longer exists, or doesn't work.

If I shoot some video with the PSP camera it plays ok, and the label on it says it is a motion JPEG, which surprised me. Windows shows the container as being an AVI file containing motion JPEG.

Does anybody know exactly what is required for video to play on the PSP?

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 07-10-2016, 08:21 AM:

The PSP uses the same or similar XMB as the PS3 and it natively supports: MPEG-2 TS (M2TS), AVI, and MP4 (h.264).

If you are trying to play any of these types of files and they are not showing up on the XMB, the most common reason why is that Sony requires video files to be in a specific folder and location. On your memory stick that you are trying to play your files from, you need a folder on the root of the drive called /VIDEO (and yes it has to be capitalized, because Sony). You have to put your video files into that folder or the XMB won't even see them.

Another reason that video files don't show up is that they are an unsupported format or codec. The most popular video container is called .MKV and there is a great little free program called PS3 Muxer and it will extract your MKV files into the PSP/3 supported format (M2TS).

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-10-2016, 01:50 PM:

Mike, Thanks for your reply. I worked in I.T. for 25 years, but gaming systems are a totally foreign language to me. All I know is that there is a huge range of different models, and different ones, even from the same manufacturer, tend to be incompatible.

Is the 'TS' in your reply Transport Stream? I know that DVDs support MPEG Program Stream but not Transport Stream, but I'm not really sure what the difference is.

What is the XMB?

What resolution does the video need to be in? I think the PSP screen is 277x480, but when a 2000 or 3000 series is connected to an external monitor it outputs standard NTSC 480x720. Is the video stored as standard resolution, or is it stored as 277x480 and the PSP is upscaling it?

The device is back with its owner at the moment so I can't look at it again until next weekend.

Posted by Mike Schulz (Member # 4297) on 07-10-2016, 08:34 PM:

quote: Stephen Furley
Is the 'TS' in your reply Transport Stream? I know that DVDs support MPEG Program Stream but not Transport Stream, but I'm not really sure what the difference is.

It supports both, yes. M2PS and M2TS

quote: Stephen Furley
What is the XMB?

XMB is Sony's operating system and user interface. You will see some version of it on any Sony device you get nowadays whether it be a gaming system or a standalone Bluray player.

quote: Stephen Furley
What resolution does the video need to be in? I think the PSP screen is 277x480, but when a 2000 or 3000 series is connected to an external monitor it outputs standard NTSC 480x720. Is the video stored as standard resolution, or is it stored as 277x480 and the PSP is upscaling it?

You are correct in that 480x272 is the native resolution of the PSP screen so not matter what you are viewing on the device itself, that is the maximum you will see. I personally don't have a PSP so I'm gathering this information myself from my own exploring and also with past experience with using my PS3 as a media server. Apparently 720x480 is the maximum resolution that you can actually playback on the device's screen itself, however, I believe that if you had a 720p video and then connected the PSP to external monitor, it would display the correct resolution (or possibly 720x480 if that is the hard cap of the GPU). I also read somewhere that the highest bitrate it supports is only 768kbps which is significantly lower than my PS3.

I've done some quick googling and found 2 or 3 video converter software that is tailored specifically for PSP output so no matter what type of video resolution/codec you have, the program will transcode/encode to what the PSP will support natively. That might be the way to go if you are having issues getting videos to play using the information from my first reply.