Pros of watching videos on a PSP
Watching video on PSP
A PSP video is not really a rocket science to be understood… (As I thought it to be…)! It is the same old movie that you have seen on your personal computer or your lappe. The only difference is that it has a different format and is formatted in a special disc known as Universal Media Disc (UMD). Speaking of the size of the disc, I was amazed by it. Three inches in diameter, the disc as the same price as its DVD counterparts.
A PSP device is today small enough to be carried to different places. Well, I do carry my PSP to places and I really enjoy this small device. Though it is small, it comparatively has a widescreen LCD that is enough for watching a full length movie prerecorded in a UMD. UMDs are very high capacity devices for storage. They also deliver high quality graphics. I myself have over 200 UMD movies however, you can have more (up to 430-now that is a big number).
Cons
There are certain shortcomings of the PSP movies. The UMDs cannot be played in standard DVD players in your home. However, you can actually connect your PSP to your DVD player. Yet again, if you break you PSP, the UMDs are good for nothing. The other aspect that I hate most about the PSP is that it can play only one single format of videos. The format is known as MPEG-4, H.264. If you download some movie to your PSP, it has to be of the format MPEG-4. If not, it will simply not play the movie.
I was fooled a couple of times and trust me, it is quite annoying and frustrating. For this reason, you will simply have to convert the format of the video to the format that is acceptable by the PSP. You need to have a software for that and you may have to buy the software! Once you have the software installed on your computer, you can download a movie in any format, convert it to MPEG-4, and then transfer the movie to your PSP. This really bores me because it is quite time consuming.
If your taste of movies is different, the PSP may not be a smart choice for you. This is because; the video options for your PSP are quite limited. Sony is however, trying to change the situation. The hidden PSP page of Sony’s Connect service has a dozen of free clips in MPEG-4 format that you can download for this sexy device.
PSP Video 9
The PSP Video 9 is software, which helps in converting different video formats into MPEG-4 format, which is compatible with the PSPs. This software is free and is capable of converting all known video formats like divx, xvid, avi, x264, flv, vob, mkv, mpeg and many more into the supported video format. However, the major problem with this software is that it is plagued! Ahhh… don’t be afraid! I wanted to mean that it is full of rampant advertisements and I really hate that! The way the ads are included here is quite irritating and interferes too much with interface navigation. Though I found that the conversion rate is fine but the pop up boxes coming up are bare distinguishable from the ads surrounding them!
The good part of this software is that it is available in various languages and is capable of automatically installing the correct localized version of the Microsoft CLR! Well, I liked this function of the software but still I recommend that you must use this software as the last resort.