PSP codec questions.

[kevindenoyette]

I often wondered, with all the people getting excited over the memorystick media capabilities and such, if the playstation portable even supports the proper playback of media files off this stick.
I heard somewhere that it doesn't support mp3. ok, so we'll need software to convert songs from mp3 to atrac, that's not a very big deal.
However, i also read that it will only be able to read video files off the UMD, excluding memorystick video entirely. Anyone knows anything about this, this has been bugging me for a while.

[Sockatume]

No announcement's been made about whether it'll play video off memory stick, but The Infamous Phil Harrison Edge Interview had him yabbering on about downloading video at a wi-fi hotspot to memory stick, so presumably it'll happen in some form (even if it's only paid-for content).

I expect that a company like Datel will release a UMD which plays back a wider range for formats (MP3, DivX, etc.) from the memory stick, whatever happens.

[raVen]

I think I heard somewhere that If you load and Mp3 onto a memory stick the Psp will convert it (quickly) and then play it, but that was probably just speculation.

Hopefully the Psp will come with software for you to convert Mp3 to atrac with.

[alternate_ending]

you can download sonicstage for free and convert mp3s through that...

[raVen]

Im gonna start converting now...

[kevindenoyette]

Like i said, mp3's aren't a problem. The problem is the video stuff i think, what if the codec only supports UMD format? we'd all be fucked.

[aaronaja]

The video codec is MPEG4. Any video on the UMD would be in MPEG4. Anything that is in MPEG4 on a memorystick can be played on the PSP.

[Kiwi]

And any other Sony device that supports Memory Sticks for that matter, including:

http://www.schottenhandy.de/bilder/p900.jpg

Sony Ericsson P900

http://productimages.sony-europe.com/dcr_ip1_r1_im.jpg

Sony MicroMV

[kevindenoyette]

well...mpeg4? isn't that high quality video, the successor of mpeg2? I don't have any files on my pc that have that extension, so i hope they have some solution for this.

[Kiwi]

Yea, MPEG-4 is the next step from MPEG-2. MPEG-3 was created especially for HDTV, but they found that MPEG-2 also works with HDTV, so the two were just merged together.

I don't know whether it is used that much to be honest, but I know that my phone (shown above) plays MPEG-4 movies, and they're of a pretty decent quality.

[kevindenoyette]

well, is the mpeg 4 codec compatible with the previous mpeg's? Reason for asking is my camcorder records onto the memorystick in mpeg format, but i dunno which version, do you think it would be compatible?

[Kiwi]

Do you mean will previous versions play on MPEG-4 devices?

I think so, though don't take my word for it.

[alternate_ending]

I'm pretty sure almost all DivX movies are MPEG-4. I used to have a MPEG-4 player, and every divx movie i got worked perfectly.

[chmod]

It's important to remember that the MPEG4 standard has several video compression codecs in it, it's more of a collection of codecs than a codec in itself. Divx is indeed mpeg4, but mpeg4 layer 1 (H.263). The psp will use Mpeg4 part 10 (also referred to as H.264/AVC), which is a superior codec.

If you'd like to see a comparison of the codec the PSP is using versus other codecs.. go here

http://www.moonlight.co.il/down_video_compare.php

this company has an h.264 player for windows, as well as some sample trailers in different formats.. click on the link on the upper right hand side of the screen to download the demo player and take a look for yourselves

Edited by Matt.