Your PSP or Playstation Portable console is a miraculous little device. When Sony put the PSP together they thought they might as well make it a multimedia beast, something capable of pretty much anything and therefore a perfect companion for technology hungry gamers out there. The PSP plays movies, music, views photos, loads secondary software, and then of course plays video games. Nowadays it even plays emulated Playstation games via the Playstation 3. What Sony didn't do however was make all of its many options easy to use.
The process of putting video onto your PSP is something of a conundrum that Sony doesn't openly assist its customers with. First off, they use their own file format, something common to specific hardware, but not feasible for those looking to utilize the PSP's ability to load video from your computer onto a memory card.
So this is your dilemma - you have a PSP, a sleek black multimedia machine. You also have video files on your computer, in .Avi, .Wmv, or .Mpg format that you want to play on your PSP. Your friend tells you to plug the PSP into your computer with the USB cable he gave you and transfer the files. But they don't work do they?
That's because the PSP uses the MP4 format, a newer coding version of the mpeg videos you already have on your computer that compresses the files even smaller and uses less juice to play them, thus the use of the format on both your PSP and your video iPod. The format is solid, but it's almost never how you'll have video files on your computer. So, the first they you have to do is convert your old files into the PSP's MP4 format.
Don't panic, this is fairly simple. First thing is first - find the files you'll need. You need Apple Quicktime and a program called 3GP Video Converter. Google it and you should find a dozen different places to download it. It's a freeware, and the installer's not in English. But, you should be able to double click on it and unzip the files and be ready to go. From there, you'll be able to recognize the parts you need in English. However, if you're interested in a simpler, streamlined, American version of the same thing, you can download PSP Video 9, a slightly slower version of the same thing.
Your PSP doesn't care which one you use though, just what format the files you produce are. When you install 3GP Video Converter, set the language to English and you're set to start converting your files. So, find your file and open in it 3GP. On the menu that appears will be many different video formats to choose from. Scroll down until you find the one that says MP4 for PSP. Click on this on and press convert. That's all there is to it. Now, wait 15 to 30 minutes and you'll have your MP4 file.
The file that 3GP outputs will have a funny looking name though. For whatever reason the PSP will only play video files in the following format: M4Vxxxxx.MP4, where the five x's are any five digit number. This has to be in this format though, otherwise the file won't play on your PSP. Don't rename your files.
Once you have your video files converted, you'll need to create some folders on your PSP. You should have plugged your PSP into your computer with a USB cable. Now go to your PSP's options menu and turn USB support on. It should then show up on your computer as an external hard drive assuming you have a memory card in the machine.
Open up your PSP's memory card and you'll need to create a new directory in the root folder of your memory stick called "MP_ROOT." You'll then need to create a "100MNV01" directory inside the MP_ROOT directory. You'll put your video files in this 100MNV01 directory. It's a lot of weird letters and numbers, one of the things Sony did that doesn't quite make sense. They didn't make it impossible or even hard to do, just complicated.
Once you've put your properly formatted files in the properly named folder, you can disconnect your PSP, go to the video menu and you should be able to press play and watch those videos from your computer's hard drive in wide screen, PSP glory.
Tags: Cucusoft Zune Video Converter + DVD to Zune Suite, Cucusoft Zune Video Converter, DVD to Zune Suite, Cucusoft converter, converter, video converter, DVD converter, Zune converter, video to Zune, DVD to Zune