How to Put Videos on a PSP

One of the best things about the Sony PSP is that you can put videos onto the hard drive very easily. Once the videos are on the device, you can watch them anywhere. Here are several methods of putting videos on your PSP.

Downloaded Videos and Movies

There are a number of services that provide video and public domain movie downloads that the PSP can play. These services are usually free of charge and provide a massive selection of videos with formats compatible with the PSP. Some video download websites can even pull videos from popular sites such as YouTube or similar streaming video websites.

How to Watch YouTube on PSP

Users can watch YouTube videos on their PSP in the same way they watch videos on their PlayStation at home. Although the PSP does not support FLV files, there are a number of third party applications that automatically convert YouTube files to a variety of other formats without downloading any files to the PSP. For example, Go!Tube and PSPTube allow users to watch YouTube videos via their own browsers, whereas IMTOO YouTube To PSP Converter allows users to pre-convert YouTube videos into a variety of other formats then transfer them to a PSP.

The process  can also be done with a service like KeepVid (http://keepvid.com), which simply asks users to provide the proper URL to the source video from YouTube or another streaming video location. The user should then click on the “run” button and choose the format for PSP videos (MP4). The file is collected and processed for direct download to the hard disk. There are usually two available options: High Quality at 480X360 pixels or High Definition at 1280×720 pixels. Video quality is chosen based on the amount of storage space on the PSP or memory card.

Note: For the connection to be made and video quality assessed and generated, the user must use a Java compatible browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. The browser should also have the latest version of Java.

The downloaded files should be placed into the correct folder on the storage device or on the PSP. Services that offer the video downloads tend to be usable in the proper folders based on their quality output. Standard to high quality videos can be placed in the “MP_ROOT” folder under the appropriate folders – “100MNV01“  for MP4  format and  “100ANV01“  for AVC  format if necessary.

Properly named files, such as “M4Vxxxxx.MP4″ where the xxxxx is a number from 00001-99999, are designed to go into the 100MNV01 folder. Those with AVC formats are named “MAQxxxxx.MP4″ where xxxxx is a number between 00001-99999. This should be placed in the “100ANV01″ folder. Other options should be placed in their appropriate folders to be able to work correctly with the PSP. The options that are available on Sony devices can be placed in the proper “VIDEO” folder under the root folder.

There are a number of services that can convert videos. Sony offers a complete suite that provides all of the tools necessary to convert and place videos onto any type of PSP, even the PSP Go. The software is known as Media Go and is available at (http://us.playstation.com/mediamanager/). It is free and provides access to any Sony products that support music, video, and photo content that can be converted and stored on the device. This is done through the program when the console or the storage device is connected to the computer via the appropriate ports.

If a PC does not support the Media Go option, an option that is available as freeware is PSP Video 9 at (http://pspvideo9.com).  Microsoft Windows Operating Systems and Mac OS X support it. This provides greater flexibility for video conversion, allowing more videos and movies to be compatible with the PSP. The software is very similar to the Media Go option from Sony. The software from PSP Video 9 has a variety of options to choose from and can convert nearly every type of media into the PSP formats.

The one thing that alternative software users need to remember is the fact that the software may not provide the extra steps to get the video working on the PSP. Similar to downloaded videos and movies, converted files need to be placed in the appropriate folders through the following process:

Converted files need to be placed into the correct folder on the storage device or the PSP so that they can be played on the PSP. Software that converts video sources from unsupported formats tend to be usable in the proper folders based on their quality output. Standard to high quality videos can be placed in the “MP_ROOT” folder under the appropriate folders of “100MNV01” for MP4 format and “100ANV01” for AVC  format if necessary. Files properly named “M4Vxxxxx.MP4″ where xxxxx is a number from 00001-99999, are designed to go into the 100MNV01 folder while AVC files are named “MAQxxxxx.MP4″ where xxxxx is a number between 00001-99999 and should be placed into the “100ANV01″ folder.