PSP and video
hero character
recently got myself a PSP, mainly intended as a portable video device for carrying around work-previews, demoreel and for misc. stuff. not really wanting to play games on it.
anyway, i was wondering if anyone of you have tried the various PC->PSP video encoding tools? i'm trying to figure out a workflow to avoid recompression as much as possible. i'd rather feed still image sequences straight from the compositor into the encoder to lose as little image quality as possible.
however, is it only my impression or do all the encoders REQUIRE an audio track to be present or else you will get all sorts of misleading error messages?
in that case (never had anything to do with audio editing at all) i assume it's possible to record an "empty" dummy audio-file and use that to fill up the audio track?
can't find that kind of info on the net. i can understand that one would want to have audio on ripped movie dvd's and porn though and therefore few ever stumbled over that issue
anyway, i was wondering if anyone of you have tried the various PC->PSP video encoding tools? i'm trying to figure out a workflow to avoid recompression as much as possible. i'd rather feed still image sequences straight from the compositor into the encoder to lose as little image quality as possible.
however, is it only my impression or do all the encoders REQUIRE an audio track to be present or else you will get all sorts of misleading error messages?
in that case (never had anything to do with audio editing at all) i assume it's possible to record an "empty" dummy audio-file and use that to fill up the audio track?
can't find that kind of info on the net. i can understand that one would want to have audio on ripped movie dvd's and porn though and therefore few ever stumbled over that issue
Replies
JK I know the gpx is cool and all that but hes already got the psp..
*runs and hides*
I remember walking past their store last year near oxford circus in london. Very glam and flashy, they even had a new car in there for some reason. My only thought was "this will flop!". Played some snow boarding game at 2 fps which then crashed.
Low and behold, they are now 5 million quid in debt. All management resigned becuse they were proven to be convicted criminals. What a turkey.
GP32X seems like a good buy, but hell a samsung phone can do that now. Get one on contract and it's next to free! The GPx2 is coming out soon.
Theres always PSP2TV if you get desperate and gogle now offer a psp video service.
Well it turns out I was wrong but I did find out that someone made it so you can play flash movies on the psp. I forget if you can embeded a movie file into a swf file but since the PSP only has 32 megs of ram that idea might be well stupid. But maybe you can burn it to a disc and it would work. In theory you could make an app in flash that plays your video sequence but the file size might be an issue unless you can add memory cards to the psp, but I just skimmed through the different pages and down't own a PSP so I really have no clue.
As for the video encoding from what I read it seems pretty straight forward.
I seems you can download codecs for the pc that let you write and read the MP4 format. If that is the case you can render out a movie file directly from max or whatever 3d app you use in that codec. In theory anyway. I just looked up all the extra codecs I have installed on my machine and my 3d apps says it can output to them.
Oh to avoid the recompression issue altogether render out your avi without any compression the first time and then convert that huge file to the MP4 format. Later. Oh if I'm totally wrong sorry, I guess it means I'm an idiot.
Alex
If he bought his PSP recently the firmware is too new for that.
And you probably mean stuffing it on a memstick because UMDs aren't writeable.
Alex
There also a homebrew psp app that lets you play divx files off your memory card.
Oh, and I think the Sony 2 Gig cards just came out.
At first I thought "showing love" would be some limit, referring to the Hot Coffee debacle...
so for the time being i'm forced to use the builtin media player but i guess the hacks will come back sooner or later.
it's really a pity how sony tries to prevent people from using their devices to the fullest extend, isn't it? looking forward to being able to run a neo geo emulator with the complete metal slug series on this puppy one day
anyway on the topic of movie encoding the problem really seems to be that all those movie encoders (i tried psp video 9 first, then switched to 3gp encoder which at least was more verbose when errors happened) internally just call the freeware ffmpeg-encoder and feed it the necessary command line options. which unfortunately in all cases seem to include audio stuff.
so what i'll do next is to try to run ffmpeg from the commandline but without the audio switches. nothing is more annoying than having audio snippets on short, loopable cg clips.
as for video types i think you can already use a variety of codecs, but these have to be wrapped into a container format that the PSP builtin player will accept.
For instance, if you buy the "Gigapack" (psp & 1 gig mem card for $299.99), as I did, it comes with the 2.0 firmware, which can be downgraded to 1.5 using a photo exploit widely available online. This makes all homebrew and emulators run perfectly, and can also be bounced back and forth between 2.0 in under a minute. (So you can still play GTA, and Socom)
The only problems come in if you update beyond 2.0, as the newer games are requiring.
Which is a real kick in the crotch, becuase I would have bought Street Fighter Alpha 3 in a heartbeat if it did not require 2.5 to run.
Also, as far as converting video, I have tried several different apps, and the "Psp Movie Creator" is my favorite so far. It will input just about anything, and will output directly to the psp in the correct format (Mp4).
Not to mention it seems lightning fast according to the others I have tried. I have encoded entire movies from divx to mp4 in under an hour, and the quality is surprisingly good.
But, it should be mentioned that firmware again plays a role, newer upgrades allow for different video formats I have been told. (Not just Mpeg4)
GP32X seems like a good buy, but hell a samsung phone can do that now. Get one on contract and it's next to free! The GPx2 is coming out soon.
Theres always PSP2TV if you get desperate and gogle now offer a psp video service.
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Got a GP2X already, but you are right the 'official' launch should be soon, but you can get one right now if you don't mind a buggy firmware. But the picture you posted is quite old since there is no white version (just a black one).
It is a sweet machine, and I will probably do a review for the polycounters when it is launched officially
Oh and isn't that PSP2TV that crappy camera that you attach to your screen to output it on TV? -> Worst idea evar.
seems, hacking the PSP and running a player that handles more common formats and can playback at native resolution is the way to go if one want's to avoid ugly recompression.
the common freeware tools are totally lacking, definitely.
the PSP's builtin restrictions to help sell UMD's are totally hilarious so far. i'll keep these methods in mind for if i ever come around considering a PS3.
for my tests i've used 3GP with the mp4 codec at 1500kbps bitrate. looks slick, except for minor blockiness in low-constrast areas. i expect the more recent AVC codec to do a better job at this but it seems it's not widely available as of yet.
image quality is far superior to the horrible stuff that comes out of this encoder (or psp video 9) by default since you're no longer forced to encode the same footage twice.
that will do it for now! i'm off to build myself a little pipeline now.