How to watch Beyond TV recordings on a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP)
June 17th, 2005 at 2:03 pm by Christina
With all the capabilities Sony’s PlayStation® Portable (PSPâ„¢), it was only a matter of time until this unit became more than just a gaming system. It not only lets users take games, music, videos and photos on the road, but is also an excellent portable player for TV content recorded with our Beyond TV PVR software.
In this how-to article, I’m going to walk you through the steps to get TV shows recorded with Beyond TV onto your PlayStation Portable.
First, in case you need convincing that you can watch television on a PlayStation Portable, here’s are its specs:
- High quality 4.3 inch, 16:9 widescreen TFT LCD
- Resolution - 480×272 pixels
- Displays full color (16.77 million colors)
- Plays 3D games, similar to the PlayStation® 2 console but formatted on a UMD™ (Universal Media Disc).
- Photo, music, and video playback.
- 802.11b (Wi-Fi) wireless LAN access
- USB 2.0 connector
- Supports the Memory Stick™ PRO Duo for storage of software and data.
Copying TV shows recorded with Beyond TV is really a simple three-step process:
Step 1: Record your TV content with Beyond TV 3
Step 2: Convert your recorded TV shows to MPEG-4
Step 3: Copy your shows to your PSP
Here are the details on each step:
Step 1: Record your TV content with Beyond TV 3
More on this on the Beyond TV webpage.
Step 2: Convert your recorded TV shows to MPEG-4
The PSP supports video playback in the standard H.264 MPEG-4 format. MPEG-4 is designed to deliver DVD quality video at lower data rates. This means that you don’t have to sacrifice; you can get the same quality video in a smaller size file. You may have heard of several variants of MPEG-4 like DivX® and XviD. These formats are not compatible with the PSP. Beyond TV supports the MPEG-2 video format so some transcoding is required before Beyond TV recorded shows can be played on a PSP.
Conversion Software
- PSP Video 9 - FREE!
- Sony Image Converter 2 - $19.99
- iPSP - $19.99
- Kinoma Producer 3 - $29.99
There are several applications on the Internet that convert content to MPEG-4 and copies them to your PSP. I recommend PSP Video 9 for its ease of use and price point; it’s free!
How to convert your Beyond TV 3 shows with PSP Video 9
Download:
- PSP Video 9 - This is required to convert and copy content to your PSP.
- Apple’s Quicktime (optional) - Quicktime isn’t a requirement to convert video with PSP Video 9 but it is required if you want to playback your converted content on your PC.
Now you can follow the getting started instructions for PSP Video 9 from their website and see the screenshots below for an example of recording we converted using PSP Video 9:
PSP Video 9 first screen after installation, which asks the user to connect his PSP.
The PSP Video 9 About Box.
The PSP Video 9 Setup Page.
The PSP Video 9 Convert Page
Step 3: Copy your shows to your PSP
You can copy shows to your PSP via USB 2.0 or manually with a Memory Stick reader/writer.
But first, a quick aside on Memory Stick Duo’s that are used by the PSP. You might ask yourself, “How do I store my Beyond TV recorded shows on my PSP?” The simple answer is on a Memory Stick Duo.
These”Duo” cards differ from the standard Memory Stick cards in their form factor. The Memory Stick Duo cards are 1/3 smaller than the original Memory Stick.
The PRO version of these cards are the same as the non-PRO cards, except their capacities are 256 MB or larger.
Relative Size of the Memory Stick Duo compared to other media formats.When copying via USB, PSP Video 9 makes this process easy. Simply choose the "Copy Video to PSP" option:
The PSP Video 9 Copy Page.When copying manually you must follow some guidelines.
- PSP Videos must follow the naming scheme of “M4Vxxxxx.MP4”
- PSP Video Thumnails (THM files) must be JPEGs of size 160×120 named "MV4xxxxx.THM" with the filename being the same as the video filename except for extension.
- PSP Videos must be located in the \MP_ROOT\100MNV01 directory
on the PSP.
That’s it! You are ready to watch recorded TV on your PlayStation Portable (PSP).
PSP Playback Support
During playback you are given several ways to control your video playback experience.
- Back to Beginning
- Fast Reverse (3 speeds)
- Fast Forward (3 speeds)
- Slow Motion
- Frame Advance (1 frame step)
- Play
- Pause
- Stop
- Goto specific time
- Repeat video
You can also change the screen mode (Original, Normal, Zoom, Fullscreen) and turn on the Info Display.
Video Main Menu.
Video Selection Screen showing Thumbnails.
Video Playback with a 320×240 recording.
(Original video had 16:9 content recorded in a 4:3 aspect resulting in a letterboxed recording.)
Using Zoom Screen Mode to compensate for Letterboxed Recording.
(Original video had 16:9 content recorded in a 4:3 aspect resulting in a letterboxed recording.)
Turning on the Display shows info HUD.
Video Help Screen shows button assignments.
What size files should I expect?
I took a 1 hour long TV show recording with Beyond TV 3 and converted it to MPEG-4 using various PSP Video 9 default quality profiles. The resulting file sizes are listed below. Experiment yourself to get the best quality vs. size for your PSP content.
|
Nip Tuck Original MPEG-2 Quality Settings
|
| Video FPS | Video Quality | Audio Mode | Audio Bitrate | Size |
|
29.97 fps
|
4500 kbps
|
stereo
|
224 kbps
|
2.32 GB
|
|
Nip Tuck Transcoded MPEG-4 Quality
Settings (320×240) |
| Video FPS | Video Quality | Audio Mode | Audio Bitrate | Size |
|
29.97 fps
|
1500 kbps
|
stereo
|
128 kbps
|
367 MB
|
|
29.97 fps
|
768 kbps
|
stereo
|
128 kbps
|
359 MB
|
|
29.97 fps
|
QB4
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
186 MB
|
|
29.97 fps
|
QB7
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
125 MB
|
|
29.97 fps
|
QB10
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
103 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
512 kbps
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
228 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
512 kbps
|
mono
|
48 kbps
|
208 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
384 kbps
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
206 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
384 kbps
|
mono
|
48 kbps
|
185 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
216 kbps
|
stereo
|
96 kbps
|
134 MB
|
|
15 fps
|
216 kbps
|
mono
|
48 kbps
|
114 MB
|
Conclusion
The PSP is the perfect companion to Beyond TV 3 for watching your content on the go. With the PSP you can have access to your photos, music, and video and still play all the new cutting edge video games in a very nice package.
June 18th, 2005 at 11:45 am
Check out lik-sang for a device called the GBA Move Player. It allows you to use compact flash memory in your Gameboy Advance or SP or DS to play back movies, music, pictures, and ebooks. Comes with conversion software. Just point the software at your BTV files and out come GBA files. Just got mine last week. Had it running in about 15 minutes.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
[...] fering at some point. If not, Beyond TV looks like an interesting PVR alternative. Link: SnapStream Blog Related Po [...]
June 21st, 2005 at 3:57 pm
[...] get two RSS feeds on my site with the same posts but different enclosures Read more at SnapStream Blog » Blog Archive » How t [...]
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:13 pm
I’m surprised people would use this device to watch tv, it’s just too expensive a toy for me to justify…
June 23rd, 2005 at 2:43 pm
If you have a PSP then this would be the ultimate “TOY!” It just extends the capabilities of the PSP to more than just a game player. It turns it into a device much like a portable DVD player. Those devices orginally sold for $600 a piece and now you can get a portable TV Player and game system for under $300.
June 27th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
Correction: The guide says PSP videos must follow the naming scheme of “MV4xxxxx.MP4â€?, however, the correct scheme is “M4Vxxxxx.MP4″
June 30th, 2005 at 8:05 pm
Thanks for the corrections. That was just a typo.
July 19th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
Yeah I have been doing this for a while now. (before this latest rel of BeyondTV) What disappoints me is that Snapstream has not added the PSP codec directly to the archive format menus. The fact that I have to use PSPvideo9 to convert the video is silly, I should only have to use PSPvideo9 to copy the file.
July 19th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
What are some typical transcode times for a 2 hour MPEG2 movie at high resolution using PSP Video 9 on a P4 2gig?
July 20th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
Why not drop PSP Video 9 all together and just make the PSP another recording folder… There are also ways to detecting which drive its plugged into, so BTV could detect this itself.
-G
August 13th, 2005 at 12:53 pm
yeah um………..its very hi tech and i love watching my favorite t.v. shows on the road >_
August 15th, 2005 at 10:47 am
y dont u create a tv tuner for PSP?
more pple will get it though
August 21st, 2005 at 8:24 pm
PSP Video Express is also free. The advantage is that you can set the target output size before conversion and video thumbnail can be easily captured anywhere in the middle.
September 29th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
Very helpful thanx
October 5th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
Is there a way to get full native resolution PSP (480×272) playback using memory stick videos and PSP firmware v2.0 which is supposed to support the H.264 AVC codec now?
April 26th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
i dont know about uall but i found and bought my video converter for psp by http://www.codejunkies.com cost me only 50$ plus they got cool goodies the converter came with a 128 mb card worth price. also i use morpheus to download movies and music and have the converter to put it on the psp(yes the converter also lets u place music in files and so forth to put on the psp. http://www.morpheus.com download the free version and search for music and videos or whatever with it. take care and have fun =)
April 27th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
Just use Windows Media encoder with the Live TV option. Save the video and then convert with PSP9.
I just save you $$$.
Beyond tv is a resource hog.
November 7th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
[...] SIF- Full D1 Kinoma Producer 3 ($29) turns your desktop digital media files into Kinoma and MPEG-4 movies for playback on almost any Palm Powered handheld with Kinoma Player 3 or Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP). Here’s how to get TV onto a PlayStation Portable. Podcasting with iTunes 4.9 is free. It’s easy. Photostories and video clips may soon tag along. The New York Times knows how to do this. It’s not rocket science. I don’t know how else to put it…newspaper execs are fools. They don’t know anything. They can’t imagine the future. Their assets walk out of the door every night. Some won’t be coming back. They’ve got 3-5 years. Tops. [...]
March 1st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Well, people. I can honestly say reading this has been the most pointless thing I’ve done in weeks… I discovered PSP Video 9 about a week ago, very carefully followed the instructions HERE (AND within atleast half a dozen chatrooms-All giving more or less the same information & instructions) & no matter what I try: the vid either appears on my PSP; nameless, named but with “M4Vxxxxx.MP4″, pictureless, OR (most re-occuringly) the audio starts playing between 5 to 10 seconds AFTER the video starts playing (and the video SEEMS to be playing ever so slightly faster than normal). I *hope* this error is due to the fact that the media file was originally a wmv file before PSP Video 9 converted it into a simple MPEG-4. COULD this be the case? Also, I’m not the only one to have experienced these same results. A young kid I know got the PSP about a month after me & wanted to know how to transfer an episode of “SpongeBong HempPants”(a parody of “SpongeBob SquarePants”) onto his PSP (each episode is 3 minutes long, max.) but he too was unsuccessful. PLEASE could anyone offer some *useful*, working advice?
Thanks to any helpful replies.
- Ollie
October 21st, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Now that 4.7 and the plugin are out, can this be updated? It would be nice to be able to just copy the h264 encoded files to a memory stick but the funny naming will prevent that. It would be cool for us non-iPod owners to have an easy way to get files on the PSP. Any ideas?
Sheldon