What Format Does a Video Have to Be for PSP?
By Moriah Chesler
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a hand-held video game device developed by Sony Corporation in 2003. Its main features are its large console screen, multimedia support, compatibility with other PlayStations and Internet connectivity. Besides playing games, you can utilize the PSP for watching videos. The PSP supports many video and movie file formats.
MemoryStick (TM)
Sony made a portable flash memory card called MemoryStick (TM) in 1998. The latest MemoryStick (TM) product, the Memory Stick XC series, is capable of 2 terabytes of storage capacity. However, Sony PSP recommends the 2- to 8-gigabyte (GB) Memory Stick Micro M2 (TM) for its PSP 1000/2000/3000 system. The MemoryStick (TM) supports H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard, as well as the MPEG-4 AAC audio compression standard.
MP4
MP4, or MPEG-4 Part 14, is a multimedia container format for audio, video and text. It is an extension of the QuickTime movie format, developed by Apple Computer. Like the MemoryStick (TM), the Sony PSP is capable of playing MP4s supporting the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard and the MPEG-4 AAC audio compression standard.
AVI
Developed by Microsoft, Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is another multimedia container format for both audio and video. An AVI file can contain data in any compression format, including Motion JPEG, Editable JPEG, QPEG and Cinepak. However, the only AVI compression format supported on the PSP at this time is Motion JPEG. Motion JPEG is a compression scheme where each video frame is compressed separately as a JPEG image.
UMD (TM)
The Universal Media Disc (UMB) is Sony's proprietary optical disc format, specifically designed for the PSP. On a single-layer, the UMD can hold up to 900 megabytes of data. On a dual-layer, its storage doubles to 1.8 GB. The UMD's large storage is designed for games, videos and audio. The UMD uses the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression standard with Sony's proprietary ATRAC3plus audio compression scheme.
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Writer Bio
Moriah Chesler began writing professionally in 1989. She started as a software engineer documenting projects and company products. She has also contributed to the "Joomla!" community magazine, blogged for Teach Me Programming and JoomlaIsrael.net and authored several e-books on Bible vocabulary. Chesler has a Bachelor of Engineering from Dartmouth College and a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and electrical engineering from Smith College.