I love my Sony PlayStation Portable, which turns 1 year old on Friday. It boasts more than100 games ($20 to $40 each) that get better all the time (Must-haves include new releases “Daxter,” “Syphon Philter: Dark Mirror” and the still-good “Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories). It has about 350 movies and TV shows (“Chappelle’s Show: Season 1” makes bus rides bearable). And it stores music and photos, as well as surfs the Web via your home wireless network (psp.connect.com has details) or Wi-Fi hot spots (JiWire.com will find one near you).
Sony has sold more than 15 million PSPs worldwide, and now you can buy one for $199.99. A lot of great accessories are available such as Datel’s 4 gigabyte hard drive/battery pack makes your PSP bulkier but holds so much stuff ($250; datel.co.uk); Pinnacle’s Studio Version 10.5 helps you edit your home movies and store them on a PSP Memory Stick ($49.99 with limited-time $20 mail-in rebate; pinnaclesys.com).
In coming weeks, we’ll help you get the most out of the complicated but remarkable PSP.
ACCESSORIES
SKINS
Skins are stickers shaped like the front and back of your PSP. Create them online, and wait three or four days for them to arrive by mail. Slap ’em on to give your black beauty a distinctive look.
DecalGirl.com – Use Photoshop to design your own skin for your PSP.
CellFan.com – Choose from pro sports teams such as the Chicago Bulls.
SkinIt.com – Upload your digital photo or other art to create a personalized skin.
WATCH IT ON TV – KINDA
The PSP has no video outputs, so you can’t hook it up to a television and play games with your friends. If you could do that, how could Sony sell you a PlayStation 2 or a PS3?
Two companies have come up with a clunky way to do that.
PSP on TV ($39.95; PSPonTV.com) and Play on TV ($70; Nyko.com) are basically tiny cameras that sit on top of your PSP’s screen and transmit the pictures to your television via RCA cables. Image quality is fuzzy and dark around the edges, as you can imagine when you transmit high-definition PSP action to your standard-resolution TV screen. But for watching PSP action with friends on a big screen, these two are the only game in town.
CAMERA AND GPS
This fall, Sony plans to bring out a camera and a GPS receiver (No price or availability date has been set for either). Expect EyeToy-style games that put your face on game characters’ bodies and games that change their, say, weather conditions based on your location. But don’t expect to see a lot of titles from developers other than Sony. How many EyeToy games for the PS2 can you name that haven’t been made by the software/hardware giant?
VIDEO
The PSP has the best screen of any handheld game machine, but you can watch more than games. You’ll need:
– A Memory Stick Duo or Memory Stick Pro Duo (at least 512 megabytes, but 1 gigabyte is better. Expect to pay $60 to $120, depending on the memory stick’s capacity and where you buy it _ online is cheaper than electronics stores).
– A computer with a USB port.
– A mini-USB cable (also called an A-B USB cable. They’re around $7 at electronics stores.).
– Conversion software (not necessary, but it helps. See below.).
Put the Memory Stick in your PSP and connect the PSP to your computer using the USB cable. On the PSP’s main screen, scroll all the way left to the toolbox icon, then scroll down to “USB Connection.” Hit the X button twice, and the Memory Stick’s contents will appear on your computer.
To see video on the PSP, you must: Name a video clip “MAQ*****.mp4, (where each asterisk is a number from 0 to 9).
Open the “MP_ROOT” folder, open the “101ANV01” and put the video clip here. If you can’t see your video, put it in the “101MNV01” folder.
CONVERSION SOFTWARE
The PSP sees only video that’s in the MP4 format. MP4 is one of many ways to shrink video so that it can fly quickly around the Internet. Other formats – WMV, AVI, etc. – do the same thing, but the PSP understands only MP4. To make sure the PSP can play your video, you’ll need software that converts video to MP4. These programs that do just that: PSPWare – ($15; NullRiver.com) PSP Video 9 – (Free; PSPvideo9.com). We prefer PSP Video 9 because it converts more formats than the others, but it can confuse novices.
Media Boss – ($19.95-$29.95; mediafour.com). We like this a lot. Of the converters that you have to buy, it’s the easiest and the most versatile. Try the free trial version.
PSP Media Manager – ($19.95; sonymediasoftware.com). Elegant and beautiful, PSP Media Manager doesn’t convert enough formats to make it a winner.
GameShark Media Manager – ($14.99; madcatz.com). It’s not our favorite, but it does help you keep track of your GameShark cheat codes that help you have more fun with your PSP games.
FINDING VIDEO
Add software from Veoh (free; veoh.com) so you can upload your own video and download other people’s videos in PSP and other formats (Before looking for a comedy short or other video to watch, click “Advanced Search,” then scroll down and click “Compatible with PSP.”) Guba ($14.95 a month, guba.com) searches Usenet, a worldwide community bulletin board, of sorts, where people post videos. (Guba doesn’t control Usenet; it only lets you look at it, so Guba isn’t responsible for the adult material, copyright violations and other bad stuff along with the good posted on Usenet).
Neuros Technology’s MPEG-4 Recorder 2 ($149.99; neurostechnology.com) is a small device that records video from your VCR or DVD player directly to your Memory Stick. Pop the stick into your PSP and start watching. Go to video.Google.com and search among nearly 180,000 video clips, ranging from short movies, to commercials, to home video. Watch the video on your computer, and if you want to save it, look for a “Download” button. If there’s one, click on the window next to it and choose “Sony PSP.” Once the video is on your computer, rename it *****.mp4 (where the asterisks are digits from 0 to 9) and copy the file to the MP_ROOT101ANVo1 folder of your PSP’s memory stick.
