Sony PSP Survival Guide (The Facts, Links, How-TOs… What you need to know.)

The Sony PSP is coming out on Thursday. Here’s what you need to know. (props to Greg for sending me a PSP from Japan. Thanks dude!)

Software Links…

- Windows Users: Engadget tells how to rip movies to your PSP. (Mac Users: I have a blurb about this below.)
- Win/Mac: iPSP syncs your Music/Photos/Video onto your PSP. However, the video feature didn’t work for me, and I though the overall program was lousy. It got my music onto my PSP but most of it was corrupted. (that might have been my fault, though) Also, the interface kept glitching out. (Shareware, $20)
- Mac: PSPware is an AWESOME application for PSP-syncing on the Macintosh. It’s like iPSP, but half the price and actually works.

- Win/Mac: XLink Kai lets you daisy chain your PSP through your PC or Mac’s compatible wireless card and play online with others. Check it out.
- UPDATE: Here’s a direct link to how to set this up on your Mac once you have it installed: http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9544

- Windows: Here’s an article with information about how to transfer your ‘Tivo-To-Go’ files to your PSP. Check it out.

- Engadget has some information on Web Browsing on your PSP. It seems the PSP OS (Firmware) has a built-in browser! Slick.

- Lt.Ping alerted me to his detailed WiFi Setup Guide for the PSP on the Playstation Forums. Check it out here.

Battery Life. The Sony PSP is rumored to have terrible battery life. However, Sony has taken steps to remedy this problem in their software. First, Wi-Fi can be toggled on and off, and also has a power-save mode. The screen auto-dims and turns off after a period of inactivity, as well. Also, the PSP can be put to sleep by casually switching the system off and on using the power switch… and you’re brought right back to where you were before! (in a game, in the menus, etc.) To power the console off completely, hold the power switch for a second or two and the system should shut-off completely.

NOTE: All PSPs ship from the factory with an AC Adapter and rechargable battery, unless otherwise marked.

Memory Sticks. Since the system is ONLY being sold as a bundle right now, everybody gets a 32MB Memory Stick DUO Pro with their console. This is MORE than enough for Saved Games, and can even handle a few songs or pictures, but if you’re hoping to put Movies or a few albums on your portable, you’ll have to shop for a larger chip.

There’s a base-price you pay for each chip, and the upgrade to a larger chip is usually worth it. 512MB chips are usually $75 to $120, which hold a fair-amount of Music, but probably less than a full movie with a few songs on the side. 1GB chips are hard to find and very expensive, generally costing from $150 (Sandisk) to $220 (Sony). Sandisk.com reports that they’re backordered, as does SonyStyle.com. (however, my 1GB DUO Chip just shipped from SonyStyle so they must have gotten a shipment in recently. UPDATE: it just arrived!)

Controls. The buttons on this aren’t stiff or anything like that, and easy to press. The “analog-stick” is kind of lame, though. I assumed it was a mini-joystick… but it’s actually this little thing that slides around in only 2D. (left, right, up, and down… rather than at any angles as well) It’s awkward and difficult to move. I prefer the D-Pad even in racing games.

The Screen. The 16:9 wide-screen (480x272) of the PSP is super-crisp. The PSP OS takes full advantage of it with its weaving animations and bright colors, and the game graphics are very detailed in most cases.

Wi-Fi. (Wireless) The only internet connectivity so-far for Software Updates to the PSP OS and Online Play is via Wi-Fi. I had no issues using this with both my Linksys WAP and Airport Extreme base stations. The PSP also has an AdHoc system built-in for multiplayer without a local-area wireless network. There is a physical switch on the left of the unit to turn Wi-Fi on and off.

Music/Audio. The PSP audio player is excellent. I consider it blend between an iPod Photo and an iPod Shuffle… in that there is album artwork displayed, yet due to size constraints it only holds a portion of your library. It also has a shuffle feature, and supports Playlists. The sound quality is satisfactory. The PSP also has a few different EQ settings that can be activated by pressing the ‘Select’ button… including Heavy, Unique, and Pops. The EQ can also be turned off using the ‘Select’ button by cycling through to the ‘off’ setting.

I’m not sure if this is just me or not, but my PSP shows a “Corrupted Data” file for each MP3 I add to my PSP. However, if I scroll past these, my Music is safely listed below and plays just fine. Very strange. (Hopefully there will be a software update to fix this.) UPDATE: This problem has been fixed as of Version 1.5.0. This software update was offered to Japanese PSPs on the US release date.

The PSP supports both MP3 and ‘ATRAC3plus’… whatever that is. I haven’t had anything to do with ATRAC3 since I had a MINIDISC Player a few years ago.

USB. While in USB mode, the PSP acts as a Storage Interface to its inserted DUO Pro Memory Stick (if available). This mounts a drive on your Mac, or adds a new drive into ‘My Computer’ on Windows. Always remember to ‘disconnect hardware’ (Windows) or ‘eject’ (Mac) the device before unplugging it or your stored data will be corrupted.

The PSP file structure is like this:
* ‘/PSP/GAME’ — For games stored on your memory card. (perhaps for downloads in the future? Not sure about this.)
* ‘/PSP/MUSIC’ — For music.
* ‘/PSP/PHOTO’ — For your pictures.
* ‘/PSP/SAVEDATA’ — For your saved games.
* ‘/MP_ROOT/101MNV01’ — For movies and video. (MPEG-4)

If these folders do not exist on your PSP’s memory card, the easiest way to create them is to format the memory stick using the option in System Settings on the PSP itself. (with the card inserted) THIS WILL ERASE any saved games, music, movies, photos, software, etc., on the card (NOT your UMD discs), so if you don’t want to do that just create the folder
s by hand. Even after formatting the card, the MP_ROOT folder for movies, and/or others, may still not exist and need to be created manually.

You can place files directly into these folders, OR create new folders inside these to group content together. However, folders inside folders inside folders, (example: ‘/PSP/PHOTO/MYVACATION/DAY3’) will not be recognized.

The PSP does NOT come with a USB cable. I had an extra kickin’ around so I just used that. The PSP has a typical Mini-USB connector on it, and should work with any standard USB to Mini-USB cable that may have come with a digital camera, cellphone, MP3 player, etc. Or, you can buy one from a computer store for less than $20. (estimate) The device DOES support USB2.0 for high-speed transfers with compatible machines.

Photos. Any JPEG images stored in the proper location (see above) can be viewed on the PSP. Unfortunately, it does not seem to support viewing photos fresh from digital cameras’ memory chips… which I would have liked. There is also a slideshow option with adjustable speed, and photos can be zoomed.

Video. Although Sony will soon offer various UMD movie titles for purchase and direct use with the PSP… who wants to PAY for UMD movies of DVDs you already own!? Not me… screw that. As I linked above, Engadget has an article for converting your DVDs to PSP-compatible MPEG-4 files, but what about us Mac users? I have the solution for you here.

IMPORTANT: Regardless of whether you use a Mac or PC, you have to remember something: The PSP only seems to support videos in 320x240 dimension, which is NOT widescreen. However, if you squish a 16:9 picture (for example, from a widescreen DVD) to 320x240, there IS an option to stretch the image back out on the PSP. The quality is far from DVD, but it’s not THAT bad. Anything that is not 320x240 will be recognized as “incompatible” by the PSP.

TIP: I generally like to sacrifice quality for more content, so setting the bitrate down as far as possible while still being able to see the picture will generally store about two megabytes for every minute of video (audio included). The setting varies from program to program, but with FFMpegX I just set the bitrate to 1kb/s and it seems to find the appropriate level automatically.

All PSP Videos must be named like M4VXXXXX.MP4 (replace the ‘X’s with random numbers)… and yes it has to be capitalized like that. The PSP will ignore all other files… including lowercase ones like ‘.mp4’, which is stupid… but the way it is.

The PSP uses some strange XviD/MPEG-4/3GP/AAC combination for its video format. On the Mac, there are two different tools we can use to convert DVD’s VOB files to these formats:
- FFMpegX
- and, altShiiva.

FFMpegX is harder to install, yet easier to use. altShiiva is very easy to install, yet its videos didn’t work on my PSP. However, since altShiiva can produce the thumbnail files (.THM) that show up next to the movies on the PSP… I use FFMpegX for the flicks and altShiiva for the Pics.

Visit FFMpegX’s PSP tutorial for more information:
http://homepage.mac.com/major4/psp.html

I’ll admit that I had a lot of problems getting FFMpegX to read some of my Movies, and also to produce files that would actually work on the PSP. However, the trick is to convert whatever movie you’re trying to use to DivX using Quicktime… THEN use FFMpegX to convert it to a PSP MP4. That worked great for me.

FFMpegX had no issues reading .VOB files I ripped from a DVD (with DVDBackup), and it converted them without issues. Remember, you HAVE to squish *all* video to 320x240 pixels… even if its 16:9. You can later choose to stretch the picture out on the PSP itself. (there’s a display option)

Random, Games. Gran Turismo 4 PSP is coming out later this Spring, and Grand Theft Auto PSP in just a few weeks. The current launch titles are okay, but not great… as many are lousy, watered-down copies of PS2 titles like Tony Hawk’s Underground 2. Hopefully this won’t be the case for long. I’m satisfied with Need for Speed Underground ‘Rivals’ at the moment. The graphics are *excellent*.

UPDATE: Lumines is my new favorite game, and I don’t think that’s going to change. :) It’s very similar to Tetris, but with DJs doing the music, a new method of clearing blocks (colors), and other cool stuff. Definitely check it out… you might get sick of it if you play it too much, but it’d be pretty hard since every single time you play it’s a brand-new experience! Definitely worth buying… it’s only like $40. (one of the cheaper PSP games, heh)

That guy from ‘Dude Where’s My Car?’ was in Viva La Bam!

When I first saw the ‘Snake-Run Driveway’ episode of Viva La Bam I thought I recognized the guy in the parking lot as the guy who played Tommy in ‘Dude Where’s My Car?’… and I was right! It was that guy according to IMDB: (Charlie O’Connell)
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0640039/

Wewt.

CherryOS Still Sucks! (my review)

A CherryOS trial version was released today (at cherryos.com), and the software is still absolute crap. The funny thing is that they’ll probably still make a fare amount of money since there’s no main-stream alternative… which is disappointing because they stole the core of their code from PearPC! (an open-source project that they’ve, unfortunately, taken serious advantage of.) Essentially, this software is a crappy Visual Basic application written on-top-of a separate PearPC modification.

I immediately was suspicious of the software when I noticed it was installing various OCX files and other Visual Basic dependencies, and upon inspection of the software’s installation directory, it functions as follows: There’s an EXE file called MainCherryOS.exe, which is the VB App they’re using as a ‘wrapper’ to give their PearPC ‘booty’, if you will (joke), a Virtual PC-like feel. Normally, PearPC needs to be compiled and run from the command-line. Their wrapper then takes the output from PearPC and displays it as if it were actually being generated by MainCherryOS.exe! A creative solution, but I’m not impressed.

Being a Mac/Unix guy, I ended up trying to install this on a crappy desktop upstairs because my Thinkpad didn’t have enough diskspace. (its primarily partitioned for my Linux installation.) However, things went fairly smooth.

Other than the various Visual Basic files, I also noticed the installation of various disk images that had been prepared in advance to simplify the installation process. Generally, when installing PearPC, creating a Mac-supported disk image is an extra step… so this saved a bit of time, but also showed that this is, in-fact, based-on PearPC. (duh)

Okay, so onto the actual software. I started up the Visual Basic wrapper, dubbed ‘MainCherryOS.exe’… and began creating a ‘Mac OS X’ installation. Something I noticed was this poor English in a dialog box… part of which reads: “Need more help please press yes.” Hah. Also, they forgot to set the title variable of the box… which defaulted to “MainCherryOS”… the name of the EXE file. The proper code for this is:

If MsgBox(“Please insert a valid Mac installation CD in ” & strDriveLetter & “: Drive” & vbCrLf & “Need more help on it please press yes”, vbYesNo, “CherryOS”) Then

Love the clip-art……………… I sure hope this PC is working as hard as that guy wearing the yellow hat is!

I think I recognize this “NO” sign problem from PearPC… however our “CherryOS.exe” backend kept chugging along while our “MainCherryOS.exe” wrapper was doing *nothing*. Eventually the installer loaded.

So I loaded up ‘Disk Utility’ from the menu and formatted the disk that CherryOS had created. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the only pieces of code they wrote. However, my installation failed when I was presented with the ‘!’ stop-sign that I also received while I was ‘still messing with PearPC‘… how odd!

One thing I noticed that was that the “pinwheel” busy cursor (the color wheel), and also the spinning process bars, moved VERY quickly… almost like their timing was shortened. Being a Mac user, this pissed me off. I think that this is a side effect of a sloppy attempt to raise the speed of emulation of a Mac processor. It had little effect on actual performance.

The configuration file for CherryOS is very similar to that of PearPC. Also, the developer forgot to change the emulated network adapter’s MAC address… it’s the same as PearPC’s. Coincidence? Nope.

Overall this product is a waste of time, and the company behind it is both taking advantage of an open-source project, and using it to promote their company’s other products. Honestly, it’s PearPC. The company’s screen-shots used to show specific portions of debug information that was *written by PearPC developers!!!!* The company defended themselves by says that “their developers had taken some code from PearPC and they had yelled at them… since then the code had been removed.” That’s just flyin’ off the BS meter right there… they simply COVERED IT UP. I’m disgusted. Don’t link to this product, don’t promote this product, don’t buy this product, don’t use this product. Keep its PageRank down. DO NOT LINK TO THIS PRODUCT OR THIS COMPANY.

“The Turnpike Prank”

Everyone in the Boston area knows this tollbooth sucks, and finally… somebody taking some charge! (brought to you by ZUG… which apparently stands for “ZUG Under God”)

http://www.zug.com/pranks/turnpike/

Gran Turismo 4: Day #3

Alright. Day 3 of Gran Turismo 4.

A cool feature of GT4 is that you can do competitions more than once and win more cars. You get the same car over and over, but who cares! When I saw that that 423HP Toyota RSC Rally Raid Car that I won was worth like 265,000 credits… I was like SCHIWNG! I won another one by re-doing that competition (easy) and make a ton of money.

Next, I put my Audi S4 in the garage and proceeded to trick out an ‘05 BMW M5… costing almost all of the money I had… almost 300,000 credits from the car sale and a bit of savings. However, that was totally worth it because I was able to win the BMW M-Model-specific competition… which I believe earned me a solid 200,000+ credits as well and a BMW M3 CTR with 380HP. Niiice.

Here’s a shot of my M5:

With the money I got from the M-Model races I purchased a Nissan Skyline (the most expensive one was like 63,000 credits… so I picked that out) and put on all of the best parts… again using almost all of my money. With this recently tricked out car, I took it and entered it into the first Japanese event. For this, I used the new B-Spec mode where you tell the computer how you want it to drive the car… and did some other things while it was going. It’s actually pretty cool if you don’t feel like playing anymore. :-)

Here’s a shot of the Skyline I tricked out:

The prize for the first Japanese event was a car you can use to win the second one:

I again used B-Spec to score some points there… and won this car. I added some turbo/engine parts (I believe) to the car, which cost about 90,000 credits, and almost doubled the HP!

At this point in the game I’m kind of stuck going back and beating all of the beginner mode races before I can move onto extreme. Luckily, B-Spec and better cars are saving a lot of time… haha.

If you haven’t bought this game… what are you waiting for!?!? :D

“Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster Control”

One word: WOW. I expected this to sound like crap… but haha it was pretty good! And I thought that elephant paintings were crazy! — Be sure to check out the sample mp3 and the demonstration video on the linked site for more. :D

http://courses.cit.cornell.edu/eceprojectsland/STUDENTPROJ/2002to2003/lil2/

Mac Mini… with a built-in iPod Dock?

Hmmmm… it seems cool, yet kind of stupid at the same time. It makes sense since they’re trying to convert iPod users to the Mac format with the Mac Mini, but does this feature seem very Apple-like to you? I’m not sure what to think about this one… check it out.

Gran Turismo 4: My In-Depth Review of What’s New on the PS2

Today I snagged a copy of Gran Turismo 4, and it’s pretty damn good. I was always a fan of GT3, but they’ve really pushed the PS2 to the max this time.

What’s Missing: Online Play… you have to use XLink Kai to tunnel through your Mac or PC. (hey, at least there’s a solution!)

What Kicks: HDTV 1080i 16:9 output while racing (this is FABULOUS if your TV supports it, and there’s also Progressive Scan output in 480p) it looks almost perfect… seriously, and USB Storage Device/Epson Printer support… for taking photos of your car. (this is my new favorite feature)

As I mentioned, you can take photos of your cars in the game and either save them to a USB storage device (such as a thumbdrive) for viewing or sharing on the computer, or you can print them out with a supported Epson printer. (the PictureMate is a great choice!)

Of course, MY thumbdrive doesn’t work with *anything* so that was refused by my PS2, but since I had a USB Zip Drive, I figured I’d give that a try. To my surprise, IT WORKED! The first time I tried it, it had to spin up the disc and the game still rejected it, but the second time and every other time after that it worked just fine!

I felt like kind of an idiot hooking up my Zip Drive to my PS2…

…but at least the results were positive.

Lucky for me, GT4 lets you import your GT3 saved game… up to 100,000 credits (like dollars, but GT style) and both the elementary B and A licenses. This saved a LOT of time and gave their die-hard fans a head start… which I really appreciated.

The first thing I hit up was the Options screen. Transmission style to Manual (who uses Automatic on GT anyway?), video output to 1080i HDTV, 16:9 screen size, and last, *saves the game*. This thing’s memory file is like 1.5MB which sucked ‘cause I didn’t have enough diskspace… I had to dump my old Grand Theft Auto 3 game file (which was almost a full meg), but that was alright. I was set to go.

Since I was able to import 100,000 credits… I now had 110,000 credits (100,000 + the 10,000 they give you to start). This was 7,000 credits away from an Audi RS6… and I was pissed off because I had no car to get those extra few thousands!! I ended up grabbing a silver S4 and was able to buy some badass parts for it. I grabbed all upgrade parts *except* the stage-3 engine upgrade kit because it was 80,000 credits (more than the car cost!) and I didn’t have enough. Since buying a stage-1 or stage-2 is a waste of money when upgrading (the old parts cannot be combined), this was the best choice.

After doing a couple of races, I immediately noticed that the new game was a lot more difficult… even though a lot of the tracks were brought back from the old game! (they re-did most of them with new routes, as there were some that were closed before, and improved detail… it’s not like they were lazy or something heh) It’s very realistic, and I had a lot of fun playing for a bit.

After playing around in the Professional racing section for a bit and earning a few credits, I moved onto the “Special Conditon” racing section… and completed all of the races in there that did not require special tires or an iB or iA license. This gave me 20 or 30 thousand credits, and a few sick cars other than my audi:

Of course, the two that caught my eye were the Toyota rally car and the Cadillac with 760HP. I quickly learned that the Cadillac is actually a total piece of crap, though. It takes forever to shift (we’re talking like a full second and a half or so) and it just drives terribly. The only time’s sick is when you’re driving on a straight-away… then it’s pretty damn fast! However, I’d say stay away from this model, or sell it. I have yet to try the Toyota.

For the rest of the time, I played around with the Photo mode… taking pictures of the S4 I originally bought. Photo mode is in the top-left corner of the map and generally when you take pictures its hit-or-miss whether they’ll actually look real or not. Of the 30 photos I took, 13 of them were really good, and the others were either close to decent or terrible. Overall I was impressed with the quality presented by the Photo mode, and its USB capabilities.

Attached are a few of my favorite pictures I took, and a few more are linked below. Enjoy!

Others Photos:
(I made up my own names for the locations.. warehouse, forest, etc., in case you own the game and can’t understand what I’m talking about)
#12 (warehouse, Rating: 5/5)
#11 (warehouse, Rating: 3/5)
#10 (warehouse, Rating: 5/5)
#8 (warehouse, Rating: 4/5)
#7 (warehouse, Rating: 4/5)
#5 (museum, Rating: 5/5)
#3 (museum, Rating: 5/5)
#2 (museum, Rating: 4/5)
#1 (forest, Rating: 3/5)

Overall, this game was sick and I’ve linked to it on Amazon below. (you need to buy it. lol) I might post some videos a little later on, so check back!

Pivot your Apple Displays!

This is cool. If you turn your Apple Display on its side and rotate the screen’s output (if your video card supports it) you’ll have a typical width screen… with a not-so-typical height!

Powerbook HD?

Looks like Apple was planning a High Definition Powerbook! (1920x1200) Current 17-inch models have a 1440x900 pixel screen, but it seems that there was a HD model in the works for release with the recent updates. However, it must have gotten pushed back… possibly for release with the upcoming Powerbook G5s! (Picture Credit: macosXrumors reader “Jonathan”)