PSP Media Hub: How to use your PSP for movies, music and more

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PSP Media Hub: How to use your PSP for movies, music and more

Thinking of investing in a PSP? The games are great, but a big attraction of the PSP is its ability to handle music, movies, and photos. Here are four ways to make your PSP the centerpiece of your media collection.

- UMD movies are dirt cheap. UMD movies such as "Clerks" and "Full Metal Jacket" go for under ten dollars at many retailers. These movies work just like any video game UMD; simply open the disc port on your PSP, slide in your UMD movie, and it should boot up immediately.

-UMDs aren't that inferior to DVDs. While the UMD (or Universal Media Disc) doesn't have as much space as a regular DVD, thanks to the PSP's stellar compression, there's plenty of room for movies, audio choices, subtitles, commentaries, and even special features such as deleted scenes and trailers.

- Tunes and Photos. You can also upload your music and photos to your PSP. The PSP's Memory Stick works with digital cameras, and will fit into any SD Memory Card port, so putting your favorite photo collection or music album is as simple as dragging and dropping.

-Music too With its latest update, the PSP supports both MP3 and WMA music files, and when used solely a music player, the PSP's battery life extends to a whopping ten hours! The PSP is also equipped with a music visualizer, much like the PS3 for colorful, hypnotic renditions of your favorite tunes.

- Convert your videos. The PSP can be a bit more picky when it comes to supported video types, however, with the handheld supporting MPEG4, X-MP4, MPEG, X-MPEG, M4V, and iTunes videos.

-Media Manager is your friend. Thankfully, Sony offers a free Media Manager that you can download onto your computer from the official PlayStation site at no cost to help you convert and organize your files.

- Connecting to the PS3. You can register your PSP with a PlayStation 3 console, which enables you to wirelessly download videos, pictures and even game demos straight to your PSP console via the Remote Play feature.

- Connecting to your PC. You can also simply hook up your PSP to a personal computer via a Standard-A/Mini-B USB cable, but how easy this is may depend on your operating system. If you're running a PC, simply plug your PSP into your computer's USB port and your rig should recognize the PSP as an external hard drive. For all of you Mac users, there are a number of workaround solutions (including iPSP by the good people at RnSK Softronics)

How to Connect your PSP to a PC

Sony's stellar handheld, the Playstation Portable (or PSP) isn't just a video game device, but an entire hub for all forms of multimedia. The biggest question most PSP owners have, however, is how do I transfer files from my computer onto my PSP? Well, we've put together a simple how-to guide to help you customize your PSP, and utilize it to its fullest entertainment potential.

Note: Make sure that you have a Memory Stick Duo installed in your PSP - otherwise, you won't have anywhere to save your transferred data!

- Get a USB cable. You're going to need a USB cable that's compatible with the PSP, which means a cable with a Standard-A side for your computer's USB port, and a Mini-B side for your PSP. If you have trouble locating a USB cable with a Standard-A and Mini-B side, you can easily find one at locations such as RadioShack or Best Buy. Most USB cables that connect to digital cameras (and some Blackberry chargers) will work with your PSP as well, not to mention the USB cable used to connect controllers on the PlayStation 3.

- Turn on your PSP. Stay on the Home menu. From here, plug the Standard-A cable into the USB port, and plug the Mini-B end into your PSP's port on the top of the system.

- Select USB Connection. Your computer won't recognize your PSP right away, so for the moment, let's go back to your PSP's Home menu. Using the analog nub or the directional pad, select the Settings icon. The first choice should be USB Connection. Press X to select this.

- Connection complete. Your PSP should now detect your computer, and your computer should recognize your PSP as a USB Mass Storage Device. When you have the PSP plugged in to your computer, it will treat it as a portable hard drive, not a gaming system. Your PSP should appear as "Removable Disk", "Removable Disk Drive", "Removable Storage" or "Memory Stick Media" on your computer. Open this, and you'll see the contents of your Memory Stick Duo.

- Drag and drop! Now here's the easy part: if you already have your files converted and ready to go, simply drag and drop them into the designated folders!

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