The PSP Experience | Media Edition

[Music] yeah frame rater there is a lot that you can do with a PSP while remembered as a game system it's really a complete multimedia machine you could watch videos listen to music browse photos surf the web and that's just scratching the surface of its intended features with the assistance of a massive Homebrew Community it seemed like there was no limit to what the PSP could achieve that's something you can only really say once the device is modded though so here's my story the first PSP that I got was a 3000 model in 2008 which were at the time yet to be cracked one of the reasons that I bought a PSP was to be able to play with friends during spares unluckily for me everyone else had custom firmware installed on their 1,000 and 2000 models as the firmware was incompatible we were unable to connect my only choice was to wait for an eventual 3,000 mod solution while my 1,000 model friends would annoy the teacher by turning off the school TV using its built-in infrared sensor seeing all the cool stuff that people could do on a modded PSP encouraged me to dig deeper maybe I could find something neat to do on this unmodded system and that introduced me to the world of Shockwave Flash portals using the built-in internet browser for the most part these were designed to resemble various operating systems like iPhone and windows make no mistake these are custommade and very limited nothing like the systems they're representing still you could access some useful applications like a calculator stopwatch world clock and more most of these included some flash games as well but only the really simple stuff tends to run smooth flash portals are a neat way to have fun with your unmodded PSP but considering how easy it is to mod any PSP now I doubt many would play with these much today the real fun of an unmodded PSP beyond the selection of games is the ability to view and Playback various types of media this isn't a big deal by today's standards but when the PSP debuted its functionality was quite astonishing on top of that it's simple to connect to a PC and transfer files over in USB mode the PSP acts like a memory card reader all you need to know is where to put each file which is simple enough as the database is straightforward all right so firstly you can view picture files on your PSP does what it needs to appropriate resolutions load right away and it's no problem but do keep in mind the PSP was not designed for displaying high resolution so bigger pictures especially pngs can take a rather long time to load makes sense right though it's frustrating how the system won't react to your inputs until the file is open eventually it should load in regardless and once it does you can do some pretty cool things pressing triangle brings up a menu which is the case for all media Types on PSP you can crop rotate send the image to a friend's PSP via ad hoc you can also set the current Viewpoint as your wallpaper which overwrites whatever was previously behind the cross media bar or XM m b for short you move the analog stick around to shift the Viewpoint hold the square button while moving set analog stick to zoom in or out for larger pictures it might take a couple seconds for your image to display at full clarity note this orange flickering light in the meantime which informs you that the PSP is hard at Work loading the content one other thing to note is that the PSP struggles a bit when loading media on larger cards modern solutions let you expand way past the intended amount of gigabyte storage like for example this micro SD Pro Duo adapter lets you use two micro SD cards at once that gives you the potential for a lot of space in my opinion the benefit of storing so much at once does outweigh the longer load times especially so for those who only use their PSP to play games the PSP's video player is still fairly good if you're looking for a portable movie solution that doesn't take up precious space on your phone the biggest issue here is converting your files to be playable yeah the PSP is a bit picky with what MP4s it'll read though you do have to consider its age here a lot of old MP3 players were far pickier than this thing you're going to need a proper video converter as you can see I've got some videos working here a selection of some particularly old school YouTube stuff let's check out the features like this scene searching ability which lets you easily switch between different intervals of time here's the go-to option which allows you to manually enter a specified time in the video you can speed your videos up by two times or slow it down to 0.5 with audio including uded there's even a separate slow motion button that plays the video frame by frame AB repeat is fun allowing you to quickly repeat a segment of a video by starting and stopping at the desired point also of course you got the basic options like pausing fast forward and rewinding you aren't going to get astounding quality out of a PSP nothing HD that's for sure but considering the size of this screen I don't feel it matters too much the videos play in full motion and look fine this is likely a matter of [Music] preference oh oh the PSP is an MP3 player it is excellent this was my number one use of the system from a time when every other song ended with someone's expressive exhalation or an anchor hitting the ground but who could forget Beluga Heights Bela Heights why am I nostalgic about invasive record label samples do any of them still do this I don't think I've heard one in years depending on the source your MP3s might not come with an icon you can easily change the metadata yourself using PC software like MP3 tag which is not required by any means but it does look nicer all right so first the controls you've got R to skip next L to skip back d-pad to fast forward or rewind and double tap to increase the speed I've never noticed any sort of Hardware slowdowns when using using this and believe me I've used it a lot very impressive for a handheld from 2005 although technically speaking since it did come out in December in Japan I guess it's really from 2004 isn't it well not over here anyways press triangle to access a bunch of great features these are similar to the video player but here you get the option to choose between seven unique virtualizes and if you'd like to watch them on their own you can hide the MP3 metadata and enjoy the show this one here was always my favorite look at how it changes when you rewind or fast forward and this one here is crazy the longer you leave it the wackier it gets you can press home at any time during playback to return to the xmb without pausing your music there's not much that you can do at this point as most selections cause the music to stop but you are able to look at pictures a good way to save on battery life when listening to music is to completely shut off the screen by long pressing the display button then flick the power switch into the hold position to disable the buttons preventing accidental interruptions there's an even better method for all this if you have a modded system but we'll get to that in a moment my only complaint about the PSP's music player is that you can't create playlists on the system itself much like videos and photos however you can put your music into individual folders which is pretty much the same idea I don't think many people knew that you could do this so if you didn't know then now you know and if you never found out what this note button was for you could long press it to mute the PSP although it has another function in the music player pressing it during playback while the headphones are plugged in will change the equalization presets some are more bass heavy some are more treble heavy the Jazz option is my favorite but unique is also pretty good still has bass but a bigger priority on vocals I'm not the kind of audio file to go in-depth about quality but if you're curious how the PSP sounds it's still great with the right headphones I could stick with a PSP for my music forever and honestly not be disappointed with that after you've modded your PSP with a few tricks you can greatly improve your music listening experience in the Pro recovery menu you can enable wmas which is a music format that's disabled by default what's WMA basically it's the file format you'd find after ripping a CD in Windows Media Player traditionally you'd need to accept a form online with your PSP in order to enable it which I suppose was a method of copyright protection I can't imagine many are using W these days but it was convenient to run these directly without having to convert them into MP3s now let me introduce you to plugins these are user made extensions that let you activate a huge variety of custom functions setting these up isn't too complicated but requires some knowhow don't worry there's plenty of good tutorials out there relating again to the playback of Music there were two specific plugins that I used to enhance my experience first was audio boost which allows you to increase the PSP's volume by 30% % many would install this for the speakers but for me it was all about the headphone output yes the PSP is loud enough on its own but H well I was a teenager once need I say more honestly trying this now it actually gives me a bit of a headache it's very loud and music that's already loud ends up peeking so I guess only do this if you're young and careless like I was at the time do consider a quirk with this plugin where the last three volume bars can't be selected when using headphones otherwise the PSP goes completely silent until you return to the fourth highest setting the other plugin was hold plus I cannot understate how incredible this plugin is and you need it once installed when listening to music switch your PSP into the hold position and look at that both the screen and LEDs have turned off you can't tell by looking at it but the PSP's CPU has also been reduced to 60 MHz that's going to save you a lot of power while in this mode you can hold select as the hotkey combined with other buttons to take full control of your music if you're familiar enough with the PSP's layout you can navigate through your entire selection of music without ever taking it out of your [Music] pocket I see to exit this mode simply flick up the power switch but wait can I still use the hold feature for other media like videos yep just hold up on the analog stick when switching over and you're good that must be all this plugin does right nope this plugin also significantly increases the speed at which you can scroll through your music which is pretty much Essential if you have a big selection but I'm not done yet lastly this plugin activates an optional fifth brightness setting for the screen why does it do that I have no idea but I'm not complaining once this video is done I plan to return to my PSP as my main music player and this isn't me speaking from Nostalgia honestly it's just that convenient a lot of plugins can be used while playing PSP games I haven't experimented with too many of these before but I've heard MP3 play is good it lets you listen to music while you play CW cheat lets you cheat could be useful for experimenting with your favorites one of the plugins that I used a fair bit was fua screenshot when you press Select Plus volume up it starts scanning the screen to create a BMP image and it's weirdly satisfying to watch there's a newer screenshot plug in called PRX shot which looks to be much quicker so maybe get that one instead I know there was some plugin to show your PSP screen on PC and there was another to use your PSP as a PC controller oh and you can't forget the category hack this lets you put your games into subfolders which you'll be able to select from when entering the game menu this is great for separating genres emulators Homebrew PS1 games the list goes on this not only makes it easier to find your games it's much faster than having to load everything in one list do keep in mind some plugins will conflict with others usually because of similar hot Keys which in many cases you can configure yourself using included inii files but either way you might have to mix and match one that shouldn't conflict with anything is cxmb which lets you install custom community-made themes for those unaware PSP themes let you change the look and feel of the xmb without modding you can only use PTF files which are fairly basic often times these only change the icons and wallpaper custom CTF themes are where it starts to get wacky I don't know how but some of these radically change the design of the xmb whether it be moving the icons into unusual places or even changing the boot animation I used to love these themes and there are still some great ones out there but over time I found myself returning to the simpler stuff I don't know man there's just something special about the original xmb emulation is something I've covered in depth before not too much has changed since that old video though yeah sure a couple things but it's slowed down in the past few years probably because of the huge influx of emulation devices since now it might be just me but I still recommend the PSP over many of those not all of them sure at least for the platforms that the PSP is capable of running smoothly why would that be because the PSP is just so dark darn comfy to hold I've played with a lot of these newer handhelds and while some feel fine I'm yet to use something that compares to the excellent form factor and buttons on the PSP Sony's PS Vita is also good but I feel like the buttons were a bit of a downgrade especially if you're emulating a platformer like Super Mario where you have to hold a button down to run it takes more pressure to push in the v's buttons subtle sure but enough to cause my thumb to cramp up after prolonged play that just never never happens when I'm using my PSP its buttons are effortless to push yet somehow still feel great to use they really nailed the design here now do keep in mind that the PSP is a strictly retro emulation device by today's standards Nintendo 64 games are hit and miss and you can forget all about Dreamcast or Nintendo DS Game Boy advanced games run well usually there are still numerous games that you can't play through if you're mostly interested in running old Atari Nintendo and Sega stuff then in my opinion you should still consider a PSP a soft mod is required to run emulators though so if it hasn't been already you will have to mod it not hard foolproof if you follow a good tutorial and it only takes a few minutes stocking up on music videos and emulators is going to take up space so my suggestion is to find yourself a big memory card or use that earlier micro SD adapter I mentioned those can be picked up real cheap and micro SDs aren't expensive these days either either the original Pro Duo memory sticks aren't in high demand anymore but let me tell you they weren't always cheap people often remark about how expensive the PS vas accessories were and yes they were but the PSP wasn't much different umds were also quite expensive getting a decent Library would cost you a fortune as PSPs are easily modable all the umds are good for now is consuming battery life thus I wouldn't suggest using these for play just install the game one time with the Homebrew app ISO tool and store that UMD away for good then use Danny K's PSP ISO compressor to convert them into csos and safe space this PSP that you see here is not my original model I picked it up about a month ago at a local game store unfortunately the UMD reader hardly works and actually screams when I try to use it why does this keep happening I know given what I just said I don't really need the UMD drive to work but it's still kind of disappointing I find the umds themselves to be a cool little invention discs and little plastic cases to keep them safe remember portable CD players and how excessive movement during use could scratch the discs I imagine Sony designed umds with that in mind to keep this from happening it also makes them easier to travel with CD binders were a mistake cool as the UMD is a lot of these you find today are busted whatever held these cases together must not have been the most secure you can easily replace the cases if you need to though not something I've ever done but the tutorials seem simple enough UMD movies are interesting they're exactly as it sounds full movies on umds they're entirely unique to the PSP as their implementation was never brought over to the psv's adrenaline launcher my only experience with these is National Treasure 2 it came with my original PSP 3000 which I must have traded off at some point but uh hey I got the box that matters right I've already talked about the PSP's video player so I can't really think of much to say about UMD movies it's pretty much the same deal as before I always like those integrated menus though akin to a DVD or Blu-ray disc you can sense that they wanted to replicate the feeling of a home theater in the palm of your hands now compare this with the earlier GBA video and well wish I had a PSP 1000 on me right now sure they had less RAM and a comparatively worse screen but loading umds felt so much cooler there was a slider for launching open the UMD door which was a little dramatic I remember this inspired someone to make the PSP into a weapon in Garry's Mod what a time to be alive hey remember that PSP camera now look I'm not about to mention every available gimmick for the PSP but this one always interested me I knew someone with the invis bundle that was some augmented reality Digimon esque title looked neat enough never tried it myself but I did play around with go edit a little this in conjunction with the camera allowed you to create and edit videos on your PSP it was rather basic letting you add some graphical effects text popups change the pitch of your voice and whatnot might have helped some people get a jump start on video editing but I can't imagine this ever being used seriously from what I'm seeing on Old YouTube videos the xmb camera mode was all right letting you adjust the white balance exposure don't have one myself so I can't say much else here PSP cameras are quite difficult to find now and they're not cheap I doubt it's worth buying one these days but if you do get the chance to check it out there's some fun to be had there the PSP got Skype you could buy an external microphone or use a PSP 3000 which had one built in I used PSP Skype once or twice can't recall the microphone quality but making calls was about as functional as a phone you could only use local Wi-Fi to make calls though I've got a PSP Go here so I might as well talk about it this was the last North American PSP model released in 2009 the screen flips up like many phones from the time with your controls hiding underneath the screen is a tad smaller but not a big deal in my opinion many suggest this as the go-to PSP model and once you've got the right setup sure but out of the box eh it's a matter of preference sure but I can't get behind the feel of it at least when compared against the 3000 the PSP's d-pad and buttons are a 10 out of 10 while the PSP Go is more like a 6.5 that is a very flat d-pad you got there the buttons are okay I guess quite clicky might be good for fighting games I just feel like I'm Giving Up on comfort for style here but yes the PSP Go is a great looking system I have no complaints there one big Advantage the go has over the others is Bluetooth you can connect to wireless audio systems or use a dual shock controller this is a pain to pair up without also owning a PlayStation 3 you'll have to use an app called motion enjoy for Windows which has never worked for me but you might have better luck with it I've seen people showcase the PSP Go with a dual shock 3 phone mount before as someone who has tried that there's an issue that nobody ever bothers to bring up and that's the placement of the volume buttons too much movement and you'll likely activate them by accident and if that doesn't happen to bother you the constant volume meter popping up might much like the other PSPs except for the 1000s you can output the PSP Go screen to a TV using specific video cables it's more convenient once you've got the PSP Go's dock so that you can provide power at the same time yes the video out and charge port are the same on the PSP Go I managed to snag a combination cord that actually does both and if you can find one of these then I would highly suggest it because the PSP dock is one overpriced chunk of plastic wow speaking of cost how how about those M2 memory cards yep the PSP Go does not share the same card type as the PSP very few devices ever use these things it's not entirely needed for the PSP Go because they actually come with an internal 16 GB of storage and I feel that's always been a pretty big selling point for the PSP Go these days 16 GB isn't much but I guess in terms of PSP storage it's still okay another PSP Go function is save stating just one game at a time though well sort of it's really called the pause feature which lets you suspend the current game so that you can return to the xmb then select the newly created icon to go back at any time good stuff did you know that in 2011 Sony made a Playstation phone that resembled the PSP Go it was called the xeria play that's a whole Rabbit Hole of its own but I figured I'd at least mention it now that's enough PSP Go for one day earlier I mentioned adrenaline for PS Vita which lets you do nearly everything the PSP can on your Vita so the question is should you get a PSP or a PS Vita why not both generally a PS Vita will get you further you can of course play PS Vita games and you'll be able to experience the available home brew for it I do use my vaita a lot though I've been using this PSP more since picking it up I'll just say this again the PSP is darn comfy I'm honestly having a hard time deciding which I prefer between the two if you must pick one over the other then I'd suggest playing it safe with aita otherwise I recommend both for their individual strengths try to get a 3000 as it has a better screen slightly comfier design with its concave surface between the buttons and that built-in microphone I guess the Sony PSP an excellent multimedia handheld with the echo of a once- thriving Community behind it if you've never experienced the world of PSP before I couldn't recommend it enough thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next time you know you're still in the call right [Music]

Channel: FrameRater

Views: 35,890

Keywords: psp games, psp emulator ios, psp go, psp 3000, psp vs ps vita, psp 2024, psp emulator, psp startup, psp unboxing, playstation portable review, playstation portable gameplay, playstation portable 2024, psp mp3 player, psp mp3 player plugin, psp plugins, psp hacks, psp video converter, umd movies, ps vita games, ps vita 2024, ps vita 2, ps vita mod, ps vita homebrew, psp homebrew, psp emulators, ps vita emulator, ps vita unboxing, ps vita 1000 vs 2000, psp 2000

Id: FqpvCXTL74s

Length: 23min 27sec (1407 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 22 2024