PSP Firmware Version 2.80 Video Folder: Explained! Part 1

BOW DOWN BEFORE THE VERSION 2.80

In the past few weeks, there’s been plenty of buzz created by the release of PSP firmware version 2.80.

Quite a lot of it was “What can 2.80 do? It has a video folder? Cool! Wait. How come my videos don’t work?”

People generally discovered (usually through trial and error) that MPEG-4 video files (both named and not named according to PSP naming format) work, and so do MPEG-4 AVC files created by PSP Media Manager and the 3GP Converter. Those made by PSPVideo9 don’t seem to work at all. Thumbnails don’t seem to work, either. What’s going on? Where can we turn to for answers? How does the video folder work?

Well, Sony has a PDF file (released online) that you can read!

Yes!

Except it’s in Japanese. But we’ll discuss the video requirements anyway, especially now that PSP-Vault provided the English translation and most of the translation of the technical stuff you wouldn’t normally want to read about. If you’re not in the mood to read this though (or you don’t see the need to do so), you can just stick to making files in PSP Media Manager and in the 3GP Converter. Those files should meet the video requirements just fine.

But if you look at the pretty pictures and look for Roman letters, you see a list that says that in the Memory Stick Video Format, the PSP running firmware version 2.80 will let you play:

MPEG-4 Simple Profile (AAC)
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile (AAC)

It also supports the following MP4:

MPEG-4 Simple Profile (AAC) files
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main Profile (CABAC) (AAC)
and Baseline Profile (AAC)

If you want to play a H.264 video, it should:

have .M4V or .MP4 as an extension
be 768 kbps or less *
be 320 by 240 pixels or smaller *
have a framerate of 30 frames per second (fps) or less *
have a Level 1.3 Baseline Profile or less *
have a Level 2.1 Main Profile or less (however, the video must be CABAC only) *
have an AAC 128kbps or less audio format and be 48kHz or less and in stereo *

And MPEG-4 video should:

have .M4V or .MP4 as an extension
be 768 kbps or less
be 320 by 240 pixels or smaller
have a framerate of 30 frames per second (fps) or less
be in Simple Profile
have an AAC 128kbps or less audio format and be 48kHz or less and in stereo

There you go. Now you have an idea of the kind of video/audio encoding that firmware version 2.80 can actually decode.

Once again, if you’re a little new to this and don’t understand video and audio codecs and all that arcane magic, you can stick to making videos using PSP Media Manager and 3GP Converter. You should have little or no problem at all. Maybe.

Watch out for Part 2 of our coverage on the secrets of PSP Firmware 2.80.