How can I copy DVD movies to my Sony PSP?I really love my new Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) and while most of the games are kinda lame, there are enough good ones that it's a great companion on my daily commute. I bought a few UMD format movies, but I have a HUGE library of DVDs that I got for my home and I'd love to be able to copy some of them onto the PSP rather than have to buy UMDs. Is that even possible, and if so, how the heck do I do it, Dave? Help me, please! I really like the Sony PSP too, though there are some features they could add (like A/V out!) that would make it 10x cooler, but in my experimentation it's astonishingly fussy about video that you download onto the device. I've used lots of different programs to convert everything from innocuous home movies to commercial DVD movies with very varied success. In a nutshell, the biggest problem you face copying your DVDs onto the PSP device is the same problem you have copying a commercial DVD for any other purpose: commercial DVDs have a variety of different protection mechanisms to prevent you from migrating the data from one device to another, making backup copies, or otherwise consuming it as your lifestyle requires. There are a variety of different programs you can download for your Windows XP computer that will help circumvent these protection mechanisms, but generally they're all illegal to sell in the United States, so you'll find that their authors are all based overseas to avoid any problems. Is it ethical or legit to wantonly copy DVDs that you get from Blockbuster, Netflix or your pals? Of course not. That's a problem and I don't endorse that behavior for a second. On the other hand, I have at least four different devices that can play movies, including my Sony PSP, an Apple iPod Video, an Archos AV-700 and a Wolverine MVP-100 multimedia device. If I want to take a movie that I already own and push it out to these devices, are organizations like the MPAA really expecting me to dutifully buy five copies of the movie, one for each platform? That's incredibly anti-consumer in my opinion. And so, I am offering up this tutorial on how to copy your movies (read that again: your movies) onto the Sony PSP. The first, and perhaps most crucial step is to get a software program that removes the encryption and other protections from your DVD player on your PC, and after having tried out a bunch of free and pay solutions, I haven't found anything better than the $24 AnyDVD1 application from Antigua-based SlySoft. What's particularly nice about their solution is that it's invisible: once you install it, programs that access the data on your DVD drive go through the AnyDVD app and never see any encoding, encryption, CSS, Macrovision, or regional encoding limitations. It's like waving a magic wand over the commercial DVD movies you put in your computer. You can get a sense of how it lets you interface with your DVDs by looking at its settings:  Once you have that set up and running (it requires a reboot and injects itself into the DVD driver, so it looks kinda like spyware, but it's benign and only accomplishes the one task of helping you access your DVD disks), you'll need a program that can read the data on the disk and convert it, compress it, and repackage it for the desired output device, in this case the Sony PSP. There are lots of solutions in this space, including many commercial applications you can find from mainstream publishers like Roxio, but Slysoft's the winner here again, with its terrific and super easy-to-use CloneDVD Mobile1 program. Combined, AnyDVD and CloneDVD Mobile will set you back about $50, about the same price as two UMD movies, and it can produce output for just about any modern portable media device. Let me step you through how I copied a recent movie, The Island from DVD disk to the Sony PSP itself. First step was to get AnyDVD running, then I launched CloneDVD Mobile and selected the output media format:  Notice that it supports producing video for Apple iPod Video devices, Windows smartphones, Creative Labs Zen Vision devices, the Archos AV 700 device and, most importantly, the Sony PSP. In fact, it offers two different PSP video formats: AVC/H264 and MP4. The former takes longer on conversion but should generate smaller movie files, so that's what I choose, and clicked Next. Then I needed to select the DVD disk itself (obviously, you need a DVD reader in your computer for this process to work, by the way!):  Once I'd done that and cilcked on "OK" the CloneDVD Mobile program instantly figured out the disk layout and showed me all the track details and even a tiny preview:  To make a nice icon for the movie, I stepped the preview forward until it was a mnemonic frame, as you can see, rather than just a generic black screen which is how just about every movie starts. Again, I clicked Next to proceed, and:  Most DVDs have more than one audio track: make sure you select the one you want at this point (and some movies, like Hero have a default track that's not English. In the case of Hero the default language is Chinese, in fact) and again click Next:  Just about ready to start up the program. The only step left is to specify the output device, which I've already done here. A note of warning: you can specify that CloneDVD Mobile should save the output file onto your PC so you can copy it onto the PSP later, but I couldn't get that to work properly. Instead, I recommend that you hook your PSP up to your computer before you start this process, also plug it into the wall, and just let the program write directly to the Sony PSP as it goes along. The filenames are weird and un-mnemonic (I'm producing MAQ10001.mp4, for example) but they fit the Sony PSP's expectations of video file names, so I would discourage you from changing them. And if I haven't said so before, the PSP is very cranky about video files... At this point I also recommend you change the label to something friendly and mnemonic too. I changed mine to "THE_ISLAND" as you can see in the screen shot. You might also move the video quality slider to determine where you want to balance quality against file size. Needless to say, the higher the quality, the bigger the output file: at the very best possible quality level (25) this movie would be 683MB in size, while the worst quality (5) shrinks it down to an unviewable but impressively small 193MB. I always go for the middle value of 15, which in this case is estimated to produce a 438MB output movie file. And yes, this means that you need that much space on your PSP Memory Stick for this process to work. I highly recommend that you buy at least a 1GB Memory Stick if you're playing with video. I have a 2GB stick, personally, and love having three movies neatly stored on the device for viewing anytime. Everything looks good, so let's Go!  This is the screen you'll now see while the CloneDVD Mobile program is running. This is not a blindingly fast process: The Island took over two hours on my Pentium WinXP box to convert. That might be dramatically faster or slower than your own computer depending on DVD disk speed, RAM, CPU speed, and various other factors. After some time passes (I went out for a walk, personally) you'll eventually see this cheery message:  Done! Hurray, finally a very painless way to push your favorite DVD movies onto the Sony PSP and just about any other portable video device. Even better, it looks great:  It's not much work, but there's a lot of time involved. If you have a big disk, you can certainly create a nice archive of your favorite films in PSP format, then once someone comes out with a decent PSP hard disk (which I can't believe isn't already on the market) you could easily travel with 10, 20, even 100 of your favorites. Nice! [1] AnyDVD removes CSS encryption, regional encoding and Macrovision protection from commercial DVDs. As such it can be used to illegally copy DVDs or other media. I, however, discourage you from using it for this purpose and only endorse its use for repurposing movies that you already own, because I think it's daft to own a DVD but have to buy another copy in another format for a different media player. That's just consumer-unfriendly. Also, please note that the links I have for Slysoft products are affiliate links: if you do decide to buy these products and click on the link on this page, you'll help support our efforts here at AskDaveTaylor. Thanks.
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Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. I know you have to reboot your computer after you download anydvd but after you do the default region, navigation, and feature removal do you have to reboot again. Posted by: m.d at March 30, 2006 8:26 AMHi Dave Great Article. I was just wondering - in relation to regional coding of Sony PSP/DVDs - would this have any impact on this process at all? ie if the DVD was from EU, but PSP from Japan, would you still be able to carry out the conversion as you describe? Many thanks in advance. Dominic Posted by: Dominic Wilson at April 20, 2006 10:33 AMDominic, I don't think that'd affect things, actually: if you can make a backup / conversion of the DVD in the first place, you should also be able to strip the regional encoding (as AnyDVD does) which makes this a bit of a moot point. Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 20, 2006 2:40 PMHi Dave, I just got my psp ver. 2.6 downloaded CloneDvd Mobile. Ripped and It plays fine but in Normal, Full Screen, and Zoom Mode there are There was also a checkbox on CloneDvd Mobile that said Deinterlace I put the video on a sony 1gig card. Posted by: Steve at April 26, 2006 10:48 PM Steve, the black bars are normal and desired: it's because movies are at a different "aspect ratio" (that is, width versus height) than a TV screen and the PSP screen. To lose the black bars (it's called "letterboxing") you'd also chop off the left and right sides of the image itself. Ungood. Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 26, 2006 11:13 PMI think this is the best guide for using CloneDVD mobile to rip DVDs to PSP. Keep up the good work. A++++++++++++++++++ Posted by: Sean Bowen at April 30, 2006 11:47 AMDave, HOW CAN I READ MY E-BOOKS ON MY SONY PSP? My firmware is the ancient 1.5 and I have ebooks on the usual formats (.pdf, .chm, .doc, etc.). I tried a program called "jpeg book". It was fast and smooth and on-the-fly, but the letters came out too small. When I tried chosing a larger font, the lines got broken, the words got hyphenated at awkward places, one letter taking a whole line, in every other line. I tried "paperless printer" and put the result in the PHOTO folder, but when I tried opening it the PSP says it was a corrupted file. I tried saving a pdf file as jpeg and load it as photoes, but the letters came out way too small too while file size is beeg. Sir, how can I read my ebooks comfortably on my Sony PSP, the letters nicely customised, not overflowing all over the pages, the pictures, graphs and tables rendered accurately? Is there any freeware you would kindly send me a link to, please? I read somewhere that they could display htm pages on their PSP. How can I do that, please? Do I have to upgrade to a later version, which I'm afraid I won't be able to rollback later (though I have no idea why I would want to roll back), or do I put the pages in the PHOTO folder as usual? Thanks. thanx for the tutorial. one small problem i have is the sound on the movies, when they are on the psp, is not in sync with the pictures. am i doing something wrong ? Posted by: lee at July 27, 2006 5:27 AMHi Dave, greetings from Australia! it is easier to use dvd 4, it is a free program not a trial and video vault, which is a trial but worth buying Posted by: Jay at August 10, 2006 12:45 PMJay, Thanks mate thanks for the tip but what if with 1GB memory stick is not enough to store on it? is there some mini-dvd format dics that a movie can be burn onto and have the PSP be able to read the disc, or the PSP only supports UMD disc ? this is a downfall, I rather read movies or games from the UMD disc rather then memory stick, you need the memory stick to keep the space for games saves, wallpawpers, music and internet cache and such....any expert here who knows the possibility of backing up into mini-dvds? Posted by: Eric at November 27, 2006 11:41 AMHey, I succesfully converted the file which was an episode of the Scrubs television series. After it converted I did not know where to go from there. Also, you made note to having the PSP hooked up to the computer through all of this and it shall write directly to it, that is what i did but it did not write to it. If you can help me in anyway it would be greatly appreciated TA dave this is very nice, i got a psp for christmas i also have disks with mpeg4 films i have tried putting these films onto my psp i dont have a movies folder ive tried them in all the folders but my psp does not recognise them any ideas Posted by: brian at January 16, 2007 5:31 AMVery nice Tutorial, but I would like to know how to move PSP movies to my computer. Posted by: Tim at January 16, 2007 1:36 PMcan I download movies copied with dvd xcopy platinum pre ban software? Posted by: glenn at January 22, 2007 1:52 PMI was wondering if any of this kind of software would be free? Thanks Hey, i have a problem with the majority of the files i produce with clone dvd mobile for psp and ipod files. The problem is, is that there is a 5 second gap between the video and audio. Can u help me? thanks Posted by: Alex at February 19, 2007 4:09 AMDave, Hi Dave, I have a psp also and pinnacle studio plus version 10.7 and it says I can insert a DVD, and copy it to my psp or apple ipod. But the problem I have been having is that when insert a DVD it will not accept the file. I tried commercial dvd's so i can copy them to my portable system and also burned dvd's but i just haven't had any luck at all. Can you help me? thank you dave Posted by: jacoby at February 26, 2007 7:35 PMhey dave, my video of wwe royal rumble 2006 has succesfuly I have the movie downloaded to I have Itunes and windows XP Posted by: Bob at March 9, 2007 11:14 AMI have a psp with a firmware 2.71 and a 2gb memory card. I can easily get songs on my psp and they work fine, but all the homebrew game systems and movies don't work. why? Posted by: clark at March 9, 2007 10:04 PMDAVE , I BURN VIDEOS WITH MY SONY NERO EXPRESS BUT NOW ITS TELLING ME LIMITED SPACE.WHAT SHOULD I DO FOR THIS HOME USE? Posted by: VIN DELLISANTI at March 11, 2007 2:31 PMHello dave I don't think Nero Express will reformat the video data to match the picky needs of the Sony PSP, Vin. Corey, my solution for converting video to have on my Zen Vision: W (just like your "M" but a bigger screen) is to use Clone DVD Mobile and AnyDVD, both from SlySoft. You can see all the steps in the article on the top of this page, just imagine you chose "Zen Vision: M" on that first step instead of Sony PSP. Otherwise, it works like a champ! In fact, I have about 30 movies on my Zen Vision right now, ranging from B&W classics and kids animated features to the latest DVD rips from my library. Posted by: Dave Taylor at April 9, 2007 7:03 PMi want a free psp downloader Posted by: moe at April 14, 2007 9:44 AMI Used An PSP Memory Adaptor So It can Directly Right to The PSP Will That Work Posted by: Mal at May 19, 2007 8:33 AMHey Dave, Thank you for the tips. Seeing as you have an impossible amount of questions to answer I'll leave you alone. I got what I needed. you are so cool. i could hardly do anything to my psp when i first got it. U helped a lot Posted by: sami at June 26, 2007 6:47 AMi converted movies but when i put on my psp there only 5 minutes, anyone know whats going on? Posted by: Adam at June 29, 2007 2:27 PMHow can I copy some DVD movies with subtitle to one dvd?(each movie have subtitle) dave please can you tell me how to upload videos from the internet onto my psp please reply to my email address what should I do if my psp firmware is 3.50 Posted by: carlos cruz at August 6, 2007 10:46 AMhey i was wondering about the psp.i have a movie i downloaded about football but when i hook up my psp to the computer it doesnt show any file for me to put a movie in? what do i make or do? thanks. Posted by: marcus at October 8, 2007 1:45 PMDave, Thanks!!! We tried 6 other programs and 15 other so-called solutions to copy DVDs to a PSP format. Yours worked the first time!!! Thanks again, we've bookmarked your website. Bob Posted by: Bob De at December 1, 2007 9:32 AMHi Dave, Thank you for the article, great advice. I followed a link from your Creative Zen W article. I have had my CZW 60G for about a year and have yet to get a DVD onto it sucessfully. I use XP and free ware (Handbrake and a free encryption stripper similar to AnyDVD). After 2 to 3 hours of conversion I can view the files (MP4, AVI, in Windows via VLC media player so I know they work) but they fail to convert in the Creative Explorer media process. I noticed you stated the files had to be small for the PSP, is that the same for the Zen as well? Would the purchase of software really make it better and less frustrating then the free ware/open source ware I am using now? I really want to take advantage of my CZW as now its just loaded with music and photos and I still have 30G left! I fly internationally and would like to watch some better movies at my own schedule. Thanks in advance, J.B. Posted by: J.B. at December 14, 2007 1:00 AMDave, You are the Best!! Thank you so much for your easy to follow step-by-step instructions on how to copy my DVD movies onto my PSP. I am "technologically challenged," but with your easy instructions, I successfully downloaded my movies to my PSP the very first time. Thanks again and again, Vee. Posted by: Vee at December 23, 2007 9:51 AMHi dave, i have found a website wich gives u free psp games but how would i put them onto my psp console? please get back to me. kieran.. Posted by: kieran at January 28, 2008 12:35 AMi want a free psp downloader Posted by: ANGELICA at March 3, 2008 3:03 PMHelp dave! I cant play !I did what you said but it dosen't work! Posted by: Eddy Wong at March 24, 2008 7:36 AMHi Dave sorry about the first comment. HELP ME DAVE! Hi Dave, As I went on reading through your instruction on how to get DVD into a PSP. Nicely done explained, but one more thing.. how do I really add subtitles?!? Please help me out on this one :) I am hard of hearing person and I demand subtitle on all of my movies. I always take my PSP everywhere I go, I couldn't just view a movie without subtitle as it is pointless! Hope you can instruct me step by step on how to burn subtitle too onto the PSP device. Appreicate it, Dave! Posted by: Mark at April 11, 2008 5:53 PMHello Dave. Please forgive me if I am asking questions that you have recently already answered. I have tried all of the "fixes" and two of the videos will not play on my PSP. Both of the videos show up on my PS3, but one of them is without audio. Oh... the two that I am having trouble with are "email" videos. Thanx Posted by: Amy at June 6, 2008 1:47 AMHi dave , i have a psp and well i want to know how to download youtube videos for free and legal(Point : MY COMPUTER IS LIKE 10 YEARS OLD!!!!so no big stuff plz)and plz email me back =) Signed hey i tried to convert movies but when i play them on my psp they play for 5 min and stop Posted by: mus at September 21, 2008 2:31 AMMy Sony dvd player is six years old. It has started to stick on certain dvd's and won't continue forward. It goes back to the beginning of the dvd. What is the problem? Posted by: Peggy at October 19, 2008 11:38 AMHi Dave, I was just wondering does this still work as of 1/21/09? Because, I just don't want to drop $50 if it doesn't work anymore. Posted by: Jase Marshall at January 21, 2009 3:28 PMJase, yes, it definitely does. I used it over the weekend. In fact, I use this app so much I don't really think about it any more. It's just on the START menu. :-) Posted by: Dave Taylor at January 21, 2009 3:54 PMHi Dave, And I formatted my mem stick and put it in the MP_ROOT folder, but still no go. Any ideas? Any help would be great. Nice article. Posted by: chris at May 20, 2009 1:33 PMhey dave i just got a psp from my friend but for some reason its not reading games but it will read movies and its not cause the games are scratched cause they are brand new.....would you be able to tell me what the problem is? Posted by: just at May 21, 2009 10:26 AMDave i m from Nepal.At first there was skype in my PSP God of War version but it got deleted by mistake. How do I again install it on the PSP. Posted by: Sharad at July 28, 2009 11:58 PMI m from NepaL.tHE VIDEOS ARE IN MPEG4 VERSION.CAN I COPY THOSE TO MY PSP WITHOUT USING CLONE DVD MOBILE Posted by: Sharad at July 29, 2009 12:00 AMi converted movies and shows to my psp just fine but it only plays 5 mins. i have a 4 GB stick so there is plenty of room for a 30 min show. how can i fix that? Posted by: Rebecca at October 7, 2009 6:26 AMi am very happy to be looking at this Posted by: michael ball at October 16, 2009 11:31 AMYou can use a easy program called handbrake Hey I just downloaded a digital copy of a movie onto my psp (legally) but I cant seem to find what file it should be in to actually play the movie. Any tips? Posted by: Eric Ott at January 18, 2010 7:27 AMDave. Thanks for the great information you really helped me out. I have been trying to figure out how to put movies on a ZEN XFI2 and following these instructions worked great. Only (1) prcblem, when I play back on the Zen, the Video and Audio are not quite in sync (words are spoken before mouths move). What can I do to fix this? Again Thank you Posted by: Brian at January 19, 2010 4:49 AMI have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
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