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!
Dave's Answer:
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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Reader Comments To Date: 71
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.
Hi 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
Dominic, 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.
Hi Dave,
I just got my psp ver. 2.6 downloaded CloneDvd Mobile. Ripped and
transferred my copy of Spiderman 2 directly to the Psp.
It plays fine but in Normal, Full Screen, and Zoom Mode there are
black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Is there anyway I can
get the movie to fill the entire screen?? I chose AVC when I encoded it.
There was also a checkbox on CloneDvd Mobile that said Deinterlace
Video Material. I'm not sure what this means so I left it unchecked. Should
I have checked it.
I put the video on a sony 1gig card.
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.
I think this is the best guide for using CloneDVD mobile to rip DVDs to PSP. Keep up the good work.
A++++++++++++++++++
Dave,
I have my movie I want to put on my PSP already in Mpeg4 form. When went to put into my PSP using drag and drop it says i dont have a video folder. I knew I had a video folder on it though early because i had put skate videos on it. But I had formatted the memory stick to delete the skate videos so i could put my movie on it what happened to my viedo folder or how do I create a new one. Please post a respone
Thanks
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.
Marge
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 ?
Hi Dave, greetings from Australia!
I am trying to convert movies to PSP using PSP9 and a DVD Decryptor and have had varied success.
It works on the odd occassion and now just doesn't. I have tried un-installing then re-installing, re-formatting the memory stick via PSP2 and banging the unit on my head, also I have created the MP-ROOT folder then another folder named 100MNV01. Recently I downloaded a 'PSP movie creator' which will only do 5 minutes worth of video but that seems to work okay! Will I have to conform to the man and purchase that software or is their a way to get PSP9 to work?
Cheers
Scott Hills
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
Jay,
Thanks for the tip, I have been trying to Google DVD 4 but cant seem to find it. Would you have the web address?
Thanks mate
Scott Hills
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?
Hey, 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
thanks,
Chrissy
TA dave this is very nice,
it's working with me,
i am trying to use the full potential on my psp thx to u now we can do that,
my brother dave, somthing is not right in my psp
i hv 2gb i can put more then i movie
but if i put two the fist one working and the 2nd not if i delete the 1st one the 2nd one work, why is that, does it mean i can only put 1 move !!!
ur help needed,
urs Ayman
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
Very nice Tutorial, but I would like to know how to move PSP movies to my computer.
can I download movies copied with dvd xcopy platinum pre ban software?
I 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
Dave,
Thanks for all the valuable info on the psp. I followed your instructions about copying a dvd to my psp and put the MPEG-4 file in the root directory (and sub directory)and it shows up as reducing the memory card space, but when I try to find it on the psp, it says there are no movies on the memory card. Any idea whats going wrong? By the way, I used Roxio software to convert the dvd and it did seem to save it with the proper file name.
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
hey dave,
my video of wwe royal rumble 2006 has succesfuly
converted by using CloneDVD mobile although when i go to view it on my psp it says corrupted data(or something similar) Do you have any suggestions?
I have the movie downloaded to
My documents My Videos and do not know how to get the movie to my apple ipod
I have Itunes and windows XP
I 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?
DAVE , I BURN VIDEOS WITH MY SONY NERO EXPRESS BUT NOW ITS TELLING ME LIMITED SPACE.WHAT SHOULD I DO FOR THIS HOME USE?
Hello dave
I just bought a Creative Labs Zen V : M (i love it!)and i was wondering what programs and steps i need to take to rip movies from the net onto my mp3 player. Will roxio work? Thank You
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.
i want a free psp downloader
I Used An PSP Memory Adaptor So It can Directly Right to The PSP Will That Work
Hey 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
i converted movies but when i put on my psp there only 5 minutes, anyone know whats going on?
How can I copy some DVD movies with subtitle to one dvd?(each movie have subtitle)
sorry i can't speak english verry well
please send to my e-mail:
mansour5550@yahoo.com
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
hey 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.
Dave,
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
Hi 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.
Dave,
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.
Hi dave,
I completed all of your steps but when i wanted to watch it on my psp, it wasn't there. What did I do wrong?
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..
i want a free psp downloader
Help dave! I cant play !I did what you said but it dosen't work!
Hi Dave sorry about the first comment.
I'm Eddy from Hong Kong. And I have a PSP light and a Windows Vista does that change anything?Anyway my problem is that I can only watch the movie I put in my PSP on the computer like I go on the computer than go to PSP than video than I see the movie than I click it and it works! It works in the same size and format and everything that I set it to but I can't get it to play on my PSP.
HELP ME DAVE!
S.O.S
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!
Hello 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
Hi 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 =)
Kashmaster36@yahoo.com
Signed
-Kash
hey
i do not have a psp and was think of buying one, but i do not know if it is going to be woth my mouey, what are the thing that haping a lot to the psp, like that are the problems with it a lot of the time.Is there a way that i can put movies, song etc, on for for FREE!!!
i tried to convert movies but when i play them on my psp they play for 5 min and stop
My 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?
Hi 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.
Jase, 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. :-)
Hi Dave,
How do i transfer movies straight from a saved file on my comp to the PSP? I've tried, it puts it on and the PSP shows that there is less space, but also that there are no videos.
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.
hey 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?
Dave 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.
I m from NepaL.tHE VIDEOS ARE IN MPEG4 VERSION.CAN I COPY THOSE TO MY PSP WITHOUT USING CLONE DVD MOBILE
i 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?
i am very happy to be looking at this
You can use a easy program called handbrake
its free and usy to use presets for PSP and IPod
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?
Dave. 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
I'm able to download the movie to the PSP but I can only view it on the computer. When I try to open the video file on the PSP it tells me "unsupported data". I noticed this question asked a couple of different ways, but didn't see a response for it. PLEASE help!
I have orbit downloader installed on my computer I want to move loaded videos from this downloader to my media player so i can sync to my mach speed trio tch843 please help
Hi Dave,
I have a psp and I have dowloaded the trial version of ANYDVD and CloneDVDMobile and did everything you said to but it still doesent work. I have tried everything, I have dowloaded heaps of products including PSPVideo 9 and Xvid4PSP but nothings working. Please help I am almost ready to through my PSP out the window. Thanks
Now i sort of know to copy movies in my psp.what i do is my the video format in mp4.but it takes a long time.the progam is called videopad.is any faster way to copy
hi i think you remember me
i just want to say were are the steps
i lernd to download every thing exept for this
Download dvd 43 and handbrake.. best solution works amazing ... everything is alreay preset except for the title name which makes it extremely easy to work.
Thanks Dave this worked class :D i tried a load of websites n i cudn get help but this would be my fav website ta go ta for help!!!!!! :)
nice post, mind if i linkback to you?
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I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by
buying you a cup of coffee! |
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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.