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Sony PSP: where do I find music to download?

I have a Sony PSP which I love, but while I've read your article about how to download music, I don't know where to get it from. Can you suggest a site or two where I can get PSP-compatible music files?

Dave's Answer:

Like many audio devices, the Sony PSP works with MP3 (that's MPEG, Motion Picture Experts Group, version 3, by the way) audio format files. A lot of systems can automatically scan your music CDs into MP3 files - for example, Apple's iTunes can do just that, and I have thousands of MP3's on my own system.

MP3, WAV, WMA, and OGG are the four most popular audio formats (actually, AAC is popular too, from Apple's iTunes Music Store, but I don't know of any way to turn those files into something that'll work with the PSP), and if you go to a site like download.com and search for 'mp3 converter' you'll find that there are a number of different applications available.

Just a few of those that look good for a Windows system are:

On the Macintosh side, here are a few choices:

If you'd like to see how one of these works, I suggest you check out this article: How to convert WMA audio files into MP3 audio files.

So now that we've addresses how to convert files to a format suitable for the Sony PSP, what about the original question of where to get music? Well, any online music store that offers non-proprietary formats will work, as well as ripping your own audio CDs that you already own, of course, including MP3.com, Napster and even Sony's only Connect music store.

(By the way, sources report that Sony Connect is going to be expanded to include Sony PSP downloads, actually. We'll see what Sony Computer Entertainment Europe will come up with: they're the group working on this project, apparently)

Don't forget, if you don't know how to download music to your Sony PSP, there's an article on this site about exactly how to do it: Download music to your Sony PSP and a second article How do I get music and photos onto my PSP?.

Hope this information helps you out!

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Comments

how do you download music? i mean what is the first step?

Posted by: Ryan at July 25, 2005 1:53 AM

Amazing site - you've answered three questions so far this week. Computer illiterate mom attempting to load MP3s on my son's new PSP. You are my new hero.

Posted by: Marla at October 25, 2005 12:44 AM

There is this really cool player that i use. Its basically like itunes but its for the PSP, the program is called Sony Connect and you can buy songs for 99 cents and the program comes with the option of putting the songs in to a PSP it takes like 5 minutes to get tons of songs onto my PSP

Posted by: Alex at February 19, 2006 1:57 PM

do you have to pay for music on your psp?

Posted by: jay at March 14, 2006 3:16 PM

why when i download music it always says unsupported data and when u push it, it says wma tracks with copyright protection cannot be played.please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: rootbeer at June 13, 2006 9:56 PM

my psp wont let me download anything on the web I have to get it on rss I can save pictures but not mp3's, demos and the v1.0 custom tracks download for g.t.a it always says download failed and a number for any download please help.

Posted by: Andrew mitchell at April 19, 2007 6:25 AM

GUYS!! Why do you ask these questions when you already have it in your instruction manual that came with the psp. Its not that big anyway. It appears big because there are two language printed into one book.

Posted by: DJ at June 29, 2007 3:31 AM

Not meaning to take your position but just trying to help out. You look like a busy guy (perhaps a woman in disguise?) :D

To Andrew mitchell:

The reason why you receive that error is because the link that you clicked on (to download) is out of date or broken. You will have to look somewhere else to download. (If it happens several times then that is just a coincidence. Try a different site. I use my psp all the time to download.)
And your psp is able to download anything (assuming that you are downloading from the psp's internet browser) regardless of the format.

To rootbeer:

The reason why is because the Sony psp can only play .WMA files that are not copyright protected.
It says this when you enable the .wma (with wifi) in the system settings.

To jay:

No, what Alex was talking about was a software. You don't have to pay to play the songs on your psp. Alex was referring to the software, "Sony Connect" (which is located at connect.com). Any songs, such as your cd, files on your hard drive, etc, can be copied to the psp (in the psp/music/ directory folder) free of charge just like any normal mp3 player.

Posted by: DJ at June 29, 2007 3:43 AM

i hope this is free

Posted by: yaasiyn at July 29, 2007 8:44 PM

I have a lot to say, but ...

I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!