After several months without an official media manager for the PlayStation Portable (PSP), Sony recently released an official software solution for content management on the hand-held. The PSP Media Manager allows PSP owners transfer their favourite media from a Windows-based PC to their portable gaming unit. Users can now transfer photos, music and videos with ease without having to meddle around with multiple folders directly within the PSP memory stick.

The all-in-one solution somewhat resembles Apple’s iTunes, which uses a simple drag and drop interface. The main difference between iTunes and the PSP media manager is the presentation.

Sony’s official software solution uses a two-window scheme with TreeView and ListView options that make it easy for users to differentiate items that are located on the PC and PSP. Users simply need to select the item from one window to another.

Format support for the media manager’s photo mode includes, among others, jpeg, gif, bmp and png. The program automatically converts the files in jpeg mode for use on the PSP.

The software displays the photos as thumbnail previews and provides automatic magnification when your mouse hovers over the image. One of the things I noticed is that the program is extremely slow when browsing through large directories.

For music, the PSP Media Manager supports several unprotected formats including aac, mp3, ogg and wma. Not only can you transfer music from your personal computer, but you can also extract (more commonly known as ripping) songs from your CD collection. The program uses Gracenote’s online CD look-up software, which simplifies the ID3 tagging. Sadly, there’s no support for album cover additions, users will have to use a thirdparty application in order to complete the process.

As for video, the program supports most of the popular formats including mp3, avi, mov and wmv. There’s no support however for DivX and VOB (DVD Video Object files) file formats. The key component to the PSP Media Manager is its Sony proprietary AVC (H.264) codec.

Users can now convert their video files in either high or low AVC formats.

Disappointingly, you can’t take a PSP supported video file without having to reconvert into AVC. What this means is that all of the files that were previously encoded in MPEG-4 for use on the PSP will have to be reconverted as AVCs when used in PSP Media Manager.

Like iTunes, the PSP Media Manager has a podcast retrieval “Feeds Mode”. Through the software, users can subscribe (as simple as copying a URL into a dialog box) to their favorite audio and video podcasts and have the content automatically sent to their hand-held as soon as the media is made available online. One of the neat features of the Feeds Mode is that users can import and export feeds between various RSS aggregator programs. The PSP Media Manager comes bundled with popular ACIDplanet.com podcasts and a series of feeds dubbed as “Cool picks”.

A very useful feature included is the one-click backup feature that instantly saves your PSP content in a directory of your computer’s hard drive. This option is also useful for transferring your files to a new memory stick. An auto backup feature would have been a welcomed addition to the PSP Media Manager.

One of my main gripes with the software is related to its cost. The application should be free and bundled with the PSP. Sony should at least offer a free, stripped down version of the program. This way, PSP owners would at least have a basic media manager and wouldn’t feel forced to purchase official Sony software.

PSP Media Manager is available for purchase online at www.sonymediasoftware.com.

You have a choice to either purchase a download of the program or get a packaged version that includes a 6′ USB cable, sample content and five free song downloads from Sony Connect (which is not available in Canada).

The download will set you back $19.95USD, while the boxed version costs $29.95USD.

All-in-all, Sony PSP Media Manager is an excellent PC content management solution for PlayStation Portable owners that surpasses most third-party Windows applications that are currently available on the Internet.

By Andre Barriault as published in the Nov. 24 issue of [here] magazine.

The “For the Gamer” column is a weekly article that I write for [here] magazine based out of New Brunswick, Canada.

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