PSP Media Manager: No freebie [Archive]

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AniAko

11-01-2005, 12:33 PM

1up (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3145251) has the scoop on the PSP Media Manager. Is passing video through a few programs and 2 filters worth saving $20?

...most people have already found themselves a reliable (and free) way of dumping media onto PSP, but Sony's offering their own PSP Media Manager in download form for $19.95 and a boxed version with 6-foot USB 2.0 cable, sample media, and five free song downloads from the CONNECT music store on December 1st for $29.95 through Sony Media Software and Sony Style.

sickfallout

11-01-2005, 01:21 PM

Newsposts like this make me glad that I just traded in my PSP for about 5 full-paid pre-orders.

Sony's doing a good job on the media aspect of the PSP. Now, if they had, you know, concentrated on games that don't suck, they might have convinced me to keep mine. I guess I'm biased anyway. The second I heard Nintendo say "Final Fantasy V and VI for GBA, and a remake of Final Fantasy III for the DS," Sony was gone from my mind.

DeadPixel

11-01-2005, 01:26 PM

Man, I couldn't agree more. The lack of RPGs on PSP is making me think about selling it as well. I'm getting tired of playing old ROMs which is no longer a novelty. Maybe if they released Linux for PSP, I could last longer experimenting.

DoubleUranium

11-01-2005, 01:29 PM

I guess I'm one of the few happy PSP owners. Burnout, Lumines, and Virtua Tennis are keeping me occupied with it, and I rip TV shows to it for when I feel like watching and not playing. I'm perfectly happy with it.

Edit:
However no way I would pay $30 for that software. How hard is it to copy a file?

Intruder

11-01-2005, 01:35 PM

I am happy as well. GTA:LCS is a blast. As is Burnout: Legends. Socom will hopefully live up to its name, and LOTR: Tactics is comming out soon. Anyone pick up SSX On Tour yet. I am a huge Tricky and SSX 3 fan. Does On Tour live up to it's name?

As for the topic at hand, no I wouldn't pay for something that I can do on my own for free. I dont care if it takes a few extra steps. Unless it provides flawless transitions with great picture quality and features not found anywhere else, I will not buy it.

For my my DS is collecting dust for right now, and I really enjoy my DS.

frederec

11-01-2005, 01:37 PM

If they bring Atelier Iris for the PSP over to the US, I will by one just for that. Generation of Chaos will already make me think twice about it when that comes out. So yeah, like others here, I'm holding out for some RPG goodness. Sports never did it for me, and I'm not _that_ into GTA.

UnderHero5

11-01-2005, 01:41 PM

Newsposts like this make me glad that I just traded in my PSP for about 5 full-paid pre-orders.

Just curious. Where did you trade it in and how much did you get for it?

I've been really regretting buying my PSP for a while now. I bought a DS after I bought my PSP, and I've gotten a LOT more enjoyment out of my DS.
The PSP was cool at first, but there's just no games (played Burnout 3 to death on Xbox, so Legends wasn't that great to me. And I finished with Lumines and my other games long ago). There's nothing coming out that interests me either.
So I'm thinking about getting rid of mine, but only if I don't lose a ton of money on the deal.
Maybe I'll ebay it.

... but then again I always regret it a year later when I sell a console then some must have comes out.

At any rate... on topic. I wouldn't pay any amount of money for something that I can already get for free, unless it has extra features that aren't just gimmicky or something.

Dabombpizza

11-01-2005, 01:47 PM

This software should have been included with the PSP on launch day.

frederec

11-01-2005, 01:53 PM

This software should have been included with the PSP on launch day.

That's actually a really good point. Is this article implying that until now the only way people could get stuff readable by their PSP was by hacking it? Or were their certain codecs that the PSP could naturally handle and you needed alternate software (like PSPvideo9) to reencode other stuff? Could someone please clarify this for me?

agentgray

11-01-2005, 02:10 PM

Metal Jesus

11-01-2005, 02:13 PM

Yep. I love my PSP too.

SSX 3, The Hustle, GTA, Lumines, Burnout, Virtua Tennis, X-Men II, etc..etc.. These are all great games...

and yes, I even like watching UMD movies every once in a while too.

sickfallout

11-01-2005, 02:33 PM

Just curious. Where did you trade it in and how much did you get for it?

I talked to the guys inside GameCrazy up here in Santa Cruz. GameCrazy (for those of you not in the know) is a store that operates entirely inside Hollywood Video. I traded in my PSP and Untold Legends and received $170, which was definitely worth it in my opinion. With my store credit I reserved Dragon Quest VIII, Mario Kart DS, the next available copy of Ninja Gaiden Black, and I still have $50 left for another game.

I've been burnt too many times in waiting for games for a sucky console, so I decided to get the most money I could. $100 to rent a PSP for half a year? Good deal to me!

Steve_Erhardt

11-01-2005, 02:34 PM

Chalk up another relatively happy PSP customer here. For now, anyway (see below).

Lumines, Wipeout, Dark Stalkers and Untold Legends keep me pretty happy (I also have Coded Arms, but aside from the fact the game is just stunningly mediocre, it also pretty much concretes my opinion that the DS will be best for hand held FPS game control).

Love sitting upstairs with the family watching TV or whatever and using the PSP to surf without being obnoxiously obvious about it.

I'd definitely watch more UMD movies on it if the prices on them were more realistic.

I also have to throw out: they really need to fucking dial back the prices on the games now... I don't know what the FUCK happened, but suddenly they're charging a full $50 for new games? Ah... fuck that shit, thankyouverymuch. I'd like to nab X-Men II for the PSP, but for $50 I'll fucking pass. if they keep that shit up, they're really going to burn up my goodwill.

ÜberJumper

11-01-2005, 02:39 PM

A-Team

11-01-2005, 02:59 PM

I am getting ready to trade in my PSP today because of things like this software scam and THIS!?!?! (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/31/2016223&tid=172&tid=158) It just torques me up.

I mean they are putting rootkits...ROOTKITS...on their music CDs now. These rootkits disable CD burning! Seen it happen here on our protoype machine at work.

Also, to use this software guess what, yep, you have to upgrade to BIOS 2.x. And there is NO WAY I'm gonna pay $50 for a handheld (and usually stripped down) game.

I love the PSP for Lumines and homebrew, but I'll go somewhere else. Sad, because I used to be a Sony fanboy but unless they change their ways (and they won't) they are getting NO LOVE form me.
I purchased one to review GTA:LCS and needless to say, I took it back the day after I finished writing it. Not only was I disguisted by the 32MB memory module, but also the fact that no other game out there appealed to me other than LCS. So, I told Wal-Mart to take it back, went to GameStop and picked up a copy of Civ4 to review. :)

My lifestyle, sadly, does not have room for a PSP. If I bused to work, or flew around the country doing stuff, I'd totally have one. As it is, I drive 30 minutes to work in the morning, and 30 minutes home. When I'm home, why would I want to use a PSP when I have an Xbox, PS2, and PC all packed with gaming goodness?

*sigh* it's so sexy though, I almost want to quit my job and find one where I have to ride the bus.
I'm also in on this wagon as well. Seeing as though the only traveling I do is from my dorm to class, dorm to the gym, and dorm to the library, I'd say that having a PSP is pretty damn near worthless for your typical college student. Everyone and their mother has an iPod/shuffle/Touch/Sleek for that very reason, including yours truly.

Speed_D

11-01-2005, 03:32 PM

I've been pretty happy with my PSP. I wouldn't buy this software for it though. DVDShrink and pspvideo9 are all you really need. The latter could use some improvements but it handles things well enough that I don't feel like I need to write my own frontend to ffmpeg.

The games - I agree, are overpriced and seem focused on action / twitch style. But for all the other things I can do with the machine, I'm willing to wait and see what new games hit the market.

Gpig

11-01-2005, 03:37 PM

This should have been included with the psp and there is no reason to buy it.

The three people who are satisified with their psps aren't really responding to the people that want to(or did) trade in their psps and are simply leaving their opinions and letting other people decide. However, the two that have traded in their psps in this thread did so for terrible reasons, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that noticed that when reading this thread. I have no problems with trading in a system, I'm planning on trading in my GBA SP to get the brighter sp, micro, or something. However, these reasons aren't valid and it's kind of sad that they'd waste 250 bucks like that.

The guy that traded in his psp and got 170 bucks for it only had untold legends. Why the hell would someone buy a 250 dollar system and a mediocre, bordering on terrible game( http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/925740.asp?q=untold%20legends )? Why not pick up one of the two best launch titles(Lumines/Wipeout Pure)? If a person doesn't like the launch games, why buy it at launch?

How about a person that buys a system and then doesn't realize how much the games cost when they buy them? "And there is NO WAY I'm gonna pay $50 for a handheld (and usually stripped down) game." That's like owning a 360 and then trading it in a half year later because new games are 60 bucks.

Now that I'm done with the people that traded in their system. I'm moving on to other game related complaints: Unsatisfied with so few RPG's? Why do you need to buy a 250 dollar system that isn't terribly portable in the first place(I have to really want to take my psp with me if I'm going to, while my ipod and sp I can take easily) to play RPG's when there is an 80 dollar system that already has a library of them and is very portable( http://tinyurl.com/8kqbg http://tinyurl.com/8xoc5 )?

Buying a system and not buying any good game for it, buying it and not knowing the price of the games, and buying for a gametype that you can get for cheaper, more portable, and far better on another platform are all quite stupid. Those are all really obvious, but one that should be obvious to everyone is that of people complaining about so few games. It took about the same amount of time from the DS's terrible launch before it got the excellent Meteos and Kirby Canvas Curse that it took for the psp to get Burnout Legends and GTA:LCS. The only difference was that the psp launched with lumines(and to a lesser extent Wipeout Pure if you're a racing fan). I don't know how some people can be so myopic. It takes a between half a year to a year for a system to get it's first wave of good non launch games and summer is always a dry season for games in the first place. You'd think people that were selling it for a lack of games would look ahead to see if anything interests them besides Burnout Legends, GTA:LCS, Lumines, and Wipeout Pure.

I'm looking forward to Socom, Devil May Cry, Daxter, Katamari Damacy, Pursuit Force, Prince of Persia, Viewtiful Joe, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and worms. Street Fighter Alpha 3 I want because althought I have Super Street Fighter II Turbo Revival for the ultra portable GBA SP I'd like to have all 6 buttons and play on that beautiful screen. Socom could suck and I'm waiting to see if the VFX Battle take on the Viewtiful Joe series is a good one or not. I don't own Burnout Legends, but I love the console version and was wondering if I should pick it up before this trip I'm going on this weekend(30 hours travel time total) to go along with GTA:LCS. I agree with the guy that said he wished the games coming out weren't 50 bucks. I'm not buying as many as I do for the GBA or for console systems because GBA's are cheap and consoles I play more because I'm home more.

I don't mind disliking a system. Just dislike it for the right reasons. Hate on the high price point for both the games and the system, hate on the proprietary formats and lack of codecs, hate on the crippling of homebrew that would allow the divx codec to work, hate on how annoying that thumbstick is, and hate on the ridiculous price of umd movies when they should just be packed in with DVD's for 5-10 bucks extra. However, don't buy the system if you don't have stuff you like about it and then return it and waste 250 bucks. That is just stupid.

Steve_Erhardt

11-01-2005, 03:43 PM

My lifestyle, sadly, does not have room for a PSP. If I bused to work, or flew around the country doing stuff, I'd totally have one. As it is, I drive 30 minutes to work in the morning, and 30 minutes home. When I'm home, why would I want to use a PSP when I have an Xbox, PS2, and PC all packed with gaming goodness?

*sigh* it's so sexy though, I almost want to quit my job and find one where I have to ride the bus.
Well, don't knock it off the list of possibilities just because you've got all those other systems. I'm not advocating anything here, 'cause there are PLENTY of reasons to justify NOT buying one. I'm just saying "because I have this, that, and the other system" shouldn't be one of them. If that applied, everybody would only ever have ONE system anyway. ;)

ÜberJumper

11-01-2005, 04:01 PM

Steve:

Yeah, all I'm getting at is that I've a limited time for games, and with 3 systems (and a sexy 48" Widescreen HDTV), I have plenty of opportunity for quaility entertainment at home with my family. My lifestyle is not suited to portable gaming. If it was, a PSP would be tops on my list.

Any system I buy has to be able to be hooked up and actually use HDTV (or at a minimum 480p) quality games.

agentgray

11-01-2005, 04:05 PM

How about a person that buys a system and then doesn't realize how much the games cost when they buy them? "And there is NO WAY I'm gonna pay $50 for a handheld (and usually stripped down) game." That's like owning a 360 and then trading it in a half year later because new games are 60 bucks.
....
I don't mind disliking a system. Just dislike it for the right reasons. Hate on the high price point for both the games and the system, hate on the proprietary formats and lack of codecs, hate on the crippling of homebrew that would allow the divx codec to work, hate on how annoying that thumbstick is, and hate on the ridiculous price of umd movies when they should just be packed in with DVD's for 5-10 bucks extra. However, don't buy the system if you don't have stuff you like about it and then return it and waste 250 bucks. That is just stupid.
My reasons are not valid? Uh...I didn't waste $250. When the PSP first came out the games were $40. Some even $35. They have gone up in price. Ever played MVP 2005 on the PSP? It is $50. It's is a stripped down version of the console port. The console ports are selling for $30 brand new. Of course they have this same philosophy with movies (UMD and DVD), but hey, what's new?

Now for disliking the system. Security updates that don't let you do what you want to do. Stupid. Other than Lumines there has not been one other unique, original game to that system worthy enough to play. I have four games for the system, and I've played them to death...and these are games you cannot get on other consoles. I've ripped my own movies and TV shows to it, but the novelty has worn off. UMD movies? Uh...that price thing again. I don't dislike the system. It's sexy. I'm starting to dislike the company. They go hand in hand. I had my six months of fun with it and I'm done. Sony has done nothing to keep me interested. In fact, I had to go out and make some interest myself (homebrew, ripping, etc.) Someday, people will buy a Sony UMD or game and if it "sees" homebrew or hacks that have been copied to it, it will brick it. They're already being sneaky and doing it to PC's CD burners. Why not PSPs?

Samurai Joe

11-01-2005, 04:19 PM

Someday, people will buy a Sony UMD or game and if it "sees" homebrew or hacks that have been copied to it, it will brick it. They're already being sneaky and doing it to PC's CD burners. Why not PSPs?

Sony's breaking CD burners?

ÜberJumper

11-01-2005, 04:37 PM

Samurai Joe

11-01-2005, 04:57 PM

Samurai Joe:

Agent Gray's link lead me to this article...

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

... which explains one way Sony (and others) are using to intercept use of your CDR.

Quite frightening really.

wow, is this legal? Wouldn't that be considered trespassing? These folks are invading our machines...

Back to the topic... I have a PSP and a Nintendo DS. I bought both of them at launch and regretted the purchase almost instantly in both cases. But now good games are trickling in on both system, thus making the purchases a-little more worth while. I don't want to be stuck in the same predicament yet again, so I am waiting a good year before getting an Xbox 360.

Getting even closer to the topic. This PSP media Manager sounds a lot like iTunes, which is free. If Sony were to want to compete against the likes of Apple (I remember Sony calling the PSP an iPod Killer) shouldn't they offer software like this for free? Also, this software should be opened up to other Sony products such as the Walkman and those Sony Ericsson phones (the W600i phone looks like an amazing product).

Here's my prediction... Sony will soon start offering this program, with limited functionality, for free. People who want to encode their media in higher quality [High-quality Sony® AVC/AAC] will have to purchase the update. Much like Apple does with Quicktime (they will probably add something similar to iTunes shortly).

The Iron Weasel

11-01-2005, 05:06 PM

This software should have been included with the PSP on launch day.

Did you just start paying attention to sony? You have to buy the god damn stand to prop your ps2 up vertically, and its like 40 bucks (canadian)

Dracula-X

11-01-2005, 05:07 PM

Still happy with PSP here. Got lots of games to look forward to, some of the likes are: Gogu Makaimura (ghosts & goblins), Metal Gear Acid 2, Lemmings, Katamari Damacy, Loco Roco, Exit, Bubble Bobble Evolution, Prince of Persia, Devil May Cry, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, and I know there's a bunch I'm forgetting at the moment (Mega Man, etc) :)

This rootkit garbage is just out of line tho.

agentgray

11-01-2005, 05:33 PM

Rootkit stuff is pretty damn scary, and I don't want to play chicken little here.

I saw it happen with a Jim Brickman CD. (don't laugh..he's good on the ivory) Rootkits basically re-write certain parts of the OS kernel. This can be bad for ALL sorts of reasons. Check out Steve Gibson's podcast on it for a more indepth explanation. We're starting to see spyware with it loaded. The bad thing is that rootkits are almost undectable...literally. The OS or any other program doesn't know to report on it if it isn't there (cause it thinks it's part of the system).

On our test system at work we knew it was there cause we could see a difference in CPU usage. We eventually had to reformat. This was about a month ago. Then this article came out today and confirmed it....geesh. I love the PSP, but the principle is I just don't want to support it if this is how Sony is going to be. I know Sony is a big company and one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, but it seems lately that in any major studio, DRM is the new hot thing. HOT...to the point of system modification beyond use.

ÜberJumper

11-01-2005, 06:18 PM

On the topic of rootkits, anyone know if Microsoft's made a stand or otherwise taken a position on them? Will Vista have anything to "combat" root kits?

Samurai Joe

11-01-2005, 06:39 PM

On the topic of rootkits, anyone know if Microsoft's made a stand or otherwise taken a position on them? Will Vista have anything to "combat" root kits?

Vista is a rootkit! Seriously, I think Microsoft will block the malicious rootkits and leave DRM stuff in.

Dabombpizza

11-01-2005, 08:54 PM

Windows is a hunk a junk as far as an OS goes, I doubt they'll care about rootkits, and if they do they'll be slow to react. Look how long it took them to take a stand on virii (SP2) and spyware? And even then, I believe a virus scanner and a spyware scanner should be incorporated in the OS itself since it's such a problem.

Ludoc

11-01-2005, 10:36 PM

And even then, I believe a virus scanner and a spyware scanner should be incorporated in the OS itself since it's such a problem.

MS would like nothing more than to bundle more stuff with Windows. The reason they don't is because of the anti-trust rulings against them. Can you blame then for not stepping on Symantic's toes after what happened with the Real Player guys in Europe.

Windows now has to be sold with and with-out Media Player. Do you really think MS wants to create even more versions of Windows by also selling every version of Windows in an antivirus and non-antivirus version?

And yes, I realize the irony of saying MS doesn't want to create multiple versions of the same product with the 360 coming out. That is a different situation.

Subbacultcha

11-01-2005, 11:00 PM

Player 1

11-02-2005, 01:24 AM

Summary: Company takes advantage of ignorant consumers.

How is this news? Happens a thousand times a day.

Solution: don't be ignorant.

It's not rocket science is it?

agentgray

11-02-2005, 08:40 AM

Motherf*ckers... I'm not touching anything made by Sony unless someone gets fired for this. And a big black mark against Microsoft for making an OS where people can pull this shit. This is the Windows equivalent of the HIV virus. As a matter of fact, your computer might be infected right now and there's no way to detect it, not to mention remove it.

Linux is looking better everyday.
There are rootkits for every system. Probably more for linux. I'm using ubunutu now. :)

agentgray

11-02-2005, 08:50 AM

And even more info. (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/02/1421250&tid=233&tid=17)

ÜberJumper

11-02-2005, 09:00 AM

Subba:

You can discover rootkits in windows... and a lot of anti-spyware apps apparently look for the more insidious ones. Here's a rootkit finding thingy that I got linked from Agentgray's original article.

http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/rootkitrevealer.html

Dracula-X

11-02-2005, 10:51 AM

$ony deserves a class action lawsuit. That's the only way they'll get the message.

dorkus_malorkus

11-02-2005, 12:18 PM

Man, Sony really boned this whole thing. I bought mine on launch day ($225 after applying for target credit card...yes!) and the first thing I thought was "Would be cool if some damn software came with this to organize all of this 'media'." But they want to charge $250 (soon to be up to $300) and then charge for the software on top. The console should have been $199 tops with the software and that would have been a "Value Pack", keyword VALUE. The stuff that comes with the pack are pretty much worthless but for 50 bucks less it would be justified. Don't get me wrong, I have used mine quite alot (play music in the truck, surf the web, gta) but it really chaps me to see $50 titles for this thing sitting next to regular console titles that cost the same. The price should be somewhere in between. Of course whent he next gen comes out $50 may be a bargain. Who knows.

AniAko

11-02-2005, 01:21 PM

I like the idea Windows is taking though with the 64 bit version. You wouldn't believe how easy it is to take total control of a computer once a system hook is in place.

They’ll have to come up with a new approach to their rootkit sooner or later anyway, since system call hooking does not work at all on x64 64-bit versions of Windows.

I've done system hooking in the past, and I can express to you all that it is an incredibly NASTY and tedious endevor. Mark's right expressing concern as those low level dll's can cripple a system indefinately. Nobody has the right to ALTER MY SYSTEM, right to protect or not.

The fact of the matter is the Music and Movie industries are a bunch of whiney cry-babies. CDs and DVDs are popular forms of media, but are inertly insecure, duh. Since Beta machines came out, no industry has taken security as a top priority, because its a diminishing cost. There is too much money involved in making something COMPLETELY secure, and of course if you posses the ability to create something, the potential to break something also exists.

Never though, could I imagine the consumer electronics giant of SONY to take the LAZY way out. I'm sure someone will end up suing them at some point over this.