Sony has confirmed that the upcoming PSP gaming system will be able to play back movies copied from a user’s PC to its MemoryStick flash cards. The PSP will support the MPEG-4 variant called H.264, which is similar to Xvid or DivX in that it’s based on the same technologies, but they are not interoperable. On the other hand, converting video from one format to another should be relatively easy—Sony is even planning to bundle a trial version of a Windows-based software ‘Image Converter 2’ that is designed to do just that.
If it the PSP were a dedicated movie playback device, I would probably be a little more standoffish about the need to transcode, but as a secondary feature it’s pretty hip, especially if Sony starts dropping the price of their proprietary MemoryStick format like they should. If every PSP owner could also keep a couple of gigabyte sticks around with their favorite downloaded or ripped video content, it gives them a reason to view the PSP as a generic portable media player—not just one that can only play content sold to them by Sony.
Sony confirms MPEG-4 playback on PSP [GameIndustryBiz]
