ive been busy comparing different MPEG4 software, for the PSP. In particular,
cyberlink, datel media manager, Sony media manager. Ive converted some movies, shows (captured off tv), and cartoons to mpeg4 with all three programs.
the psp media manager has 2 settings low and high. High AVC outputs AVC 768 Kbps with Audio at 128 kbps. This is the same with Datel Max Media on the highest quality setting.
As far as the PSP is concerend with MPEG4 AVC,
cyberlink is a dud. Cyberlink will spit out MPEG4 but not avc and the quality is subpar with a very small resolution, and very pixelated. The sony PSP media manager, is great for its RSS feed, such as abc's Lost Podcasts. I just entered the url, and it will go to update any new podcasts and download it to my psp. Kewl interface, but there is not much as far as right clicking and renaming. It needs an update button.
Now AVC, is only available of 2.0 firmware and up for your psp. I have very mixed reviews, more negative actually for the PSP media manager. It takes a lot of processing power. I was consistently at 88% with about 560 megs in usage. So be prepared when converting.
My test movies is the japanese version of KB, I used Shrink in uncompressed form to create a single vob. Here is where i think psp media manager sucks. You need to have the psp connected for it to convert & transfer to your psp. It took 3 hours to convert it to AVC high quality at 760 megs. The picture looked good, but the sound was off sync by 5 seconds. I was extremely pissed as well when the same thing happend in low avc mode. Picture wise it looked perfect and fit the screen. Cyberlink converted it fine using the special SP mpeg4 format. But it was grainy , choppy, and not AVC, just plain mpeg.
Datel Media manager is awesome. Free software if you buy the PSP usb wire. It costs only 14 bucks, for the wire but the software for conversion is really good.
First and foremost you do not need to connect your psp to convert your video. I converted KB, in about 2 hours at 55% cpu usage and 300 megs of ram used.
You are also given the option to use AVC or mpeg and widescreen or standard. Since KB is widescreen it choose it. I used the Highest quality AVC setting, and it was great. Coincidentaly the sony high avc and datel high avc ,matched in settings. Much to my surprise the sound was in sync with the movie, unlike Sony Media manager.
The interface itself was basic and easy to use, but offered way more features than Sony.
The final test between these two programs was a CARTOON episode that i got off dvd. Both programs worked great, but sony had a smaller file size of abot 8 megs. Not too much of a difference. There were no issues on sound with sony media manager.
As a sidenote, Video Vault produeces mpeg not AVC, but it has a trivial, yet good feature. You can use the actual program to rip dvds to your mem stick. Not too much of a biggie, because there are other free ways to accmoplish this. I like how it does a box art lookup. You can specify an image to be shown on your psp thumbnails for the movie. So instead of a boring black box and the file name on your psp, you get a little jpeg of the dvd cover or whatever you want. Trivial but neat. It still does not support AVC.
The winner is DATEL Media Manager for MPEG4 AVC conversion to psp. There really isnt any type of control when converting using this program, bit rate, audio, etc.
But it looks great on the psp,sound and all with very little pixels.
With all this said, there are no settings to configure. Just high quality and low quality. Dont expect to tweak anything, when transfering to your psp.
Edited by: strangepork
