Despite the fact that the PSP is widely used these days for movie and music play back, the PSP (PlayStation Portable) has primarily game-oriented controls and not the typical controls you would find in other playback gadgets like mp3 players or television sets.
Some of the controls on a PSP include the following. Two shoulder buttons or triggers, iconic Playstation face buttons start and select buttons, a digital 8-directionl pad, an anlog input and a row of secondary controls along the underside of the screen. These secondary controls along the underside of the screen serve the following purposes. Controlling volume, music settings, screen brightness, accessing the system's main menu, as well as the start and select buttons.
The PSP has awesome capabilities apart from just playing games. For example the PSP is capable of displaying still image, movie and audio files stored on the UMD disk format or a memory stick.
The PSP's analog input, often called the "analog nub," is not a traditional analog stick, but rather a sliding flat panel. It is used in the same way as the analog thumb stick of a modern console. The system supports MP3 and Sony's ATRAC3 plus formats for audio, MPEG-4 for video on UMD discs, and JPEG images. The PSP also has the capability to decode MPEG-4 Part 2 and MPEG-4 Part 3 from the *.mp4 container, if located on the Memory Stick. The file(s) must be placed in the /MP_ROOT/100MNV01 directory on the Memory Stick, and be named in the following format: M4V#####.MP4 (where "#" is any digit). Since firmware version 2.00, users can upload movies with a Sony proprietary AVC codec encoding, by putting them in the /MP_ROOT/100ANV01 Folder, and named as MAQ#####.MP4. A corresponding thumbnail image file (160x120 pixel JPEG files renamed with the .THM extension) with the same file name (besides the extension) of the movie file can optionally be placed in the same directory.
Unlike the case with UMD movies, resolution of movies on a memory stick is limited to 76,800 pixels this means that movies stored on memory sticks will be of lower quality than movies viewed from the UMD format.
The PSP comes with optional accessories offered by Sony. The most popular are usually a PSP headset, PSP carrying case, Extended Life Battery, Battery Pack, Headphones with Remote Control, battery Charger, memory Stick Duo, car Adaptor, Accessories pouch and cleaning cloth, AC Adaptor and Wrist Strap.
Glenn Ford is co-owner of http://www.seo-gurus.net/ and an avid PSP user and owner of http://www.sony-psponline.com/
