[Retired Tech]

The Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) is capable of playing back video in two formats: the international standard known as MPEG-4 and the Sony proprietary format known as the PSP Movie Format (PSMF). Of these two formats, only video encoded in the PSMF can take full advantage of the PSP video capabilities as Sony has currently elected to cripple MPEG-4 playback using various methods.

PSMF videos can be up to 480x272 pixels in size, which is the true 16:9 native resolution of the Sony PSP. Videos in this format can be as small as 64x64 pixels and are played back at a framerate of 29.97 fps. The PSMF uses a macroblock size of 16x16 pixels and the file format is based on the MPEG-2 program stream. The header of the PSMF dictates multiplexing.

The video codec used by the PSMF is known as H.264 (aka MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC). The audio codec primarily used is the Sony proprietary ATRAC3+.


PSP Video 9