DVD to PSP guide Guide to converting DVD movies to the PSP Home | How To | About | Contact | Links

In this handy 'how to' guide I will take you through converting your DVD's to the PSP movie format in just a couple of clicks using Cucusoft DVD to PSP Converter.

Important note. Piracy is a crime and you should only ever use this method to copy your own DVD's to your PSP for viewing when traveling. If you don't buy the movies, then studios will stop making them and we will all lose out.

DVD to PSP Converter step by step guide

First of all install Cucusoft DVD to PSP Converter onto your hard disk then launch it and you will be presented with the following screen:

Click the Direct button at the top, then ensure the profile is set to PSP - PSP MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4) and set the Output to the path where you want the converted movie to be placed. This is prior to it being copied to your PSP.

Insert your DVD disk into your DVD drive (or load your ISO using Daemon Tools), wait for the disk to stop spinning then click the Open DVD button in the main Quick Guide screen. You will be presented with the following file selector:

Browse to the VIDEO_TS folder in the root of your DVD and click the OK button. You will be taken back to the main interface of DVD to PSP Converter:

DVD to PSP Converter will start playing the start of the disk to find the language selection screen. When it finds it, it will appear in the main window as in the screenshot below:

Once the language selection screen appears, select the language you want to convert (in my example English) and click it in the movie preview window.

PSP to DVD Converter will then start scanning through the movie (including skipping the adverts) to find the Main Menu:

Once it locates the Main Menu, the pop-up dialog will disappear and the main movie will begin playing in the preview window. Once this happens, click the Convert button in the bottom right corner and you will be presented with the following dialog:

Adjust the output size/quality slider to a size you are happy with. I usually use a Bitrate of around 500 kbps which produces a file size or around 350 MBs (incorrectly stated as KByte in the screenshot above) and a movie of good quality. The size will be dependent on the length of the movie but the estimates above are good for a typical 90 minute movie.

Select the Convert from the beginning option, or the movie will start convert from where it is currently playing. Enter a Title Name for the movie, then click the Yes button to begin the conversion.

The movie will start playing but really fast and DVD to PSPS Converter will display the progress and time remaining at the bottom of the screen.

As you can see in the screenshot above, my laptop was converting this portion of the movie at 130fps and even faster in other places. Overall a 90 minute movie took less than 20 minutes to convert with no other processing required. Amazing.

Once the the conversion finishes, you will be asked if you want to copy the movie to your PSP using the PSP Video Manager. Simply connect your PSP containing a memory card of sufficient size to your PC, then click Next. You will be presented with the PSP Video Manager interface as seen in the following screenshot:

Ensure your PSP drive is identified correctly in the top right drop down and that you have sufficient space on your PSP.

Once you are happy, select the movie you wish to transfer on the left hand side, then click the Upload to PSP button in the center. PSP Video Manager will now start transferring the movie to the correct folder on your PSP and with a name that the PSP will recognize.

Once it has completed, close PSP Video Manager, disconnect your PSP (press back on the PSP) then using the PSP XMB go into Movies and you will see your new movie in the list.

That's it. Simple isn't it. In my opinion well worth the asking price.

The free conversion method

If you are interested in the free option, then you will need DVD Decrypter and PSPVideo9. In summary, you will need to do all of the following:

NOTES

If you have a FAT32 drive you may not be able to use the above method. DVD Decrypter extracts the DVD movie to its original size but removes the copy protection. A typical DVD movie is over 4GB in size which is bigger than the largest file size permitted for FAT32.

If you get problems extracting the file, then try setting the file splitting mode to None. You may also run into sync errors in PSP Video 9 if the movie is not exactly 29.97fps. If you do, then a program called pocketDivx will let you convert the framerate but the movie may not look perfect afterwards.

When you are ready to continue, do the following:

So as you can see it is possible to do if using free software, but I find the time saved along with the lack of technical issues justifies to me the cost of using commercial software. At under $30 I think it's a bargain.