Sony Media Manager for PSP

Sony's Media Manager for PSP has been designed to easily transfer and convert music, movies, photos and documents from your PC to your PSP. Using a clean drag and drop interface with automatic file conversion, this is ideal for users who use their PSP as a true multimedia device.

Media Manager for PSP only works with Windows XP Service Pack 2 or later, so Mac users are out of luck. The software also requires .NET Framework SP1 and QuickTime 7; the latter required if users want to encode AVC videos or playback MP4 files. Both are included on the installation disk.

The software uses an intuitive dual-window interface with PC folders and files in the top window and PSP folders and files in the bottom window. The interface is in a tab style, so switching between different media is simple. Users can also preview any media using the software before they decide to transfer it.

The best feature of this software is the automatic file conversion. Media Manager automatically converts the files to playback on the PSP when they are transferring, so there is less to do for the user. Speed is average, with the software taking just under 10 seconds to encode a standard 200k document during testing. For videos, a 5MB file took us approximately one minute to encode.

For images, Media Manager handles multiple file formats including JPG, JPEG, JPE, JFIF, PNG, GIF, BMP, DIB, TIFF and TIF. The software converts image files to the JPG format so they are viewable on the PSP. Converting the files produces smaller JPG files on the PSP's memory stick.

The PSP only supports MP3, MP4 and Sony's Atrac files for music, but Media Manager can convert MP3, WMA, WAV, PCA, OGG, M1A, MPA, M4A, M4B, AAC and MP4 audio files. Unfortunately, Media Manager doesn't support any protected audio formats, so you can't convert songs purchased from iTunes or other DRM tagged outlets.

For video, Media Manager converts most file formats including MP4, AVI, WMV, MOV, QT, DV, MPG, MPEG, MPEG1, MPEG2, 3GP and M4V. The software offers two quality settings; low AVC and high AVC. We had no troubles converting any files. One minute of video will take approximately 3.5MB when using the low AVC setting, while 6.6MB will be required when using the high AVC setting. As an example, you can fit four hours and 33 minutes of video on a 1GB memory stick using the low AVC format.

In addition to these features, Media Manager also allows you to convert songs that you have on CD and handle podcasts. For the former, the software will query the gracenote CD Database, ensuring that song and artist names will be transferred to the PSP if they are available. Media Manager allows you to subscribe to your favourites podcasts thanks to a built in directory. Further, you can also add your own podcast feeds manually.

Finally, the last tab in Media Manager allows users to back-up saved games from the PSP to your PC. This can be done manually, or automatically completed each time the PSP is connected. Media Manager also allows users to transfer game saves between memory sticks.