Sony PSP - What is it?
Story by Jack Foley
LAUNCHED in September 2005, the Sony PSP is the next step in entertainment in that it brings film, music and games fans their own portable console.
It is the natural successor to both the Sony Playstation (1995) and the PS2 (2000), which expanded the games/CD format to include DVD playback.
According to the PR, PSP is not only about gaming or movies, but rather endless possibilities.
The concept is simple – wherever you go, your entertainment should go with you.
At home or on the move, PSP is designed to open up a wealth of new opporunities, from high-quality 3D game-play to full-length feature movies.
It also provides the ability to listen to music or to display your photographs at any time.
For the technically-minded, a PSP comes in a black colour, with a 16:9 widescreen TFT LCD centered in a sleek ergonomic design with a high-quality finish that fits comfortably in the hands.
The dimensions are 170mm x 74mm x 23mm with a weight of 260g. PSP features a high-quality TFT LCD that displays full color (16.77 million colors) on a 480×272 pixel high-resolution screen.
It also comes complete with the basic functions of a portable player such as built-in stereo speakers, exterior headphone connector, brightness control and sound mode selection.
Keys and controls inherit the same operability of PlayStation® and PlayStation 2, familiar to fans all over the world.
One of the most significant uses for the PSP is its ability to play feature-length movies – a capability that is rapidly becoming embraced by all the major film studios as they seek to release many of their past and present film titles in a UMD format.
So what is a UMD?
PSP adopts a small but high-capacity optical medium UMD™ (Universal Media Disc), enabling game software, rich with full-motion video and other forms of digital entertainment content, to be stored.
The newly-developed UMD, the next-generation compact storage media, is only 60mm in diameter but can store up to 1.8GB of digital data.
A broad range of digital entertainment content such as music video clips, movies and sports programs can be provided on UMD.
To protect this entertainment content, a robust copyright protection system has been developed which utilizes a combination of a unique disc ID, a 128 bit AES encryption keys for the media, and individual ID for each PSP hardware unit.