Magic Memory Stick

Introduction to Downgrading

Firstly, we’d like to clarify something for you, if you’re here because you heard someone say that if you ‘downgrade’ your PSP, you can unlock it to run homebrew games on it. Well you’re partly correct, downgrading will aloow you to do that. However, the techniques to playing homebrew have changed drastically over the years, and ‘downgrading’ is no longer the case any more.

Here’s what used to happen, you’d buy a PSP with version 2.8 firmware (for arguments sake), and you had to ‘downgrade’ your PSP to version 1.5, then you had to go find a dark alex custom firmware and install 3.40 OE-A firmware on your 1.5 PSP; in order to play homebrew games on it.

Well firstly you no longer need to downgrade 2.8 PSP to 1.5, you can now skip that step and go from 2.8 PSP to a 3.40 OE-A software PSP. Thanks to a wonderful device called a Pandora Battery.

Precaution to Downgrading

Firstly, downgrading your PSP to pirate software is illegal and shunned upon, and sites do get shut down for pirating software out to people, so be warned! Secondly, there are several methods of downgrading your PSP, none of which are authorised by Sony, and if you were to damage your PSP whilst performing a downgrade neither the webmaster nor Sony will be there for your support, as you are performing all actions on your own accord.

Downgrading using a Magic Memory Stick

We’ll be uploading our own all-inclusive downgrading guides very soon. Convential methods of downgrading involved an HEN exploit which allowed users to find a hole in the system, to install custom software through. Nowadays there is no need for this, and what you simply need is the access to the right files and a way to create a pandora battery or buy one from somewhere. All of this will be detailed.

Downgrading is a good way to play homebrew games on your PSP, and to play your backed up games that you legally own, on your PSP. We cannot emphanise this point any more! Sony originally restricted a lot of functionality on the PSP – which was explored by the homebrew community and thus Sony followed suit afterwards, such as the PSP 333Mhz clock speed, custom themes, radio player etc which was originally invented by the open source community.

There are numerous guides avilable on the internet, you need to make sure you follow the instructions religiously, as Sony do not support downgrading, you have no saftey net if things go wrong, we will list our own tried and tested methods using a magic memory stick and pandora battery. If you were to incorrectly downgrade you could mess up your PSP and make it a brick. The good news is that on a last resort you can buy kits from the internet that enable you to restore your PSP fully.

Since Google allowed users to download videos from video.google.com many PSP users have tried but failed to jump on the bandwagon, some users just couldn’t get the videos to play on their PSP. What Google didn’t explain to the PSP users is that there’s a few directory allocations you’ll need to make on your memory stick in order to make the videos playable.

There are two types of movie file types playable on PSP, both of which are treated different and we’ll explain how to make them playable on your console.

MPEG-4 AAC format videos

MPEG-4 AAC format videos were to original format videos for the PSP, steps below to play them on your PSP

1. Choose the video you want to download by browsing http://video.google.com – go to advanced search and choose domain google.com (only google hosted videos can be downloaded for ipod/psp
2. Click on the title of the video, and it should open in a new window
3. Click on Download video – iPod/PSP and save the video on your desktop

Now these downloaded videos need to be renamed in a format that the PSP recognise, the naming convention is M4V12345.MP4 (in full capitals)

The underlined portion of the filename above can be changed to any unique 5 digit number, for your different downloads.

Now create a folder called 100MNV01 in your PSPs VIDEO folder, all videos need to be saved in \VIDEO\100MNV01\

MPEG-4 AVC format videos

Now there are a few movie files that use the AVC codec, google doesn’t really tell you whether it is or not, so you have to use a bit of trial and error to find out.

The above steps still apply to MPEG-4 AVC, there a re a few variations, the filename needs to be in the format MAQ12345.MP4 (in full caps)

You need to store all MPEG-4 AVC files in the \MP_ROOT\100ANV01\ folder in the PSP

All the best folks and enjoy your videos!

Video Thumbnails on your PSP

Now you may have noticed that some of the videos that you download from the PSPs inbuilt video RSS feature come with thumbnails with them, if you decide that you like your video and want to keep them for long term use, check out the Video Thumbnail Guide.