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Traveling With A Sony PSP - Part 2: Music, Audio and Podcasting

Posted on February 18, 2008
Filed Under Digital Music, Gaming, March USA Trip 2008, Podcasting |

In part one I talked about using the PSP as a portable video device while traveling.

One of the biggest iterative changes in the Sony Playstation Portable since its release has been in audio support. Bear in mind that in v1.00 of the firmware, the only option available to get music onto the device was to use Sony’s own Connect (nee SonicStage) software to convert music into the DRM locked ATRAC format. That didn’t last long, and the PSP now can cope with AAC, MP3 and WMA (and continues to have ATRAC support for the die hards). The memory stick is seen as a USB device on your computer, so it’s drag and drop with your own favourite file system; or you can use Winamp or Windows Media Player and treat the PSP as a media device through those applications.

But the most useful addition has been the support for podcasting. The PSP firmware comes with a built in RSS reader (but only for enclosures, no reading Tech Crunch here). Whenever you click on an RSS feed in the web browser (oh yes, there’s a web browser as well, based on Access NetFront), you get the option to add the feed to the RSS application.

And this is where the fun starts.

The Sony PSP

Because with the PSP’s built in Wifi, a simple ‘timer’ option can switch on the PSP, go online, check the requested podcasts for new shows, download them, and shut down, all while I’m sleeping. Wake up in the morning, and I’ve got fresh content for my eyes and ears (video podcasts are also supported - if it plays on an iPod it plays on the PSP).

So practically, what does this do for me. Not a huge amount when I’m at home, as the regular shows I listen to are weekly shows - The News Quiz/The Now Show on Radio 4’s Friday Night Comedy slot and NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me - so I grab them manually, but when I’m traveling, the PSP switches itself on at 4am US time (between 10am and 1pm in the UK depending on where I am) and grabs the BBC News round-up of the best articles from the last 24 hours, the Today program’s 8.10am interview. This is my normal routine when I’m at home, albeit on the DAB with a handy pause button as the kids get packaged out to school and nursery.

So the PSP lets me take a walk to somewhere local for breakfast, while listening to the UK news, and I get to sit over a bundle of pancakes, hash browns, grits, and other american delicacies while John Humphries rips apart the current 1970’s era socialist Labour government. Just like home. And the weekly topical comedies as grabbed when available as well.

The PSP delivers a pretty good MP3 player (it’s bulky, but the in-line remote control works well), and a pretty good podcast client - in fact it’s one of the few consumer devices that can grab podcasts automatically - put all this together in one package, in my pocket, and it’s a world ahead of a laptop that could do the same thing on a desk. But what the PSP provides me with is more than that. It’s my music, my audio, my radio, and a little piece of home wherever I am in the world. That’s what makes a device personal, and that’s why I love traveling with the PSP.

In the next part, I’ll look at some of the more unusual games on the PSP that I like when traveling.

Comments

4 Responses to “Traveling With A Sony PSP - Part 2: Music, Audio and Podcasting”

  1. Kris Hoet on February 18th, 2008 16:23

    Interesting, now there’s a good reason to try that WIFI/RSS combination on my PSP again. Thanks for pointing that out Ewan.

    - Kris

  2. Travelling with a Sony PSP - Part 1: Video : Ewan Spence’s All New Musings. on February 18th, 2008 17:45

    […] In the next part of this series, I’ll talk about podcast and audio on the PSP. […]

  3. Jilly Smith on March 4th, 2008 22:24

    I love the sound of this podcast feature. I didn’t even realise the PSP could do this.

    Do you know which version of PSP can do it?

    I got mine from Best Shop but I think it is at least 1 year old now.

  4. Ewan Spence on March 5th, 2008 0:13

    Jilly,

    Any PSP has this. Every firmware version from 2.7 has podcasting. Just run the network update feature on your PSP to get the latest Sony official firmware and you will have the ability).

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