Sony launching PSP video-on-demand service

[wraggster]

Sony announced today that it is launching a new Web site in Japan that will offer downloadable movies for the PlayStation Portable. The company will begin services for "Portable TV" on July 27, the same date as the release of the new firmware upgrade for the PSP. Sony Computer Entertainment America has not announced plans for a similar service in the US.


The Portable TV site will be operated by Sony Internet Service Provider subsidiary So-net, with the URL www.p-tv.jp. Portable TV will start off offering around 100 free selections, such as movie trailers, independent films, and TV pilots. Premium content--that is, films and shows you have to pay for--will be offered at a later date. Eventually, the site will sport movies and music videos, as well as a variety of television shows such as dramas, anime, sports, comedies, traveling, and cooking shows. There will also be optional, TiVo-style advertisements and promotions.

So-net hasn't made any announcements regarding its release schedule of premium movies, though it estimated they will cost a few hundred yen (a few dollars) per download. Each movie file will be offered in 320x240 pixel resolution, each will be 30 minutes in length, and each will be approximately 256MB in size, meaning longer films will require more than one download.

Movies provided at Portable TV will be in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, the new high-quality movie format the PSP will support with its "version 2" firmware update. Since the update also gives the PSP a Web browser function, users will be able to access Portable TV directly and can download movies onto their handhelds without having to use a PC.

Accessing Portable TV directly with the PSP will be required when the site starts to offer premium content, since it will be copyright protected. Premium video files can only be saved to a Memory Stick inserted into a PSP, and they will not be able to be copied or transferred onto hard drives or other media. Free content files will have no such restrictions and can be backed up on a PC.

Companies that have already signed up to provide content for Portable TV include: Aniplex, Asai Kikaku, Bandai Channel, BBB, Geo BB, Getty, Neo Index, So-net Channel 749, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Watanabe Entertainment.

Source = http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07...s_6129744.html

[Cap'n 1time]

i just know sony i going to charge so much money for this... its cool though.

[sarla1596]

i just know sony i going to charge so much money for this... its cool though.

yea i agree, with sony being the greedy jerks they are they cant afford to lose any money they could possibly earn. Its too bad too because those features sound pretty cool. I think ill wait till theres an official US release of all this 2.0 firmware and p-tv stuff before i even consider updating my 1.5.

[Guizzy]

As I said in the other thread...

After a lot of fiddling with Google translate and the pages, I managed to make myself an account (what with Japan still counting years in eras? I had to search in order to find out that I was born in the 61th year of the Showa era). Let's just say that if they ever browse their database for such things, they'll wonder what the heck is my strange name. They REQUIRE you to write your name in Chinese characters (kanji), Japanese characters AND roman letters. I've copied they examples or other parts of the sites for my name (I believe I've put Man Required as kanji for my name). They have that strange login name scheme, where your name is LOGINYOUCHOOSE@(something 3 letters long that have no apparent significance). I'm "guizzy@z44" ;D

I then tried to download something from my PSP (firmware v 2.00, of course!). Absolutely nothing happened. I tried with my computer. Nothing again. Some CGI didn't activate properly...

Many hours later, I looked a little closer at the site and found a page with the html filename howto.html. From what I gathered, it only works from Internet Explorer (ActiveX) and downloads by the USB cable. Tried that, and it works.

But it's about the same thing as PSPDrive's "Send to PSP" option, only it sends AVC files. So far I've downloaded trailers for "Der Untergang" and "La marche de l'empreur", and the quality is very nice. It's not real fullscreen, but it can be stretched without much loss (less than I managed to get with PSPVideo9).

So I'm dissapointed that I couldn't just download like they showed in the video (though it explains why they didn't play the one they just downloaded, but one they already had on the memory card), but I'm confident they will add it. I mean, I can download any filetype to my Memory Stick thanks to the new browser, it'd be pretty stupid not to let me get videos on the fly as well!

Portable TV