Source - Gizmodo

"Got a ton of video in MPEG4 format laying around waiting to be put on your PSP, but you just can’t cram it all on there? Never fear—the SavitMicro S25 HDD enclosure lets you use any 2.5” hard drive as a PSP storage device. Totally awesome. Just hook it up to your PSP, Digital Camera, or any other device that can accept an external storage device and you’ve got tons of extra space. The price isn’t bad if you’ve already got the hard drive too. It’s about $100 for the enclosure and USB cable and is shipping now."

Hmm just remember that the PSP will only see 4gb until a firmware update and well $100 seems a lot for just an enclosure, thoughts ? ...

miemt11 has released in our forums an update to the PMP Simple Converter, heres the info:

Change from version 0.01

1: Fix the pmp_muxer.exe (if pmp_muxer.exe is not available, encoding will not continue )
2: add 160x120, 368X208 and 400x192 resolution
3: Add high quality encoding option
4: minor fix ...

What it do?

1: Convert any video (rmvb, avi mpg, wmv) to PSP PMP format
2: Support size is 320x240, 360x272 and 480x272 resolution
3: All PMP output video are harddup enable
4: Encode Process Priority

Download at the release thread here --> http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=16743 ...

Malloc has released a new mini mod for the Media Player for the PSP, heres the info:

Here is the last mini mod for the week

Zoom / Aspect ratio handling with the SELECT button (using the GU to stretch the video with bilinear).

there's 4 cycling modes :
- original size
- zoom to fit the width of the video (cropping the top & bottom if necessary)
usefull to zoom 4/3 video (losing the top and the bottom)
- zoom to fit the height of the video (cropping the left & right if necessary)
usefull to zoom 4/3 video (adding black bars left/right)
- zoom to full screen (doesn't preserve aspect ratio)

Download here --> http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=16741 and thanks to miemt11 for the news ...

Fanjita one of our forum members and pioneer of the Eboot Loader for PSP v2.0 firmware consoles, heres what the coder posted:

"Just a small thing, really, but I've ported my Tetris game to the GTA exploit, and have it running on a v2.50 PSP. There's a small technical glitch that means it doesn't run yet on v2.60, I hope to sort that out ASAP, before I release a version that will run on any firmware that can run GTA. So - no release yet, but it's imminent.

As well as being the first homebrew game for v2.5 and v2.6, it will also be a good test of the improved GTA loader that will be used to launch the EBOOT loader. Sadly at the moment this is still for US and EU versions of GTA only, my attempts so far with the German version haven't worked correctly, but I hope to change that soon. "

comments, thoughts ?

Great work as always Fanjita and great to see the news at your site ...

PSP Zones have released issue 2 of their Magazine, heres the info:

PSPWeekly 2, the official PSP Emag of pspzones.com has been officially released! It features 119 pages (excludes cover and wallpapers, 128 pages in total) full of News, Reviews, Previews, Cheats, Tips and other useful info! And all this in just over 7mb, due to the fact that we don't waste pages on images or large font sizes. We've packed in lots of info in this issue from CES 2006 so that you can stay up-to-date with all the latest! Remember, PSPWeekly is the first and original weekly psp emag so our next issue is out on 16th January 2006! We hope you enjoy this Issue as everyone who has contributed by sending us their news, has helped us make this such a big Issue. We are still looking for staff members so if you're interested, please contact us!
Thanks, pspzones administration.

Download via the comments: ...

Mczonk posted this news:

I added a lot of new stuff to Quake II PSP the last week: Inline models (like doors or ladders) and sky support.

The Quake II archive format (.pak) is now supportet. So you don't have to copy 1000 small files to your memorystick anymore. Just one big .pak file which is much faster transfered.
My current tasks are: clipping, lightmaps, a simple test mod, sound and music player.
The clipping on the psp is a mess. You can see clipping problems in some commercial games as well as in some homebrew stuff. You can read more about psp and clipping on pspdev.org: Thread 1 - Thread 2
My first idea was a brute force polygon subdivision algorihm. Each polygon is divided into 4 new smaller polygons. That's my current version and it is bad. It costs a huge amount of power for subdivision and a huge amount of sceGumDrawArray(GU_TRIANLGES, ..., 3, 0, verts); is called. That's why Quake slows down at the moment.
This implemmentation is not really good because you still have some errors.

This errors can be fixed with a dirty hack. It is just fake but it reduces black spots completly and it is fast. There are still some graphic errors but they are not so eye-catching anymore.

I'm working at a new clipping algorithm for the psp. Which solves the problem and not avoid it. I'll release more information for the developers if I found a good solution. Solve this problem is more important for me than light or sound in Quake because it is a generic psp problem.

Public Beta

In the next three days the first public beta of Quake II PSP will be released. My testers already played around with this beta version. Thanks to all of them for their work.

Features:

Simple test level
All weapons (including bfg, hint: give all)
All items: Quad Damage, etc
Different monsters
Full configurable button layout
Load and Save (little bit buggy)
Missing:

Lightmaps
Sound and background music
Multiplayer
Mod support

The development is a currently a step further. But I only want give away a well tested version.

Awesome News, check out the screens via the coments: ...

You've got to love CES. Just when you think the games industry will emerge blinking and somnambulant into the New Year with nothing to report, the annual Consumer Electronics Show throws up a raft of new and intriguing tech developments, products and stories to kick off the year in fine style.
So it transpires this morning, with Sony adding further fuel to the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD fire by touting the PS3 as a cut-price solution to your future high-definition movie viewing.

Why? Well, with the announcement of some of the first Blu-ray movie players from Samsung and Pioneer (the BD-1000 and BDP-HD1 respectively) due to come to market this spring and expected to cost around 1000 USD and 1800 USD, the PS3 - which ships with a Blu-ray drive - starts to look more of a bargain.

Okay, we still don't know the price of the PS3 itself yet, but with expectations around the 400-500 USD mark, Blu-ray movie playback could be an important factor in driving initial sales, just like DVD playback was for the PS2. By contrast, the first HD-DVD players from Toshiba will also debut in March with the HD-XA1 priced at 799.99 USD and the HD-A1 costing 499.99 USD.
In the current gen, PS2 did extremely well out East during its initial launch phase simply because it was one of the cheapest DVD players on the market and you also got a games console to boot. It's a strategy Sony seems to be repeating this time around and if it works, why the hell not? The only slight problem might be the PS3's launch date, which although originally touted for spring this year seems almost certain to slip back further, especially in the West.

But what do you think? Will the PS3's Blu-ray drive be more of an incentive for you to buy the console, or is it all about the games? Will it arrive too late to make a difference or perhaps you'll be checking out the Xbox 360's new HD-DVD drive which we reported on last week? Let us know in the forums below.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...news_index.php ...

Renowned Japanese electronic artist Toshio Iwai’s beautiful-looking, whimsical music-creation game, Electroplankton, releases for Nintendo DS in the States today. Although wannabe ‘electro-composers’ in the UK are going to have to wait until ‘some unspecified time in Q2 2006’ SPOnG was told today by a Nintendo UK spokeswoman.

Even if, like some at SPOnG, you are arythmical, musically inept and tone deaf, the concept of Nintendo’s innovative Electroplankton – generating music by touching the screen or speaking into the microphone – must surely still appeal. Make Aphex Twin-like electronica classics whilst on the train to work, or, more likely, some quite nice sounding noises whilst you are playing on the toilet (-insert clichéd toilet humour gag here-).

According to today’s press release: “in Electroplankton sounds can be sampled, manipulated, changed and rearranged to help even novices create engrossing beats and harmonies.” SPOnG gave up attempting to make music when failing to pass Grade 2 Cello in our younger teenage salad years. Plus also because the harder boys on the school bus called us bad homophobic names for having a big instrument. So, finally, through the power of Electroplankton there may still be hope for us to creatively express ourselves musically yet.

The press release goes on to tell us that we can compose music ranging from techno beats to ethereal rhythms, wherever inspiration strikes (which actually usually is the toilet). The gameplay in Electroplankton is stunningly simple. Players/users choose one of 10 music-making modes and dive right in. One mode lets users manipulate the leaves of a plant using the touch screen. As colourful plankton launch into the air, they bounce off the leaves in melodic combinations. Another mode acts as a sampler. Users record up to four different sounds with the microphone and then layer them over drum loops to create a personalized beat.

"Electroplankton is a great way to kick off what promises to be an exciting year for Nintendo," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's chubby-cheeked executive vice president of sales & marketing. "It's the kind of casual game that will attract a broad audience and help Nintendo DS continue to expand its lead as the most popular new hand-held system."

SPOnG wants to hear your best efforts - send 'em in and we'll run an Electroplankton top ten. Winners get a record contract, or something, with Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh to act as their managers. Or maybe just a pen.

http://news.spong.com/x?art=9494 ...

Sata has updated his MP3 Player for the Nintendo DS that has support for many flashcards.

Updated version .02 has added Playback time and time indication of the mp3 file, in addition to ID3 tag interpretation and Japanese file name indication correspondence (UNICODE) .

Download below via the comments ...