We've actually been using the PSP as a music player since launch. We sacrificed 40 gigabyte iRiver and iPod players for PSPs equipped with a 512 Megabyte Memory Stick Pro Duo. We tried MP3 files, Atrac files (well, tried to try, at least), play lists and UMD music. We put the Value Pack remote control to the test (and saw it fail miserably). We even wore the Value Pack headphones until the outside of our ears hurt (it only took a couple of minutes). And we're here to let you know how it all went.
The PSP seems to benefit from Sony's expertise in music playback with MD-quality output. The audio output is rich and with a good level of bass when heard through proper headphones. Sound through the built in speakers is expectedly indistinct, so if you're serious about listening to PSP music (or playing a game with a good soundtrack), you'll want to use headphones or earphones (and not the garbage official earphones that are included with the Value Pack!). Sadly, the system doesn't have a line-out option yet, so you can't get direct audio through a stereo system.
While there's no questioning the system's playback quality, those who like ear-deafening sound may be a little unsatisfied with the PSP. Even through headphones, the PSP's output is quiet in comparison to iRiver and even the Sony MD player that we had at our side. Don't get us wrong -- the PSP's sound output is still loud enough for most situations and the more sensible music listeners should be fine. It's just worth mentioning that iRiver and MD have more oomph in the volume area.
The system's current firmware doesn't let users freely adjust bass and treble levels, but you can easily toggle between a number of preset audio settings. You can select between heavy, pops, jazz and unique. We haven't been able to quite pin down what unique does, but it makes Prodigy sound phenomenal. We're hoping that future firmware updates will give more precise control of playback for pickier users.
Quality aside, there are two main ways of playing back music through the PSP: via Memory Stick and via UMD. First, because there's not all that much to talk about at this early point in the PSP's life, the UMD playback. Turn the page for a look at that.
The "U" in UMD stands for "Universal" and means that the format is meant to be used for all forms of media, from games to movies, and even music. The only problem is, the only UMDs currently available at retail are game products, making testing out the music playback of the UMD disk a bit difficult.
Thankfully, we ordered one of our PSP units through Sony and were given a bonus demo UMD containing, among other things, music content. The UMD contains music content in the form of teaser music video clips for the following Japanese acts:
We were expecting audio when we heard that the UMD format would have music content -- something that would compete with CDs. But the inclusion of music video clips on the demo disk suggests that Sony may be going for something a bit different with the PSP, something that takes advantage of the video playback features of the format.
Not just music -- music videos When you place a UMD in the PSP, the system scans to see what's on the disk, then places UMD icons in the appropriate sections on the UMD interface. The demo disk includes game, music and video content (don't get too excited -- the game content is actually just movies of upcoming games), so UMD icons appear in all three areas.Move the selection cursor over the UMD icon in the music section and, after a couple of seconds (during which time the UMD laser scans the disk), the screen lights up with a wallpaper showing off the musical content of the disk. The wallpaper for the demo disk lists the content of the disk with an image to the left showing tiny motion video clips. There are separate wallpapers for the game and video areas of the disk.
This info screen appears in the XMB interface Press circle from this screen and, after about five seconds of loading, the disk's real audio menu appears. Set up like an advanced DVD menu, with smoother movement than you'd expect from a DVD, the demo menu lets you select to play all the clips in succession or select individual clips. Move the cursor over a clip and a short looping video preview lets you get a glimpse of the clip you're about to watch. This menu is separate from the menus featured in the game and video sections of the UMD disk. UMD audio menu Select a clip, and the video appears after a three to five second wait, full screen and as strikingly clear as all UMD video seems to be (although the red ghosting problem we mentioned in our previous PSP hands-on piece is present in these clips too). You can go back to the menu with a press of the X button and select another clip with just a couple seconds wait. It's all surprisingly smooth.While viewing the clip, you have access to full video-style controls. You can switch between chapters using the shoulder buttons (rather than switching you to another music clip, these buttons move you between chapters of the current clip, a feature we weren't able to test because none of the demo clips have multiple chapters). You can also bring up a transparent on-screen options menu with the triangle button. This menu lets you select to go back to the main menu, change the audio settings, change the video angle, toggle subtitles, bring up a panel with information on the clip and access controls for play, pause, stop and scan. Also accessible from this menu is a repeat option which lets you repeat the entire chapter or clip, but there's no A/B repeat. Left and Right on the D-pad move you through the clip at multiple scan speeds.
The UMD audio control panel We don't have any specifications on the audio quality for the demo clips, but they don't have the clarity of the better MP3s in our collection. Using the all the different audio settings, we were unable to get a sound that felt just right, with most of the sound seeming muffled. The movie clips from the demo disk have better sound quality, so we think it's reasonable to expect better quality from future UMD music video disks.We were surprised to see music videos included on the UMD demo rather than pure audio tracks. It struck us that the PSP's UMD format could offer an MTV version of the CD -- you don't just listen to music, you watch it too. If Sony can convince music studios to release retail music video disks at a reasonable price, this thing could catch on.
In terms of pure audio performance, we had only one route to go at this early point in the PSP's life: Memory Stick. Turn the page for a look at that.
The PSP supports playback of ATRAC and MP3 files through Sony's tiny Memory Stick Duo and Duo Pro cards. Once your music files are loaded into the "music" subdirectory of the PSP folder on the Memory Stick, they appear under the music header of the XMB interface. You can store your files in folders, although the system only allows your folders to go one level deep (so no directories within directories).
Selecting between UMD and Memory Stick As an MP3 player, in the strictest sense of just playing back MP3s, the PSP works great. Getting MP3s onto the PSP is a simple task -- we just copied the files over to the Music directory and they appeared under the XMB interface without further hassle. Each music folder appears in the XMB interface with its name and the number of included tracks. Go into the folder and each track is listed with name and artist information. Select a track and it begins playing immediately, with the title/artist information displayed on-screen and a bar at the bottom of the screen counting the remaining time. Displaying tracks from the Memory Stick While listening, you have access to the full set of requisite playback controls. The shoulder buttons skip between tracks, with left and right on the D-pad used for scanning. Scanning is only single speed, unfortunately. Pressing triangle brings up a menu which gives you access to group skip, track skip, scanning and pause/stop/play controls. You can select to play music with single track repeat, all repeat, shuffle and shuffle repeat. From this menu, you also have access to A-B repeat.We tried a variety of tracks at various bit-rates, all the way up to 256Kbps, and the PSP performed well in all tests. Those who are used to pauses incurred by hard disk music players when new tracks are loaded into memory (causing a problem when continuous sections of music are split into tracks), will be pleased to learn that the PSP loads up the next track fast. You can still hear a slight skipping sound for continuous tracks, but it'll probably go unnoticed unless you're paying close attention.
The Memory Stick audio control panel Given the small size of our Memory Stick in comparison to the 20 Gigabyte and 40 Gigabyte dedicated music players out there, we wanted to make use of Sony's ATRAC format instead of MP3. ATRAC is a superior compression technology which is able to discard a lot of music data without significant loss of sound quality, so since we had the Sony hardware required to support it, we thought we'd try it out. This isn't as easy as it sounds, though, as the PSP doesn't come with any software for creating ATRAC files (or any files for that matter -- more complaints in the next section).We decided to make use of a version of Sony's Sonic Stage music management software that had shipped with our computer. We were able to create ATRAC music files from our CDs just as easy as we could MP3 files, but the tracks wouldn't appear in the XMB interface after we'd copied them over to the Music directory on the PSP. Apparently, ATRAC requires that you use Sonic Stage to copy the files over (by going through some confusing check-in/check-out process), but Sonic Stage, even in its newest version, wouldn't recognize the Memory Stick in the PSP.
And with that realization, we decided to stop trying ATRAC playback.
The PSP is lacking some of the nicer features of the dedicated music devices. There is no form of database support which, in portable players such as the iRiver, allows users to easily view all the music contained on the device sorted by artist, genre and album. The system does support M3U playlists, but it's very specific about where you need to put files, and also somewhat limiting.
The PSP also loses points because it doesn't allow you to browse the full directory structure of the Memory Stick. Your stuck looking at whatever the XMB interface decides to show you, which is limited to music files and directories contained in the one Music directory. iRiver and iPod feel more convenient in the amount of access they give.
These are areas which we presume could be fixed through future firmware updates. There are lots of other problem areas faced by the PSP both in terms of UMD and Memory Stick music playback, though. Turn the page for some areas that need fixing.
Although we're impressed with the quality of music playback and the potential the UMD format holds, there are a few things getting in the way of the PSP becoming a serious alternative to music playback at the moment. Some of these are due to current market conditions while Sony itself is to blame for other areas.
First off, a big problem with the remote control that's included with the PSP Value Pack. This is the only remote control that works with the system (standard Sony remote controls will not work), and it doesn't allow for skipping between groups, nor does it have an LCD panel. This is a problem with smaller MP3 players like the color model iRiver (also ships with a remote control that lacks an LCD), and it's a bigger problem with the large PSP. The PSP may be a sexy device, but taking it out in order to switch playback to a different folder is somewhat awkward. We hope that some third party, or perhaps Sony itself, will release a better peripheral shortly.
As sleek as the PSP is, it may actually be too big for many MP3 users. The system and its case made us feel like we were concealing a weapon. While the PSP's large screen makes for amazing game sessions, the system is too big to be carried around as an MP3 player unless you have a bag to place it in. If you do place your PSP in a bag rather than in your pocket, we don't think you'll have trouble with size (although we can certainly imagine a smaller version of the PSP appearing down the road).
UMD can only rule if someone releases content for it. Getting music content for the system is a bit tricky now. UMD music is nowhere to be found, and Sony's reluctance to shed details on its plans has us concerned. When using the Memory Stick, you're limited in how much content you can carry with you due to the relatively small sizes currently available. In Japan, the largest Pro model we can find is 512 megabytes, and it already reaches the $120 mark. America has one gigabyte Memory Sticks already, but they're hard to come by right now. With our 512 Meg stick, we were able to store between four and six average-sized records.Even if you do have a large enough Memory Stick, transferring files to it could take a long time due to the slow write speed of the Memory Stick -- even the faster Pro variety. Using a USB 2.0 cable, we tried transferring 375 megabytes worth of music to our iRiver, and then to our PSP equipped with a 512 megabyte Memory Stick Pro Duo. The transfer to the iRiver took 35 seconds, even faster than we could transfer the same amount between partitions on our PC's hard disk. The same transfer to the PSP took a slow 3 minutes 15 seconds. Transferring directly to the Memory Stick via a Memory Stick Pro writer built into our Vaio desktop took roughly the same amount of time. This could get real inconvenient when transfers enter the gigabytes.
Perhaps an even biggest problem facing those who'd like to use the PSP as a playback device is confusion due to too many formats, programs and terms. You have Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Duo Pro. Then there's Magic Gate. There's MP3, which has become a household term nowadays, but Sony also adds ATRAC, ATRAC3 and ATRAC3+. Plus, there are formats for play lists and lots of different program names like Sonic Stage and Connect.
The old, the new and the newer. Sony's current customer support for the PSP does nothing to clear the confusion. The PSP's instruction manual doesn't provide adequate explanation on how to get music and play lists on the system, nor does it even tell you the requirements for getting ATRAC files playing. It glosses over far too many details. Sony's going to have to clearly explain the process for the masses if PSP music is to take off.Sony also made the baffling move of not including PC music management software with the PSP. Sony's Sonic Stage ripping and management software is bundled with Vaio PCs, but not with our PSP. Even worse, the version from our Vaio wouldn't recognize the PSP or our 512 megabyte Memory Stick Pro Duo. After a lengthy search, we found a new version Online, but the software wouldn't let us upgrade until we'd made English the default language on our machine, and even then it wouldn't let us write to the PSP Memory Stick. Sony's software support is somewhat of a mess right now, and the result is that we can't take advantage of the promised ATRAC support.
By the time of the PSP's American launch in early 2005, gigabyte Memory Sticks should be reaching affordable prices, lowering one of the PSP's hurdles. But will we get a usable remote control and easily accessible, easy-to-use music-management software? Sony will have to address these two issues if it hopes to turn its PSP game machine into a serious player in the portable music world.
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