HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free

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Engadget have a new guide out for storing DVD movies onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free!

This week?s How-To is only going to apply to the lucky six or seven of you who?ve managed to already get your hands on a PlayStation Portable, the rest of you will just have keep this one in mind and come back to it when the PSP comes out here in the States in March. We?re going to show you step-by-step how to get video clips on to your PSP without having to spring for any additional software.

When you format a Memory Stick Duo or Pro Duo stick in your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), you will get a new PSP folder, with sub-folders for ?game?, ?music?, ?photos?, and ?savedata?. But nothing for videos? What?s up with that? Well, it turns out that you need to put MPEG-4 video files in their own special folder, one that?s not in the PSP directory, but in the main root directory of the Memory Stick.

Just create a new folder in the root directory named MP_ROOT, and then make a folder called 100MNV01 in there. So your .MP4 files should go into E:MP_ROOT100MNV01, where E: is the drive letter of your Memory Stick. You also need a PC, as the converter software does not work with Macs. This MP_ROOT directory structure is directly cribbed from Sony?s UX/VZ Clie PDA series, which also plays MPEG-4 videos. Sony does offer up Image Converter 2.1, but they charge 1000 yen (around $10) for it. We?re going to show you how to do it for free.

HOW-TO: Get videos and DVDs onto your Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) for free