Grrr..... my greatest fear has become real. Ever since the PS Vita was announced, I was worried that it wouldn't be able to play my PSP Video 9 encoded AVC files. And it turns out it can't play them. There are other AVC files it looks like it may be able to play such as CNET AVC videos. But not my particular files... that CAN be played on my HP Touchpad and of course PSPs...
I'm regretting buying the 32GB memory card. I can still load it with games and videos recorded with my Neuros Recorder, which will probably fill up the bulk of my Vita content. But I probably could have made do with a 16GB.
The PS Vita Content Manager Assistant is crap. Since hacking is Sony's major concern with the Vita, the handheld is locked down tight-- no plugging it in to a PC & just seeing it as a drive. No, we need to use the CMA to do any file transfer between PC & Vita. What's annoying about it is, the browsing & transferring is done through the Vita, it looks through the content of your PC. But it just sorts EVERYTHING of that content into one big list. So EVERY song you have on your PC shows up on the Vita CMA in alphabetical order. I don't think I have a huge music collection, I think I have about 9GB of music. I want to transfer some songs to my PS Vita, let's say 200. When I browse through the CMA list, I have to go through EVERY song & check the box if I want to transfer it to the PS Vita. I just discovered-- the hard way-- that I have over 2000 songs. The only other option is to check a box and transfer EVERYTHING. How stupid is that?? So what would have taken me about 5 minutes if I could have drag & dropped took me over 15-20 minutes of using my PS Vita to scroll through every single music file on my PC. Sheesh. And Pictures, Video is all the same process. It's great if you simply want to transfer your entire collection of whatever in 2 button presses. But do most people actually do that, transfer everything they have on their PC to their devices? Every single little picture, etc?
One strange thing I've noticed is that when I pause a video, the PS Vita doesn't seem to turn off the screen. Ever. I can use the PS or power button to turn off the screen, but as soon as I turn it back on, the video starts playing again even if it was paused.
There's no folder support, videos seem to fall into 2 categories: "Rented" or "All".
Also, the Vita froze up on me for the first time. I was trying to copy over video content & it just went blank. So I held the power button which brought up the power off screen & I tried to power off. It froze at that screen. Not good for a device with no removable battery. But I didn't panic, I just held down the power button for a while, like over 10 seconds... and then a boot page appeared which gave me a few options, rebuild database, format, restart. It's the only time that I had to use the buttons to select a menu option.
I guess I'm glad I still have my PSPs. It's sad that they are superior media players to the console that replaces them.
later
don
2 comments:
I would have to agree with everything that has been said. I think Sony have seriously dropped the ball with the Vita's multimedia apps. The CMA's seriously un-user friendly Interface aside, The PSP and Go had more functionality when playing both music and video. My biggest gripe though, is the size of the media files that are being created when I try to rip anything so that I can watch it in full-screen. Over a Gig for 20mins of video!! My 32GB is being filled up pretty quickly.
I must admit some of the PS Vita video bookmarking feature is really impressive; it remembers where you stopped watching no matter how many videos you play, or even if you turn off the Vita. I have some recorded TV on my Vita that my niece watches when I pick her up once a week, and she can pick up where she left off a week earlier with no fuss. And I love the touch functionality and the gorgeous 5" OLED screen...
But yes when it comes to media playback there are a lot of missing features on the Vita. Hopefully Sony devs will be adding those in over time.
I originally posted that I regretted getting a 32GB card, but in retrospect I'm glad I did. I once heard someone say that you should always buy the largets memory card you can afford. I have to say that's good advice, at least in my case.
What program are you using to encode your vids for Vita? That does seem way too big for what it is. I haven't needed to encode anything for Vita yet, so I don't know much about it.
Later
Don
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