I’ve written about the brilliant Xvid4PSP before, and even went to the trouble of writing a tutorial detailing how to use Xvid4PSP a while ago.

Since writing that tutorial, there have been several new releases of the Xvid4PSP software, so I thought I’d try converting a few new DVD’s to see how its improved since the last time I tried it out.

I don’t normally watch many films on my PSP, I prefer to spend what free time I’ve got playing games, but as there is a long list of DVD’s I’ve not got round to watching of late, I thought converting them to a nice PSP friendly format might encourage me to watch some of them.

The lastest official Xvid4PSP release is 4.115, although beta version 5.023 is also available. I stuck with the official release, which weighs in at 12.9mb. One download later, and my new windows Vista install is ready for the latest version of Xvid4PSP to be installed. Vista owners are warned that you will need to disable the UAC, although I found the software installed and ran without any trouble without doing this.

The Xvid4PSP interface hasn’t changed that much, so users of previous versions should feel right at home. The only option I changed was the format to convert the film into. By default, the PSP 3.30 option is selected, but for this conversion I wanted to try out the PMPlayer that the Xvid4PSP author recommends.

PMPlayer Advance is a homebrew video application for the PSP that requries videos in PMP format, which Xvid4PSP will convert your films into. You can get the PMPlayer Advance direct from the Xvid4PSP site (or download: PMPlayer Advance). This comes with a nice and easy windows installer, so you need to simply connect your PSP to your PC and run the application. PMPlayer supports subtitles, resume, standby, AAC sound, skins, thumbnails, usbhost and nethost.

So, DVD to convert selected (already ripped to avi format), its simply a case of hitting the go button and leaving it to run. To convert a two hour film into PMP format took my PC (2gb ram, 3.0Ghz processor) around about 50 minutes, which includes a two pass run at the conversion. Once complete, the PMP file weighed in at 700mb, around 200mb less than the avi file that was converted.

Once converted, you need to copy the PMP file to your PSP and then load the PMPlayer Advance. From the moment the PMPlayer software loads, you know you are in for a treat. The software itself has a professional look to it, and a wealth of options that are missing from the standard Sony video application. Playback quality of the converted film is the best I’ve seen on the PSP. Whether this is the combination of it being a PMP format file, Xvid4PSP, or the PMPlayer itself I don’t know, but as a combination, Xvid4PSP and PMPlayer Advance beats all other PSP video conversion software hands down.

While some might see vid4PSP as being too complex (its wealth of options can seem daunting), I can assure you that it will convert your films without you having to touch a thing. If you simply select the output format you desire, and start it off, it will convert the film for you without you having to do a thing.

However, if you are a keen film fanatic, who demands perfect encoding of your videos, the numerous options in Xvid4PSP will be more than enough to keep you happy. Recommended.

Grab the software from Winnydows. Formats the software will convert from and to are listed below.

XviD4PSP
Video converter
for PSP, iPOD, BlackBerry and PC

Easy use and high quality program for converting videos for PSP, PS3, iPOD, BlackBerry and PC.

Import formats:
AVI DIVX ASF MPG MPE MPEG VOB TS M2P D2V MOV QT 3GP HDMOV RM RAM RMVB RPX SMI SMIL MKV OGM WMV DVR-MS PMP FLV.

Export formats:
PMP AVC, MP4 PSP 3.03 OE, MP4 PSP 3.30, MP4 iPod, MP4 iPod 640, MP4 iPod Touch, MP4 PS3, MP4, AVI, AVI DV PAL, AVI DV NTSC, MPG, MPEG-2 PAL, MPEG-2 NTSC, MPEG2-TS, MPEG2-PS, FLV, MKV.