[Tutorial] Getting The Most Of Your Music On Your PSP

[llewelyn]

Getting The Most Of Your Music On Your PSP: Making ATRAC3plus Work With Fake/Pro Duo MS

This is my first contribution here and I just hope you’ll find this tute useful, I just wanna share to you this stuff... and I guess you all deserve a nice short intro..
Ok…Ok... Before, I used to keep only about 90+ MP3 files( mostly at 128~160kbps) in my beloved PSP, although they sound good at those bitrates, well, size does matter!!!!...Dang, they just eat up some 685 MB of my precious 4GB Memory Stick space!!!so I experimented with different audio compression proggies, but MP3s are just plain trash below 64kbps, even at 80..agree?? I gave up with MP3s…and there comes .WMA lossless, was satisfied with it’s quality at low bitrates, even at 48kbps sounds fine for me, yeah, 48kbps WMA=96kbps MP3,almost…)but then, there’s one problem, I can’t see those album art thumbnails with .WMA files, and seems there’s no way displaying them with it. I just love those chic thumbnails, they look cool and are real eye-candies… Again, not satisfied… So last night, I searched for a better alternative, I’ve read bout this “ATRAC” and “ATRAC3plus” which were another formats supported by the PSP and most Sony Portables. Many people give nice feedbacks bout it, but many too--groan about this format, protected by Sony, seems like the files are encrypted while they are transferred to the PSP, from instead of the native .AA3 ATRAC extension, it turns to .OMA, but the same file size)…bothersome and inconvenient conversion…no third party converter/encoder available… “convert-copy-paste” just won’t work…I’ve read bout another problem related with ATRAC file transfer is that it only works with MS Duo, and not with MS Pro Duo Cards and as well as with FAKE Memory Sticks(ATRAC transfer just works perfect with my Genuine MS)…. I found several tutes but they weren’t working, there’s an almost similar tutorial somewhere but does not work either…But, finally I found the way, now I have 1,093 ATRACs in 85 albums to be exact!!!….WICKED huh!!!!!!:mrgreenthumbsup:


In comparison…
100+ mp3 files = 680+MB
While 100+ ATRAC3plus files = 160+MB
:o

Who Needs This??
• For those who wan to spend time to get the “BEST” and “MOST” of their music archives in their PSPs. -- BEST quality,in BEST file size, and in BEST format—and of course for those who want to save much MS space.
• If you own a FAKE or GENUINE memory stick (Duo or Pro Duo)

What’s With This Tutorial???
• Just a simple “HOW-TO GUIDE” to convert your MP3s,WMAs,M4As,etc. to ATRAC files directly to your PSPs without those complicated OMGAUDIO and HIFI folder generation, ATRAC3 CD method, and those crappy AA3 to OMA encryption, all of those aren’t working anyway .No more shitty Copy Protection. Don’t worry, I made it as simple as possible.

What You Need???
• Sony Sound Forge 9.0 – Use the 30-day trial version. Use the link below:

http://sony-017.vo.llnwd.net/dspcdn/current/soundforge90a_enu.exe

OR

http://sony-636.vo.llnwd.net/dspcdn/current/soundforge90c-trial_enu.exe

• Sony SonicStage 4.2 – used to organize and tag infos on converted AA3 files. We will also use this to add album art thumbnails. This is a freeware. I’ll provide you this downloadable offline installer plus the driver, as some installer requires internet connection while installing.

ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/Downloads/SO/A/SST/SOASST-01198204-UN.exe

http://dl1.aii.co.jp/contents/connect/_data/ss/ss42_02_11020/JEB/download/installer/pa_driver.zip

Let’s Get It Started:
1. Install Sony Sound Forge 9.0 and Sony SonicStage 4.2, and the driver of course.
2. Open up Sony Sound Forge 9.0, Go to Tools menu, select Batch Converter.



3. Batch Converter dialog box will appear. Then hit Save tab. Click Add Save Options button.



4. Save Options dialog box appears. Select ATRAC Audio (*.aa3) for type. Fill File Names and File Folders acc. to your preference.

5. For Template, click Custom button. Custom template dialog box appears. Use settings as shown below. This is the best settings I recommend.




6. Hit OK two times.
7. At the Batch Converter dialog, hit Files to Convert tab.



8. Then add your music files to be converted. Highlight all files. Then hit Run Job button.
9. Open up Sony SonicStage 4.2. Click My Library tab.



10. Import your .aa3 files to Sonic Stage by dragging them to My Library window.

11. Edit and organize Tag infos and add album art images by right clicking the files, then select Properties. For album art images, click Add button, and direct it the image file.



12. When all is set, Just simply copy and paste the files to your music folder. Then you’re done.
Hope you’ll find it useful.:mrgreenthumbsup:

-llewelyn

[Rich]

I'm gonna bookmark this thread and read it asap, as soon as I have enough free time and patience to try it out because it sounds awesome.

[ZiNgABuRgA]

48kbps ATRAC3plus?!?!?!?!?! That sounds awfully, shite...

I can understand 64kbps, but 48kbps sounds horrible.



Anyway, ATRAC3plus, it's up to what you think. I personally think it's incapable of producing decent quality audio below 192kbps, but some people don't mind 64kbps.
You _can_ encode MP3s in VBR to save some space. Also, the AAC codec is slightly better than MP3.

Thanks for posting this guide, llewelyn, though. Good work!

[PSPownz]

Nice tutorial.

[Tuner]

Originally Posted by PSPownz

Nice tutorial.

[replicat0r]

Originally Posted by PSPownz

Nice tutorial.

[_vamp_]

cool tut :mrgreenthumbsup:

[Aures]

Nice work mate.

[enr1x]

Have tried the ATRAC codec, but i don't like it. Plus, i use Arch Linux and don't want to use windows apps here. I switched from Ogg/Vorbis (quality 6) to MP3 vbr-new (-q 3 -h) to have more compatibility. Thanks for the tuto, anyway :)

[ZiNgABuRgA]

^ His aim was to reduce filesizes. But since you use Vorbis @ q6 / LAME @ -V 3, I don't think you would enjoy small filesizes (I can't hear any defects in LAME -V 4 or oggenc -q 4)