No Modification PSP TV Adapter

Craig writes "PSP Owners have long been interested in watching the UMD films and playing games on the TV, well now according to a report from Lik Sang they can, the new PSPTV being produced eventually by Gametech will be a no modification addon. From the article: 'The TV Adapter for PSP lets you hook up your PSP to your home television (NTSC and PAL) via Composite or S-Video and Stereo connectors. This adapter requires no modification of your PSP console. This new peripheral takes a completely different approach and clips on top of your PSP screen, with two screws to fit at the back of the handheld (in these two holes you can see on the top of the UMD drive). Some sort of pyramid grows from the base, with a precision lens and mirror system at the top, capturing the image and light, in a similar way a scanner or camera would. It then converts it into a video signal that is sent through video leads going from the adapter to your TV set.'"

anyone else

[firl]

think this is a horrible idea?

Covert it from the out put via capture to digital back to analog, just a couple conversions too many imo.

Hahahah.

[Seumas]

If you paid $20 for content on UMD so you could watch it on a tiny little screen, you deserve to be shot. Spending $20+ on a full sized DVD that you can watch on your widescreen television once or twice in your life is absurd enough, much less this PSP UMD nonsense. But it just proves, people will buy anything!

UMD? More like D U M! Giggady giggady gig!

What's the point? Buy a PS2

[poopie]

The whole exercise seems like a lot of work to hook a PSP up to a TV with a device that's got to be ugly and unweildy. Why not just buy a PS2 if you want to play games on the TV?

I Don't See...

[monkaduck]

So essentially I'm paying for a UMD disk, then a converter to play it on the TV? And then the PSP version of the game and said converter to play on TV? I already have this. It's called my PS2. I'm not paying for stuff twice just so I can be "cool."

Re:anyone else

[Ironsides]

"There's a sucker born every minute." - David Hannum

Someone will buy it.

Re:Hahahah.

[Seth Finklestein]

Dear Seumas,

Get a job, then you can buy shit. Nobody likes to read a poor man's critiques of products he wouldn't buy.

I am proud to have owned my favourite movies on LaserDiscs (no DRM!), DVDs (plays on my laptop!), and UMDs (plays on my handheld game consoles!). Go watch your XviD movies on your 6-year-old ThinkPad you bought off eBay for $200 and save the righteousness for priests.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
White-Collar Worker

Re:anyone else

[TrappedByMyself]

think this is a horrible idea?

Yeah, it will look like ass. And what the hell is the point of providing component and s-video support when the video is already trashed?

UMD

[TX297]

I for one don't see the purpose of buying movies on UMD, especially since you can buy a full-size DVD and rip it to your PC to use on a memory stick. Much more versatile that way.

Also, Lik-Sang does sell a modification kit with a pure s-video out and PS2 controller port if you look around in TFA.

LMFAO

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you read the article? "Unfortunately, the installation requires you to open and modify your PSP console, and you need to replace the front face plate with a new one. This TV Adapter is recommended only for advanced D.I.Y. technicians, and installing the kit will definitely void your warranty." [lik-sang.com]

So if it's not a 'mod', but it voids your warranty, what is it? Oh yeah, a PIECE OF CRAP! Ok, I'm going to take 480 x 272 video and blow it up to wide screen using an A/D/A conversion device costing $120 ... it will look HORRIBLE! This will be worse than the crappy ripped AVI movies people put on the web....GACK!

I hate to say it, but this is one of those times where it REALLY is better to buy the effing DVD! And, I HATE the MPAA (and the RIAA, for that matter).

Re:Hahahah.

[SmokeSerpent]

Spending $20+ on a full sized DVD that you can watch on your widescreen television once or twice in your life is absurd enough ...
Trading less than an hour's work for 4+ hours of entertainment is well within reason.

Besides, do you really think that most people watch most DVDs that they buy only 1 or 2 times?

PSone

[PopeOptimusPrime]

If I wanted to play PSP games on my TV I'd buy a PSOne.

Re:Hahahah.

[NanoGator]

"If you paid $20 for content on UMD so you could watch it on a tiny little screen, you deserve to be shot. Spending $20+ on a full sized DVD that you can watch on your widescreen television once or twice in your life is absurd enough, much less this PSP UMD nonsense. But it just proves, people will buy anything!"

Or it proves that some people find themselves spending time idling and they want something to occupy themselves. I've heard a few times that people who ride the bus a lot find the PSP to be a wonderful little device. Frankly, I'd probably be interested in one as well if I were still at my previous job. I travelled by plane a lot. Sometimes I'd spend up to a week at a time in a hotel. The idea of a pocket sized device with an interesting collection of movies would have been quite attractive to me. Every trip, I'd pick up a couple of UMDs and be off.

That said, I'm actually more attracted to the video iPod. 30/60 gigs of storage plus a video out. I could keep a reasonably large library of shows or movies to watch on it, then hook it up to the TV at the hotel to kill a couple of hours before bed. Not a bad deal since I'm on the market for an iPod anyway.

You don't see it, that's fine, but that doesn't mean everybody's stupid.

Sony vs Sony

[FullCircle]

You KNOW that the only reason there is no video output on the PSP is because the Sony content masters are a separate division from the electronics division.

One has to protect the content at all costs, the other has to sell hardware with restrictions imposed by the content division. What fun it must be to work at Sony ...

It's like all the DVD players they sold that wouldn't read DVD-R (even those written in Sony burners) a few years ago.

Re:Hahahah.

[Fred_A]

Except that being stuck with UMD disks that likely won't ever be readable by anything useful doesn't sound too great.

DVDs, encumbered with the stupid zoning and encryption as they are are, at least reasonably versatile. I can read them on my desktop, on my TV, on my laptop, I can rip them to a pocket media player...

When you buy UMD content, there's a fair chance you'll never be able to do anything worthwile with it, even if you manage to extract the video, it will look like VHS at best. But it's still sold at about the same price as a DVD.

All in all it's not very tempting.

Re:anyone else

[exhilaration]

I fully expect that Sony will be putting out DVD / UMD combo players soon enough

Why would they do that when they've discovered that millions [joystiq.com] of suckers will pay for both a DVD and UMD of their favorite movie(s)?