Sony preparing movie downloads for the PSP
updated 12:00 pm EST, Mon December 18, 2006
Movie downloads on the PSP
Sony is preparing to start movie downloads to the Playstation Portable in the first quarter of 2007, says the Financial Times. Users will buy a movie on a PC, and from there transfer it to a PSP, much as videos bought on iTunes are synched with an iPod. Only transfers to Sony devices will be permitted, possibly even one per movie. Sony will not be creating its own online store however; the company is instead talking with sites such as Amazon, Movielink, and CinemaNow about supporting the PSP initiative. Videos downloaded from iTunes will not be compatible, as Apple uses its own proprietary formatting.
The announcement of the movie service follows not long after news of the Memory Stick PRO-HG, which is being deliberately designed with video in mind. Sizes of the PRO-HG will range from 4GB to 32GB, and transfer speeds should more than double those of the Memory Sticks currently used by the PSP. Sony estimates that a 4GB stick will be able to hold 10 feature films at the PSP's compressed size.
