Blu-ray to PSP movie transfers soon a reality

Not that it's impossible to do this now by hacking the firmware on an old PSP and using some serious compression tools, but Sony announced this week at CES that they'd be making an official, and easy-to-use, way of bringing Blu-ray films to your PlayStation Portable. Now that a few days have gone by, they've laid out the details as to what's involved.

Gizmodo reports that the films will be about one gigabyte, standard-definition files optimized for the PSP. They should take only 3-5 minutes to download via USB to the Memory Stick Duo from a PS3. Best of all, the service will be free and "can be used potentially on any Blu-ray movie title," though whether that will mean every Blu-ray title will probably be determined by the format's standards.

Sony is still reviewing how DRM will factor into all this, since copies easily stuck onto memory sticks are obviously a big target for piracy. It looks like this will be stopped by limiting the number of copies on each disk, which may only take hackers a week or so to, well, hack. There's also no reason, expect for the proprietary DRM, that this couldn't also be used to transfer the files to iPods or other digital media players.

When this technology will be available to users is still unknown, and the system will likely take a while to work the kinks out. There also probably aren't all that many people who will find this handy, considering it requires a PS3, PSP and a Blu-ray library (which is to say: lots and lots of cash). But for those who can use the feature, it's a nice bonus.

Related links:
Paste: CES 2008
Paste: Warner sides with Blu-ray in HD format war
PSP website

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