why is there no video-out on the PSP?
 

First off, I am NOT bashing Sony. I think the PSP is cool as hell. I am just curious as to why there is no video out on it? It seems like the resolution is pretty darn good, or am I mistaken?

Its good, I recently bought my psp, then the video ipod came out. I wish I wouldve waited>

Because the screen is 4.3"...if you tried to put video on another screen, it would look like poop.

that's not true...my archos av500 is 4.3" and the tv out puts out great looking video onto my 30" hdtv.

FWIW, Apple's new Video Ipod has an even smaller screen (2.5"), yet it has tv-out capability. The screen size only indirectly affects how a PSP video will look on your TV anyway. It really comes down to the resolution, bitrate, and compression of the video file (the PSP only offers those specs up to a level that is good enough for its own little screen).

thanks for the replies! So the PSP resolution is high enough to look great on a little screen but not high enough for a TV? makes sense. thanks!

Because Sony wants you to buy a copy of Spider-Man on UMD and DVD.

There's a 3rd party accessory that will allow you to connect your PSP to a TV, but it's rather expensive and also requires pretty drastic modification. The cool thing is that it allows you to use a dualshock controller. The crappy thing is that Sony didn't have the common sense to build this into the PSP in the first place.

http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=3696

Its Sony...what do you expect?

There is a link somewhere in the PSP thread that someone has detailed why PSP Movies would like like crap on any screen over 13 inches.

There is a new device that does not require any modification to the PSP.

http://www.lik-sang.com/news.php?artc=3706

I tried digging through the old thread for that link Gizmo mentioned but quit after about forty pages. Theoretically a UMD movie could look fine on a TV screen; the PSP's screen resolution is fairly low (480x272) but UMD movies are encoded at full DVD resolution (720x480). They're more heavily compressed than DVDs but the codec is better (MPEG4 vs. MPEG2). It wouldn't be DVD quality but it probably wouldn't be a very far cry. The issue is that the system downscales UMD movies to display on the lower-resolution PSP screen and it's probably not possible to output the full 720x480 image from the PSP, so you'd be stuck with a 720x480 video that's been shrunk to 480x272.

PSP would look ok on tv. The PS1 and N64 were effectively outputing lower res. Also people (mainly in asia) used to watch video cds all the time, and the PSP res is higher than that.

I have quite the collection of "Video-CD's", they arn't that bad. But it is hard to go back.

Someone said it best though, Sony did not include the video out so you would buy both the UMD and DVD. In addition there is digital rights issues I'm sure the Sony media guys where crapping themselves over.

Does this need its own thread?

I'm not sure what to make of this. I posted what I thought was a valid question in a respectful manner. I received, as always, many thoughtful and helpful responses. I didn't know the resolution of the PSP screen or of the UMD discs, but thanks to my fellow DVDTalkers, I now do. I use the email notifciation option to keep on top of threads. Imagine my surprise when I got an email telling me about this post. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but I just don't see the need to attack another poster's topic as not useful. Thank you to everyone else for your helpful posts!