PlayStation Vita homebrew releases have significantly slowed in the last few months but some developers are still creating useful stuff for the system. This time, we have VideoDebug which is a plugin that finally makes the native video application useful!
What is VideoDebug?
When Sony released the PSVita, one of the biggest gripes about it was how locked down it was compared to the PSP and one of the areas where Sony decided to over-lock things was the Videos application.
Thanks to VideoDebug, you can make the Videos application on the PSVita actually useful!
This application was locked down by forcing users to import videos via QCMA rather than copy them directly to the system which added unnecessary overhead especially if one wants to copy media from a PC they don’t normally use. To rectify this, Arkanite released Vita Media Center which allowed videos to be played directly from internal memory although this homebrew utility didn’t see much development past its initial release meaning that it isn’t highly polished.
Now, VideoDebug has been released which is a kernel plugin by SilicaAndPina, with help from u/AltCtrlGraphene, that puts the Videos application in debug mode. By putting the Videos application in debug mode, it can play videos directly from ux0:/data without having them imported via QCMA which makes it possible to easily copy videos over to the PSVita over FTP from a mobile device if you so desire making life much easier.
Installing the plugin is pretty easy and can be done by following these steps:
- Grab the SKPRX file (kernel plugin) from this link
- Copy it to ux0:/tai or ur0:/tai
- Add “ux0:tai/videoDebug.skprx” or “ur0:tai/videoDebug.skprx” under the *KERNEL section of your config.txt file (it’s either in ux0:tai or ur0:tai)
- Reboot your system and enjoy!
- To get a video on your PSVita, just copy it to ux0:/videos and select the ‘TestFolder’ menu option in the Videos app
- The ux0:/videos directory may be hidden on your PC so you may need to manually navigate to it or enable hidden folders
Which video formats are supported?
The highly common H264 video format should work just fine but the PSVita’s video player isn’t the best out there so before copying a whole season of a show, it may be a good idea to test a single episode first!
The video formats supported when the VideoDebug plugin is used are the same ones that the PSVita natively supports which are:
- MPEG-4 Simple Profile Level 6, Maximum 1280 ｘ 720 pixels, AAC
- H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Baseline/Main/High Profile Level 4.0, Maximum 1920 ｘ 1080p, AAC
- Both the video and audio format must be compatible for videos to work
From some limited testing of my own on FW 3.60, I was able to play:
- ‘Just Dance’ by Lady Gaga @ 640×360 (360p) 24FPS
- This video by ashens @ 1280×720 (720p) 25FPS
- An episode of Koutetsujou No Kabaneri @ 1280×720 (720p) 24FPS which has a file size of around 500MB
- Videos without an audio track didn’t want to play on my device. All videos tested use the H.264 codec
Conclusion
In the last 2 days, some more stuff got released including ScummVM 2.1.0 (multi-platform software letting you play some DOS-era point-and-click titles also available for the PSVita) and an easy-to-use tool for downgrading Apple A7 devices to iOS 10.3.3 without blobs or a jailbreak!
The post PSVita Release: VideoDebug released which allows the Videos App to play videos directly from ux0:/data – QCMA is no longer needed to play videos in the native app! appeared first on Wololo.net.