Some questions about Playstation TV (PS Vita)

[emphatic]

As I realized that these are very cheap now, has 480p support and possibly even support for wired controls, I just want to be sure it's worth getting for what I want it for. So, here are my questions:

1. When outputting 480p, is it displaying in 4:3 aspect ratio?
2. Are wired controllers an option, and if so, has anyone successfully used an aki-shop PS360+?

My plan is to be able to use it in my cabinet by feeding the video through an UVC using a HDMI->VGA/audio converter and possibly even power it off the JAMMA harness' +5V.

[Nug]

Not sure about your first question, but wired controllers don't work. Has to be wireless PS3 or PS4 controllers

[emphatic]

Not sure about your first question, but wired controllers don't work. Has to be wireless PS3 or PS4 controllers

Ah, shucks. Thanks for the info.

[bobrocks95]

It has a USB port you use to sync controllers, why don't wired controllers work?

I believe 480p output is 16:9 and didn't look that great on my HDTV when I tried it. Of course, YMMV on that end of things. What would you be running on it that would call for 4:3?

[BazookaBen]

1) 480p is 16:9.

In my experience, 1080i looks the best, because you can get 1:1 pixel scaling (I think). In the display options, you're allowed to zoom 4 steps beyond the edge of the screen. If you think about it, the PSVita has a 544p screen, take away 4, you have 540. Multiply 540x2... you have 1080. Well, with 1080i, you actually have 540 each scan, just with lines being in a slightly different position every frame. So it's actually doubled on the horizontal axis.

That said, there still might be some sort of bilinear filter applied or something, or I might be wrong about the whole thing. Somebody else should check this out and let me know what they think.

2) I use my DS3 wired to cut down on input lag. As far 3rd party controllers go, my Hori Pro Pad 3 doesn't work, but I've read a few 3rd party controllers do work.

[bobrocks95]

Hmm, I would think the interlacing makes that about an equal tradeoff... Also are the 4 steps 2 pixels each I guess then?

[BazookaBen]

Hmm, I would think the interlacing makes that about an equal tradeoff... Also are the 4 steps 2 pixels each I guess then?

Yeah, I'm thinking each step beyond the border is 1 PS Vita pixel, or 2 pixels on your display. I've only done this on my PC CRT, I imagine it would give pretty good results on a 1080p fixed pixel display too, if the de-interlacer is good.

[cfx]

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[emphatic]

I wanted to use it on a 4:3 CRT and 480p is the preferred input resolution in my case. Step one in this experiment was to find out if the hardware would work well, then look into what games would work. Thanks for taking the time to answer.

[HydrogLox]

I wanted to use it on a 4:3 CRT and 480p is the preferred input resolution in my case.

Do you have a 4:3 CRT that takes HDMI? Otherwise you would need a means to convert it anyway. Overall I'd say that the PSTV is pretty much a 16:9 device.

[ZellSF]

PSP and Vita games are 16:9 only. Only 4:3 content available would be PSX titles.

1080i is a bad idea. Interlaced content is not good on modern TVs. Even if you want it for theoretical integer scaling I think it does bilinear filtering anyway and you would have to cut of 2 pixels on top and bottom. For a console that would be OK since they'd be accounting for overscan anyway, a portable title uses all available screen space. Oh and last time I tried it didn't support all titles and threw up an annoying prompt whenever it didn't.

[Shuco13]

Anybody who bought a PSTV recently can tell me what firmware they get currently shipped with? Thanks!

[cfx]

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[emphatic]

As I wrote in my original post, I wanted to use it like this:

PSTV->HDMI to VGA/Audio->Ultracade Universal Video Converter outputting 240p->CRT in cabinet using a PS360+ for controls

I read about PSP games working, watched a few YouTube videos of PSTV running a PSP emulator - meaning you could play arcade games, SNES etc too. Plenty of reasons to be running it in a cab, considering price and small footprint. Also, Google search suggests it might work with wired 360 controllers, but I wanted to know for sure before buying one.

Anybody who bought a PSTV recently can tell me what firmware they get currently shipped with? Thanks!

+1 on wanting this info.

[ZellSF]

Emulators running under PSP mode are pretty bad and Vita native emulation isn't exactly huge yet. If all you want is an emulator box, there are much better choices (Raspberry Pi 3 comes to mind, though there's probably even better options).

Only reason to go for a PSTV is PSP and Vita games, which is all 16:9 only content.

Don't get me wrong, everyone should have a PSTV, but emulation and 4:3 content should not be the reasons.

PSP titles on it have some kind of undefeatable filter that makes them blurry and while I didn't personally notice this, I've read elsewhere the aspect ratio is slightly off. So while I thought there was a fair library of PSP titles I'd want on it, I found the image quality was too poor and the way they're blurred tended to give me a headache.

Uh.. No.

The aspect ratio for PSX titles is off. PSP titles are fine assuming you can live with the bilinear filtering to 720p followed by your TV's scaling to 1080p. Yeah the image quality on this thing is terrible and OP's plans of running it through even more processing steps makes me think the result will be really ugly.

[emphatic]

Thanks a lot. I guess I'm gonna skip this.

[bobrocks95]

Oh and last time I tried it didn't support all titles and threw up an annoying prompt whenever it didn't.

Get the whitelist mod if you still can (depends on firmware version), I would say it's necessary if all you own is a PSTV.

Anybody who bought a PSTV recently can tell me what firmware they get currently shipped with? Thanks!

Very likely it's still 3.35, I doubt they've made any more PSTV's after they were practically giving them away recently.

PSP titles on it have some kind of undefeatable filter that makes them blurry and while I didn't personally notice this, I've read elsewhere the aspect ratio is slightly off. So while I thought there was a fair library of PSP titles I'd want on it, I found the image quality was too poor and the way they're blurred tended to give me a headache.

I mainly play my portable systems at home anyway, so the frame of reference I have is a PSP hooked up through component- the PSTV looks WAY better, regardless of if it's blurring or not. Using the zoom mode made for the PSP on my Sony HDTV, or unstretched on an EDTV plasma, the PSTV gives a much cleaner picture than the analog output straight from the PSP. Now, on the fixed-pixel display, yeah, it probably looks a whole lot better. But if someone were asking what the best way to play PSP games on their TV is I would say it's by far a modded PSTV.

[ZellSF]

Oh and last time I tried it didn't support all titles and threw up an annoying prompt whenever it didn't.

Get the whitelist mod if you still can (depends on firmware version), I would say it's necessary if all you own is a PSTV.

Context. I was talking about 1080i support. Not all Vita titles support 1080i output. They'll complain and tell you they're setting the resolution to 720p if they don't.

That said it is important to mention that a LOT of PSX titles won't work on a Vita and some more won't work on a PSTV. Many PSP titles also won't work on a Vita and some more won't work on a PSTV.

You can CFW of course but then you would have to wait a long time for the next CFW exploit whenever you want to play a new Vita game. Unless you want to buy two PSTVs (what I'm planning on doing since I'm not giving up on Wipeout 2048).

[cfx]

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[ZellSF]

I thought I had read it was very slightly off with PSP too which could be since the PSP resolution isn't exactly 16:9 though very close

Yeah. It's exactly the same as Vita's aspect ratio. Which the PSTV displays correctly. Though even if you did stretch the aspect ratio to 16:9 the difference isn't large enough to be noticeable to anyone.