How to save and convert YouTube to PSP

I know that there are programs like YouTube downloader and PSPTube to download and watch flv movies on your PSP. They both have some shortcomings, which is why I prefer to watch movies in mp4 format using PSP XMB menu - it is much more comfortable, esthetic and smooth than PSPTube (with all due respect towards its creators, of course).

My story starts with this great music video:

At first I thought that I would download it using KeepVid, an excellent page for saving Youtube videos, would be enough - after all, it provides user with a link to movie in mp4 format (higher quality version of the video) in 16:9 proportion and encoded with H.264, so theoretically it was a perfect choice for saving it for PSP.

Unfortunately, even though the movie looks nicely and is recognized by my PSP, it would hang randomly every now and then during playback, especially when fast forwarding. After careful examination with Gspot (ohoho, I see what you did there with the name), it turned out that the problem is due to resolution of the video. Look at the information below:


I actually missed it the first time - the resolution is 480x270, instead of 480x272. Almost, but in this case "almost" makes a huge difference.

Having no option but to convert video, I started looking for a program that would do the job for me. I wanted something that would be idiot-proof and easy to use, as I don't have much knowledge about video encoding process (I used to dabble in image and video processing when I was a student, but that didn't include meddling with half-broken codecs). I don't have to explicitly mention that the program had to be free as well, do I? PSPVideo9 fit the description, so I downloaded and installed it.

On the whole I find the program annoying - error reporting is quasi-non existent, user interface is cluttered with spam (sorry, commercials). Blargh. But I have decided to give it a try, since I already had it installed. Since as I mentioned before I am a newbie when it comes to video encoding and I do not intend to waste my life on trying to learn the intrinsic details of the process, I have chosen Normal set of options ( less things to fiddle with).

After minimal trial and error, I have settled for these settings:


The result is the video that does not take too much space, has decent quality (more or less the same as seen on Youtube in higher quality) and plays flawlessly. Video parameters are as follows:


Yes, the video stream is a bit too generous when it comes to kbps, but still the result is satisfying. Reencoding with 500kbps doesn't yield that much difference in file size, so for the sake of this HowTo I have decided to keep it simple and remain in Normal settings domain.

Now, the process of conversion doesn't take long and with the settings now saved as default, it is pretty much automatic - download Youtube video with KeepVid, process with PSPVideo9, put on PSP, enjoy watching.

Now it's feedback time - what do you think about this post? Useful? Simplistic? Plain wrong? Let me know via comments.

Barts' Short Bursts vol. 1 - a bit of everything

I really do need to find some more suitable title for this (such as Gnome's Decker's Delight Links or Bytejacker's Indie Rapid Fire): there are so many things worth bringing to your attention and so little time to write about them. Therefore, I have decided to make posts with a compilation of interesting links and tidbits that don't quite qulify for a full post, either due to my chronic lack of time or because they are just a small curiosity. Here goes the first bunch:

No country for old pigeons.

Owl Country is a little indie title that I have found on TIGSource, but can't recall how. It's just pure magic of teh internets, I guess. While the game itself is a bit of a one trick pony, it has a great intro, amusing gameplay mechanics and big game makers could learn a lot from its authors when it comes to creating atmosphere. Be sure to watch the awesome trailer !

A true classic

Other not-so-indie game that caught my attention is in making is a remake of a retro hit we all know and love: R-Type. Check the trailer here - notice how the player can switch between 2D and semi-3D view, really neat. Another game these guys are making is Lode Runner remake, which makes me instantly like them, even if their website looks like prepared by a ten year old with an outdated HTML book (their Facebook page is a bit better). Sadly, this game is going to be available only for Xbox 360.


Penny Arcade noticed the existence of Poland in their comic strip. I love PA and this one is quite funny, but I need to point out that syfy would rather mean spots (as in nasty case of acne) and syphilis would be commonly called syf, which also means something of low quality or not nice. Always a nitpicker, Barts is.


There are also two quite interesting flash games that I would like to recommend for your gaming pleasure - Virus 3 and Bloody Day Out. They are both about logical thinking and planning a couple of steps ahead. The first one involves infecting a system of geometrical shapes as a virus and requires carefulk planning to infect the whole level within designated moves limit. The second one is starrring a cute little Death cutting through fields of equally cute critters. The trouble is, Death is bleeding out while doing that, so player needs to plan their moves carefully. Bloody Day Out is an excellent time-waster ad I heartily recommand it.


Did you know you can play hundreds of NES games online? I didn't, so when I first learnt about Virtual NES website, it cost me a good hour or so spent with Belmont, Mario and others. Also, contrary to abandonware sites (mostly illegal), the owners of the site have gone to great lengths to prove their website is legal. Definitely worth a look, especially for other retro freaks out there.

Burly Blender Brawl

I am a big fan of Blender, as you already might have noticed. Today note, while not news at all, will be about Blender and Matrix - what's not to like for geeks like us?

First, I would like to draw your attention to one, often overlooked, feature of Blender, namely Blender Game Engine (commonly abbreviated to BGE). It is what it sounds like - a solution for authoring game content. It allows managing states, creating logical bricks, enabling real-time physics and much more. While it is perhaps not the easiest game engine to use, it is quite capable and does not cost a penny.


Some time ago I have come across a 3D rendition of environment of Burly Brawl fight scene from the second Matrix movie done in Blender Game Engine. Up until that moment, I was looking at BGE in a bit of contemptuous manner, but being able to fly around that very scene changed my mind and I started paying closer attention. Even though the author, Mike Pan, claims to have done it using only his memory due to not having a copy of the movie at the time, it still looks more faithful to me than rendition of the same scene in the offical Matrix game, Path of Neo. Perhaps it's the green tint to everything, I don't know.

The file used to be available from Mike Pan's website, but is not anymore. However, it can be found the Internet Archive. In order to run it, download the copy of Blender from here, load the file and press P to play. Quite impressive, eh?

If I managed to tickle your interest with the above, you're welcome to see what Blender Game Engine is capable of in this video and if you are curious about projects using it, read more about Yo Frankie! game. Who knows, you might actually get to create something with it?

A portion of 8bit love

I somehow can't quite quit the vicious 8bit circle I've fallen into recently, so bear with me for a little while, dear reader. Today I bring you a portion of lovely movies from 8-bit demoscene, some for my beloved ZX Spectrum, some for Commodore 64 and others, including a simple microcontroller (sic!).


It is just incredible what effects can be squeezed from these ancient and very limited machines. Forget about colour clash, forget about hardware limitations, just sit down and enjoy your ride. It's actually hard to say which one I like most - of course I have a soft spot for anything running on Sir Clive's invention, but each and every of them is impressive. For this post I have finally chosen the one that was visually most impressive (sorry, I am a very shallow man and visual beauty gets me every time):

See the rest of the demos here.

[via GameSetWatch]

Gaming on Acer Aspire One

Being a gadgeteer, I too often buy cool technological gizmos just because I get into my head that it would be cool to have one. In most cases I get back to my senses some time later when I realize I am not using them to their full potential or that they are not half as cool as their marketing promised them to be and as a result sell them when in need of money. Examples of things I used to own but don't anymore include: iPhone, Wacom Intuos3 A4 tablet, Toshiba M200, Toshiba M4, Powerizer clone and, just recently, a cool Acer Aspire One netbook.

In case of the netbook craze, I reckoned it would cool to be able to type my blog posts and other writing thingies when travelling by train to my hometown (you wouldn't believe how long it takes Polish railways to travel 200km...) or occasionally check mailbox when in one of many cafes in the city center. Being able to watch a movie, do lightweight programming or play some games were additional plus. At first I wanted Asus EEE, but it was expensive and I told myself that I wouldn't buy anything more expensive than 1000PLN (Polish currency, which I give here because dollar conversion is changing a bit too rapidly these days). Then I fell in love with MSI Wind, because it was prettier, got many things better and also carried 6-cell battery, promising about five hours of battery life. For a short period of time I considered Samsung N10, which was even cooler - however, it turned out to be freakin' expensive as well.


Finally I settled for a used Acer Aspire One, with 6-cell battery, 80Gb hard drive, 1Gb of RAM and Windows XP for significantly smaller amount of money than my limit. Unfortunately, it turned out that while it is quite capable machine on its own, it also has several drawbacks.

First of all, the keyboard, while often described as the best among netbooks, is still too small for me. I am a tall guy of about 2m (6.6 feet) and I do have large hands with long fingers - which made typing problematic. Secondly, while the screen was wonderfully crisp and colourful, it also had very high DPI (meaning very small pixels), making extended use for writing/reading a strain on my already strained eyes. Coupled together, these two issues made my primary application of notebook - as a portable typewriter - very limited. I would get tired of using it for anything else than games and movies much faster than the battery would run out. Don't get me wrong - it was a delightful little device, only it turned out to be unfit for my particular purposes and physical build. I use the past tense, because I sold it very quickly (in order not to lose money, since the moment for sale on the netbook market is good).

However, this being primarily a gaming website, I couldn't pass the opportunity to check Acer Aspire One's gaming capabilities - and I have to tell you that it makes an excellent portable gaming device. All the emulators run smoothly (PSX, Amiga and others), but what's more impressive, a good selection of great older (but not too old, mind you) PC titles are playable as well. I immediately checked four of my favourites that I was itching ever since seeing some of the other "Gaming on Acer Aspire One" videos: ONI, Manhunt, Morrowind and Unreal Tournament Classic. ONI and UT run flawlessly at full speed, high details and in perfectly fluid animation. Manhunt is totally playable in all its gory glory, occasionally losing couple of frames in some more graphic-intensive fragments when there are lighting and fog effects present. Morrowind becomes a bit less fluid outside, but in interiors runs great and lowering drawing distance makes the game an enjoyable experience. Without further ado, here come the four classics in action:

I do apologize for the video quality, but I made this movie in my last hour of Acer ownership, when the buyer was already on his way to my place. It was bright spring morning and AAO's shiny screen did become quite reflective. As a result, not only can you watch my skinny hand and arm, but also reflection of me and the camera. While what you can see in the movie looks a little weird with the glare, it actually didn't infer with playing. In other words, things look much worse in the video than in reality. Still, this is the video showing in action some games (ONI, Manhunt) that you couldn't find played on a netbook anywhere else on Youtube and it might be helpful if you are thinking about buying Acer Aspire One with potential gaming in mind.

A heap of Gnome-inspired ZX Spectrum goodies

Can you recognize the games below?


Anyone that calls themselves a gamer will immediately reply: Mortal Kombat, Castlevania, Prince of Persia. However, would you believe me if I told you these are all ZX Spectrum versions of their console and PC counterparts? Probably not, but it's true, that's what they are. Want to know more how I found them and why it's all Gnome's fault? Read on...

1. It all begun with me wanting to post this absolutely fabulous YouTube video I have found via Gabriel Cuesta's blog. Unfortunately, I have forgotten about it and Gnome beat me to it. His post reminded me about it and after some hesitation, I have decided to post it here:

2. As it often happens, watching the above movie before posting triggered a process of youtubing (similar to Wikipedia problem presented by XKCD), which has finally led me to this video:

In case you are wondering, this is precisely what the title says - Wolfenstein 3D demake for ZX Spectrum. Okay, it is a bit of a cheat, because this is not 100% kosher British ZX Spectrum, but one of its many clones, namely Pentagon with "slightly" more powerful specs (up to 1024kb RAM and twice clock speed). Still, let's not be too picky, it's Wolfenstein on Spectrum, right?


3. Fascinated googling on the topic of Wolfenstein on ZX Spectrum (Wikipedia problem again!) has in turn led me to a wonderful Hungarian page on ZX games development after 1993. It is packed with interesting information and beautiful screenshots, unfortunately it also loads at painfully slow pace, reminding me times of ancient modems. Therefore I suggest that you visit its Google cache counterpart for the text itself and as for the images, I have chosen creme de la creme in tha vein of recent Gnome's ZX Spectrum gallery (the topmost screenshots in this note also come from the same source):


4. Side-effects of the aforementioned youtubing include Doom on ZX Spectrum, streaming video on ZX Spectrum, 100 Speccy games, Walker demake (ported from Amiga to ZX!), a handful of Spectrum demos and Wolfenstein on TI-83 scientific calculator... Who will give me back these hours of my life?

As you can see, it is all Gnome's fault, as his recent ZX Spectrum related posts are to be blamed for provoking all this retro-mayhem.

Double portion of LSD Pong

The title says it all - today I would like to share with you two versions of the classic Pong game that both look as if their respective creators enjoyed experimenting with LSD a little too much.


I found the first remake while reading my daily portion of Exophase. It is not so much a full game yet, but a tech demo showcasing what can be done with the new PSP game engine by A_Nub. The chances are that it will soon become a regular game with cool graphical effects. If you have a PSP, download it from the release thread - static screens don't fully show how trippy this game is. If author adds pulsating plasma background, people will get high by just playing it.


Speaking of plasma, watching Gnarly Pong in action made me recall equally trippy game for PC called Plasma Pong and I have realised that unfortunately I never mentioned it here on Barts News. Essentially, the game is good, old Pong with added fluid dynamics and funky visual effects. It is quite fun to play in short bursts.

While googling for more information, I found out that the notice on author's page suggests that Atari was unhappy with him using their trademark. On a positive note, though, author promises a new title to make up for that and the original game can be still found in many places over the internet, for example here.

You owe it to yourself to read more detailed review here and see Plasma Pong in action in this video, because similarly to Gnarly Pong the beauty of the game manifests itself best in motion.

[via Exophase]

Zombiegrinder 60000

Not that much can be said about Zombiegrinder 60000, except that it is a scrolling shmup that allows player to literally grind zombies - but there is a little twist to it, which makes it slightly less forgettable.


Player is put in the blood-covered shoes of a man with shotgun who is incessantly running to the right, killing zombies while accelerating. The original concept, however, is that the action is closely tied to music, so when the music slows down, the time flow also does in the bullet time manner, and when the music goes crazy, the action pick up on speed to match it.

Simple? It really is and I don't think anyone can play the game for more than a couple of minutes, but it's well executed, provides some distraction from work (ahem) and the idea of time slowing down together with music is neat. Plus there are zombies in it and gamers love zombies, so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen (okay, somehow I don't think ladies are going to actually play it) I give you:

Olle Hemmendorff's Zombiegrinder 60000

As the name implies, the in-game music (I know that calling this sound thingy music is perhaps stretching the definition of the word to the limit, but oh well) is grindcore. If you are not familiar with different kinds of metal, such as for example vegetarian progressive grindcore, feel free to inform yourself by means of this excellent video.

[found via comment section of Rock Paper Shotgun post on something completely different]

Indie Spotlight: Project Aftershock

Among the myriads of half-baked Indie games and mediocre clones of commercial releases only few things manage to catch my attention while still in development hell and even fewer secure my ADHD-like attention span long enough to warrant a mention on this blog (Aquaria did, for example, but it was a rare case). So when I say I'm interested in seeing what becomes of Project Aftershock, you know that I am serious.

The game looks like Wipeout meets Fallout kind of thing. Seriously, it's not that easy to create convincing vision of future that is both crumbling and hi-tech - what I have seen so far seems to manage to do that quite well. The project is based entirely on OpenSource tools, namely Ogre3D, Blender and Gimp, which already makes me like its authors.


Go on and check the official development blog (hey, they also use Blogger!), game photo stream (where from I nicked the above screenshot) and development thread on Ogre3D forums (if you're technologically inclined). There is also approprietly high-def video showcasing one of the game tracks.

I hope the guys will make it - if the manage to keep gameplay on par with the visuals and finish the game without spoiling it, I think I could even be convinced to pay for Project Aftershock. That's a lot of "ifs", but I do wish them good luck and will be checking how it goes every now and then.

[via Blender Nation]