Xerpi seems to like reverse engineering PSVita modules and his tinkering has produced something noteworthy yet again! This time around, it’s version 3 of his Proof of Concept USB streaming solution for the PSVita!
USB Streaming on the PSVita? What?
Developer Xerpi’s been working on making a PSVita USB streaming solution for quite a while and he had his first success last October when he managed to turn the PSVita into a UVC (webcam) device through USB!
LiveArea can be streamed but beware the screen tearing
While this was quite an awesome feat, the plugin itself was extremely slow and unstable so as a result, not much could be done except grabbing a few screenshots of LiveArea.
Then, some months later, Xerpi released version 2 of his Proof of Concept USB streaming plugin which addressed some issues with his previous plugin and added hardware encoding. This reduced the time it took for frames to be transmitted via USB to 124ms which is still quite high.
Thankfully, Xerpi didn’t give up and he’s now released version 3 of his experimental streaming plugin! Version 3 brings along the following:
- Further optimisations to the USB video frame transfer routine
- Code improvements and other optimisations
- Support for 3 video formats, one of which uses the hardware color-space converter engine!
The video format which utilises the hardware color-space converter engine is called NV12 and is capable of outputting up to 50FPS with a frametime of about 20ms.
How does it work? How do I install it?
Unfortunately, many games either crash the plugin or don’t get past the splash screen
Reddit user ‘buzzpunk’ demonstrated this plugin in action with a PSVita running OdinSphere. His video is quite impressive as the game seems to be running at or almost at full speed without any tearing issues! As promising as this may seem, my experiences with this plugin weren’t as great and observed the following:
- Project Diva F, Minecraft PE and Dragon Quest Builders crashed
- Project Diva F 2nd didn’t crash but the image stopped being transmitted at the splash screen
- When the plugin crashed, I usually had to reboot the PSVita to get it working again
- LiveArea streamed at a decent framerate but there was a lot of screen tearing
- Lua Player Plus, VitaShell, Adrenaline and other homebrew didn’t work (not even one)
- Stock applications, such as the Calendar and Camera apps worked
- For reference, my PSVita is running FW 3.60 with HENkaku Enso and a few plugins including ShellBat. Webcam Viewer 3.5 by Bust a Tech was used.
Using this plugin is pretty simple as all you have to do is:
- Copy the plugin to your PSVita and install it under the *KERNEL section in taiHEN’s config.txt
- Reboot your PSVita and enjoy the screen tearing!
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Well, you can kind of check your appointments
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Conclusion
UDCD_VCD (as the plugin’s called) is quite impressive but unfortunately, it’s still too buggy to be considered usable. Perhaps with even more reverse engineering from Xerpi, it could become useful someday but for now, you’re better off using a PSTV to stream your games!
Xerpi’s Reddit Thread explaining his work + download link: https://www.reddit.com/r/vitahacks/comments/93fdgf/poc_v3_psvita_as_an_uvc_usb_video_class_device/
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