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[Sho Nuff]

I've figured out a good way to do this.

1. Open your .cbz (comic book zip) file with WinRAR.
2. Dump the enclosed JPEG files into a folder. MAKE SURE YOU DECOMPRESS THEM IN ORDER, because the PSP sorts based on the time that the file is created.

At this point you can read the stuff on the PSP screen, BUT you're going to have long decompression times (3 seconds when you move the viewing window over the page) if the pixel size is large. This kind of sucks and made me think the PSP would be totally unuseable as a manga viewer. So...

3. In Photoshop or a program like thumbs, do a batch conversion that takes the horizontal pixel spec to 480 pixels. The decompression times are cut to .5 seconds when you scroll over the page...uberfast and totally readable.

I've tried converting the JPEGs to GIFs because GIF is less processor-heavy than JPEG, but it doesn't seem to work.

I've also encountered a bug. Sometimes when I scroll up or down, the original viewing area stays sharp while the rest of the page is in the low-res "thumbnail" mode. This only seems to happen after reading a few hundred pages, and is remedied by backing out with X then re-selecting the page with O. However, it happens more frequently after its first occurance.

 

[Jonnyram]

Do you rotate the pages for the PSP screen or do you keep them horizontal? I guess it's easier that way as you don't have to zoom.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Do you rotate the pages for the PSP screen or do you keep them horizontal? I guess it's easier that way as you don't have to zoom.

Naw, I keep them horizontal -- the pages are wayyy too small when viewing them in tate mode. I just keep it in zoom mode and use the analog stick to zip to the top of the page as each new page is loaded.

 

[Dead]

This seems pretty conveniant. For the life of me, I cannot read any manga/comics on a computer, maybe thisll work...

 

[Zaptruder]

This seems pretty conveniant. For the life of me, I cannot read any manga/comics on a computer, maybe thisll work...

Do you use ACDSee and other such programs?

 

[Dead]

Do you use ACDSee and other such programs?

Yeah, but im just too conditioned to picking up the book itself and reading it in bed, train, car, etc since I was a kid. It feels wierd.

 

[chespace]

Whoa, I gotta try this. I was just reading Drifting Classroom and watching Samurai 7 on the way home from work today.

Thanks!

Edit: Whoa wait a sec, I know this guy... I met him at Otaru!

Hmm okay wait, I'm looking at Thumbs right now... how do I do this?

 

[Atari2600]

If you do a search at microsoft.com of "power toys" there's a cool little program that lets you just right click on a picture or pictures and reszie them, and the option is always there, you don't have to start a program up. It's fast and easy. In case anyone was looking.

 

[BuddyC]

Awesome!

By the way, this program makes it super-simple to rectify any "Date Created" issues you may have. (Thanks arcticfox!)

edit: Staring at thumbs, I too am confused.

 

[Miburou]

Awesome!

By the way, this program makes it super-simple to rectify any "Date Created" issues you may have. (Thanks arcticfox!)

edit: Staring at thumbs, I too am confused.

Go to options to set up the thumbnail's size, etc. and then click on "make thumbnails" to make a sub-folder with smaller versions of your images. And thumbs will fix any date modified problems.

 

[john tv]

Sho, you rule.

I wanna get into the scanslation scene -- where's a good place to start?

 

[BuddyC]

Go to options to set up the thumbnail's size, etc. and then click on "make thumbnails" to make a sub-folder with smaller versions of your images. And thumbs will fix any date modified problems.

Alright, cool. I love my PSP more with each passing day.

 

[Amir0x]

Sho, you rule.

I wanna get into the scanslation scene -- where's a good place to start?

Scanslation is neat.

I'm more into regular comic scans though. I'll be ploppin' DEMO and LOSER on my PSP. If you want those types of comics (PREACHER, TRANSMETROPOLITAN, etc...) I can tell you a good place for those

 

[Sho Nuff]

John, you might wanna talk to the fightin' Irishman who is powered by sour for all your comic needs.

Che, with Thumbs, you have it generate "midsize" images with an X value of 480 and a Y value of 1500 or so (that'll ensure that it'll be perfectly sized to the PSP's screen). Then just copy all of the m_filename01.jpg images from the thumbs_d folder into your PSP and throw away the rest of the files.

A better way to do this would be to write a Photoshop action that automatically resizes a picture's X to 480 pixels and Y to whatever as long as it's constrained by the aspect ratio.

Note that the resizing process is not needed, really, but it makes viewing stuff a HELL of a lot faster.

If I can figure it out, tonight I will figure out Jpegtrans (command line tool) and write some batch file utilities that handle auto-resizing.

 

[Leo the 3rd]

john: start here for some stuff: http://www.manganews.net/
Plenty of scanslations there.

I've had a similar problem where part of the image is out of focus. Another issue I ran into was that the preview image (thumbnail) was solid green. I wonder if there was a file folder limitation. It didn't start happening until I was about 15 deep into viewing.

 

[chespace]

holy shit! it works!

PSP 4EVER.

one question... so what if we made the horizontal pixel size even smaller? Would it speed up the focusing process?

 

[BuddyC]

If I can figure it out, tonight I will figure out Jpegtrans (command line tool) and write some batch file utilities that handle auto-resizing.

That would be really, really cool. I wrote some batch files that rename .cbz -> .zip and .cbr -> .rar. That way, you can select them all and choose "Extract to.." instead of opening them individually. It helps when you have fifty or so issues to decompress

Yes, they're very, very simple batch programs, but I figure someone out there may not be familiar with writing their own. Just toss them in the directory of the .cbr or .cbz files and run the appropiate program.

Right click, save as...
http://www.zombieculture.com/convertcbz.bat

http://www.zombieculture.com/convertcbr.bat

 

[KiNeSiS]

Look at some Marvel Comics Bitches!

Look at Johnny The Homicidal Maniac!! Dumb Hoes!!

 

[tedtropy]

Look at some Marvel Comics Bitches!

Look at Johnny The Homicidal Maniac!! Dumb Hoes!!

I read a few issues of JTHM way back when I was in high school. Funny stuff, very witty, and cool art. The covers especially were always great. Is it still actually being made? I assumed it was a limited run...

 

[Marty Chinn]

I just discovered this sometime last week and it works pretty damn well. I had no idea how much control you had over the photos until recently. Being able to scroll, zoom and rotate easily using the analog nub and buttons works great. If you do what was suggest before, unzip the images, and then resize them to be a width of 480, it decreases the load times and fits in the screen nicely. You just set the mode to full and it will fill the screen horizontally so all you have to do is use the analog nub to scroll up and down the page. Works wonderfully.

 

[chespace]

LOL Marty...

That is a ghetto ass PSP stand you've rigged. Yellow engineering all the way.

 

[KiNeSiS]

I read a few issues of JTHM way back when I was in high school. Funny stuff, very witty, and cool art. The covers especially were always great. Is it still actually being made? I assumed it was a limited run...

I believe you can still find them.
If not, They make a graphic novel directors cut.

 

[Brandon F]

Okay seriously, come March there NEEDS to be some sticky thread detailing all the useful programs and secrets to doing cool shit with a PSP.

Make it happen!

 

[Amir0x]

Okay seriously, come March there NEEDS to be some sticky thread detailing all the useful programs and secrets to doing cool shit with a PSP.

Make it happen!

*twiddles thumbs*

 

[Sho Nuff]

Goddammit, none of these batch converters are working with my shitty .bat file coding.

OK, I'm gonna buy dinner for a friend and see if I can get him to hack together a drag-and-drop Windows app that does proper conversion/resizing.

 

[john tv]

Marty, what the hell are you reading that trash for? You know better.

 

[mrklaw]

I can't get this working. I downloaded a couple of mangas to try out (never done it before), thumbed them to 480 across, and copied the folders of jpegs into the PHOTO folder.

But on the PSP they don't come up. The 'comics' folder says 0 images (it has four subfolders inside, each with the actual jpegs in).

I've also tried pulling the jpegs up into the root of the comics folder (no good) and also into the root of PHOTO - again, no good.

Is there some rule about jpegs that PSP needs to show them? My digital photo shots are fine - they are in the root of PHOTO and have been resized in photoshop and copied across. Some have spaces and hyphens in the filenames, and some have longish filenames, so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

[chespace]

Marty, what the hell are you reading that trash for? You know better.

He likes big muscle-bound white dudes in rainbow colored tights. It's totally understandable though, y'know?

 

[chespace]

I can't get this working. I downloaded a couple of mangas to try out (never done it before), thumbed them to 480 across, and copied the folders of jpegs into the PHOTO folder.

But on the PSP they don't come up. The 'comics' folder says 0 images (it has four subfolders inside, each with the actual jpegs in).

I've also tried pulling the jpegs up into the root of the comics folder (no good) and also into the root of PHOTO - again, no good.

Is there some rule about jpegs that PSP needs to show them? My digital photo shots are fine - they are in the root of PHOTO and have been resized in photoshop and copied across. Some have spaces and hyphens in the filenames, and some have longish filenames, so that shouldn't be an issue.

PSP only supports 1 level folders... which means you have to put the manga in PSP/PHOTOS/INITIAL_D_VOL1/.... and then make another folder for vol. 2, and vol. 3, etc.

You can't have a manga folder, then within that, have a bunch of subfolders.

Lame? Yes. Firmware update? Hope so.

 

[Sho Nuff]

I now have an application that will batch convert a bunch of images into PSP spec, and WILL ALSO DO SO ALPHABETICALLY so there's no danger of the pages being out of order (due to different modification dates).

I don't have anywhere to host the file though, so I just mailed it to Marty's address at Gaming-age.com (check your mail sir). Marty, could you please host this or pass it along to someone who can (it's only 6.84kb zipped with the readme)? Thank you.

Note that I didn't write this myself (I just wrote the spec), but it's being released with the author's blessing.

 

[chespace]

I now have an application that will batch convert a bunch of images into PSP spec, and WILL ALSO DO SO ALPHABETICALLY so there's no danger of the pages being out of order (due to different modification dates).

I don't have anywhere to host the file though, so I just mailed it to Marty's address at Gaming-age.com (check your mail sir). Marty, could you please host this or pass it along to someone who can (it's only 6.84kb zipped with the readme)? Thank you.

Note that I didn't write this myself (I just wrote the spec), but it's being released with the author's blessing.

God bless you sir.

 

[Great King Bowser]

Email me it: richard@touch-ds.com

I can host. Real useful for me too.

 

[BuddyC]

I can host too, plus I'll probably be on the boards all night.

chris@gaming-age.com

 

[Cloudy]

*preorders PSP*

 

[BuddyC]

New Frontier > Identity Crisis

 

[ThirstyFly]

New Frontier > Identity Crisis

Okay, getting a little off tpoic, but what's this New Frontier? I like the look of that artwork and it's always fun seeing Batman and Supes going at it.

 

[Minotauro]

Fuck you guys and your imported PSPs.

(I'm so jealous.)

 

[acklame]

make sure to post a link to the app, i'm sure it'll come in very handy.

march is so far away

 

[chespace]

Fuck you guys and your imported PSPs.

(I'm so jealous.)

More time for you to spend with your precious DS.

I kid, I kid...

 

[BuddyC]

Okay, getting a little off tpoic, but what's this New Frontier? I like the look of that artwork and it's always fun seeing Batman and Supes going at it.

From DC themselves...
"World War II is over. The Cold War has begun. The Age of the Superhero is in decline. But where are the heroes of tomorrow? THE NEW FRONTIER recounts the dawning of the DCU's Silver Age from the perspective of those brave individuals who made it happen. Encounter "keepers of the flame" including Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, who survived the anti-hero sentiment of the Cold War, as well as eager newcomers like test pilot Hal Jordan and scientist Barry Allen, poised to become the next generation of crimefighters."

It was a six issue miniseries, each volume a miniature trade paperback of 60 or so pages. I think they sold for about $6.95 an issue, but they were worth it. Alternatively, the first three issues are collected in a trade paperback entitled The New Frontier Vol. 1, which sells for $19.95. The second volume, containing the final three issues, should be out later this year.

I heartily recommend it.

 

[acklame]

unrelated question:

should i just go ahead and buy a 1gb memory stick pro duo right now? it's 120 bucks at buy.com. I've been holding out because I dunno if the price will drop further comes march. but then it seems like it won't on the 1gb version anyways.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Chris, gaming-age.com returned my mail saying it was an illegal attachment.

 

[BuddyC]

Blah. Check your PMs.

 

[Dsal]

Sho Nuff, thou art my hero.
*starts batch converting of 20th Century Boys*

 

[Amir0x]

I wish Sho Nuff was MY hero too... *hint hint*

 

[Sho Nuff]

Note that you need .net 2.0 framework installed to run the app.

If you want the proggy, just PM me with your email address (PLEEEASE, could someone host this?)

 

[BuddyC]

I wish it would stop bouncing, as I could host it if I could actually receive the file. Argh. Check PMs, again.

 

[Sho Nuff]

Sorry Gmail users, whenever I send a .zip attachment to you guys it just bounces right back.

 

[BuddyC]

http://www.zombieculture.com/PSPImageConverter.zip

Thanks again Sho.

And for those that need it, .Net 2.0.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...95-717C-4EF7-817B-BDEFD6947019&displaylang=en

 

[Sho Nuff]

Don't thank me... thank the mysterious programmer only known as "G".

(He'll attach his name to it once it gets prettier/more functional