A lightweight, cross-platform C++17 library and standalone media player designed to parse, decode, and play UMD Video ISOs on the fly without disk extraction — the missing link in PSP preservation.
The ultimate goal of this project is to achieve a stable, low-overhead playback layer for UMD Video content that can be seamlessly integrated into existing PSP emulators (such as PPSSPP) or used as an independent preservation tool.
While PlayStation Portable (PSP) game emulation has reached near-perfection, native support for UMD Video ISOs remains largely unsupported across all major emulators.
UMD Video discs use a specific filesystem structure rooted in the UMD_VIDEO/ directory, containing:
- MPEG Program Stream (
.MPS) containers with H.264 AVC or MPEG-2 video tracks - ATRAC3plus audio formats packed inside proprietary Sony Private Stream 1 (
0xBD) - Interactive menu overlays built on
.RCO/.VBOassets
UMDPlay bridges this gap by decoding streams directly in memory via FFmpeg AVIOContext, eliminating the need for multi-gigabyte disk extraction.
| Component | Technology | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Language | C++17 | Modern standard, max compiler compatibility |
| Decoder | FFmpeg (libavcodec / libavformat) | In-memory stream demuxing & decoding |
| Output & Rendering | SDL2 | Software & GPU-accelerated video/audio output |
| Build System | CMake | Cross-platform, supports MinGW / MSVC / GCC |
- Phase 1 — ISO & UDF Parser: navigate
UMD_VIDEO/STREAM/, dynamically resolve LBAs and file sizes from sector 28. - Phase 2 — Streaming & Decoding: in-memory streaming via custom
AVIOContext, H.264 AVC video decoding, and Sony PSMF ATRAC3+ audio frame reverse-engineering. - Phase 3 — Standalone SDL2 Player: synced real-time A/V playback window with keyboard controls (Play, Pause, Seek).
- Phase 4 — Menu Research: reverse-engineer interactive menus via
.RCO/.VBOoverlays. - Phase 5 — PPSSPP Integration: expose a clean C-style API for native upstream integration.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y cmake build-essential pkg-config \
libavformat-dev libavcodec-dev libavutil-dev \
libswscale-dev libswresample-dev# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/M5Devs/UMDPlay.git
cd UMDPlay
# 2. Configure & Build
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
# 3. Run directly against any UMD Video ISO
./build/bin/umdplay /path/to/movie.iso| Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA (39's Giving Day) | Family Guy: Blue Harvest (Star Wars Parody) |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Japanese UMD Video (Concert) | US Commercial UMD Video (Hollywood) |
This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 (GPLv2).
GPLv2 was chosen specifically to ensure license compatibility with the PPSSPP project, enabling clean upstream integration without legal friction.
Disclaimer: This project is strictly for digital preservation and educational purposes. "PSP" and "UMD" are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.