This is one of the best-looking PSP/mobile magazines we've ever seen. And it's 284 pages of content. It is unfortunate that all the French we know can be condensed to the few phrases we remember from Disney's "Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast".

SANQUA Horizons 4 is the fourth issue (obviously) of the French PSP magazine (JPG format). There's also a Pocket PC version (PDF format; you can get this from their website). Of course, you can read the magazine in your PC, too.

Issue 4 has the following goodies:

• Part 1 :TOUCH ! - General news - Under Arrest : with Eric Viennot (In Memoriam) - Hype on the latest games - HANDS ON : Tetris DS (nds) - HANDS ON : Titan Quest (pc) - HANDS ON : Tekken Dark Resurrection (psp) - ohlala ! The hardware news - The hardware traps : the golden price of printer's ink
• Part 2 : THINK ! - Le roi de la casse : Lord of the Rings - a "not so good" adaptation by Peter Jackson - It's up to you : alternative communities - Memories : Speedball 2 (Amiga)
• Part 3 : THRIVE! - Here of there : tourism in China - Bright & Obscure : Egocrash - Prez : French politics - DEAF : KORN - SANKUA : A day in Kyoto

Finally, why are we even hosting this French-language opus in what is an English-language website? For a few reasons.

• First, I like the layout and artistic direction of this magazine, and I think that other PSP, mobile, and e-magazine makers can take a few ideas from SANQUA.
• Second, there are probably French speakers who come to this site, just as how there are German speakers. And French speakers who read this site in English may appreciate learning about a publication that's in their native language.

That's all for now. If you like this publication, look for the next issue. SANQUA is published monthly. Their website link is below.

Download: [SANQUA Horizons 4 (JPG for PSP)]

Raphael submitted his entry for the PSP neoflash contest. He said that it was just a demo. We think it's a great opening for a game! The first thing we noticed was the colorful background-transporting us back to the 1970s where Disco held its powerful grip on popular culture. It reminded us of the colorful floors in Saturday Night Fever. Very nice.

The spinning block in the middle, saying "We Love Disco" was a nice touch. Cooler thing about it was that you can actually change the object in the middle by pushing X. From a block of text to a multicolored cube, to a white prism-like cube. Look at the shots below!

 

The music was also reminiscent of the times. We also liked the beat detection located in the lower left of the screen. Nice touch there. You can't expect hardcore gameplay for it just yet, for now it's a very good alternative to those smelly stress balls. Hope we'll see more of your works, Raph!

Download: [Funky Demo]

Raphael's nostalgic recount of how the PMP Mod has turned into what we now know as PMP Mod AVC will surely send loyal followers of this media application tumbling down memory lane. He referred to his post as a "malloc revival" version of PMP Mod, and inevitably lead to how Malloc was the first one to mod Jonny's original and how in turn, that got him started on his own mods.

We're pretty sure that you already have an idea on what changes have been made throughout the years, so I'll spare you the lengthy changelog. And the latest of these changes will also be added to the standard version PMP Mod 2.02, after polishing some more details.

As a reward for reading this article about memories and reveries, we're giving you Raphael's latest FontGen v.06, and as he explains on his post, "It adds back all Windows codepages from 1250-1258. This was necessary, because some of the ISO8859 fonts weren’t compatible with subtitles generated in windows and led to wrong output of the subtitles (cyrillic for example)."

Thanks Raphael for the tip!

Download: [Fontgen v0.6]

The SANQUA team is set on making their magazine omnipresent. After bringing their SANQUA Horizons 2 to Pocket PCs, the magazine is now on PSPs. The 338 jam-packed pages contain stories on Wii, DS, PS3, and a couple of PC games. Also covered are some analyses on The Da Vinci Code and alternative gaming plus other stories covering the spooky, mundane, and political.

SANQUA Horizons 2 is purely in French and promises to be an interesting read with the following items:

Part 1 :TOUCH !
- Under Arrest : with Florent Castelnerac (Trackmania)
- Hype: E3
- Wiistiti : Wii Presentation in Paris
- MGS 4 : What Do The Trailers Tell Us?
- HANDS ON : Half Life 2 Episode One (PC)
- HANDS ON : Dreamfall (PC)
- HANDS ON : New Super Mario Bros. (DS)
- The hardware traps : SLI / Crossfire

Part 2 : THINK !
- Le roi de la casse : The Da Vinci Code
- It's up to you : Alternative gaming, part I
- Memories : Mortevielle's manor

Part 3 : THRIVE!
- Here of there : everyday life in China
- Bright & Obscure : The New Spookhouse (The Hills have Eyes, Reeker, Mortuary et Dance of the Dead)
- Prez : French politics
- DEAF : Opeth / Neil Young (Living with war, last album)

The next episode of SANQUA Horizons 2 will be out later this month or early August. Thanks Raphael G. for sending this in!

Download: [SANQUA Horizons 2]

With all the changes incorporated in PMP Mod subtitle mod's latest version, Looks like Raphael has been quite busy trying to make a better app for all you PMP Mod users to enjoy. The subtitle mod for PMP Mod v2.02 bears the following updates:

• Based on Jonny's v2.02 source with all improvements.
• Now has support for SubRip (.srt) subtitles.
• Asian language subtitles are now supported - Japanese, Korean, and Traditional Chinese (but Raphael admits that due to his lack of knowledge with the Asian languages, this new feature has not been highly tested yet).
• Support for up to eight different subtitles per video (switch them during playback with CROSS+LEFT TRIGGER).
• Change subtitle font and border color with CROSS+SQUARE and CROSS+CIRCLE.
• File list is filtered to *.pmp files
• Change CPU speed before playback (RIGHT TRIGGER in file list).
• ISO8859 fonts included in the release.

ISO8859-1: Latin-1, Western European (Danish, Dutch [partial]), English, Faeroese, Finnish (partial), French (partial), German, Icelandic, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Rhaeto-Romanic, Scottish Gaelic, Spanish, Swedish, Albanian, Afrikaans and Swahili.
ISO8859-2: Latin-2, Central European (Bosnian, Polish, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, and Hungarian).
ISO8859-3: Latin-3, South European (Turkish, Maltese, and Esperanto).
ISO8859-4: Latin-4, North European (Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Greenlandic, and Sami).
ISO8859-5: Latin, Cyrillic.
ISO8859-6: Latin, Arabic
ISO8859-7: Latin, Greek
ISO8859-8: Latin, Hebrew
ISO8859-9: Latin-5, Turkish
ISO8859-10: Latin-6, Nordic
ISO8859-11: Latin, Thai
ISO8859-13: Latin-7, Baltic Rim
ISO8859-14: Latin-8, Celtic
ISO8859-15: Latin-9 (revision of 8859-1 including euro sign € and complete coverage of French, Finnish and Estonian).
ISO8859-16: Latin-10, South-Eastern European (Albanian, Croatian, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Slovenian, Finnish, French, German and Irish Gaelic [new orthography]).

Raphael promises all the features in this PMP Mod v2.02 subtitle mod will also be integrated in the PMP Mod AVC release - patience is the keyword.

As was mentioned, Raphael does not have much knowledge on Asian languages and he feels that character placement of the Asian subs "looks really bad". So expect a more accurate character placement in future release of this great mod.

Like previous releases, a font generator tool for Windows is included in this release (an updated version of which is coming very soon). And as always, Raphael requests those who'll be generating a font not included in this release to share the font with others - or at least with him, so the generated font can be included in the final release.

Version 2.01 of this subtitle mod can now support 2.01+ firmwares with the use of eLoader and both the GTA and TIFF exploit (thanks to tommydanger's help!). Speaking of 2.01+ firmwares, Raphael writes, "since we now have a working downgrader for 2.6, I don't provide any further updates on the 2.0+ version, unless I get enough feedback that it is still wanted. Version 2.01 for 2.0+ will still be available though."

The downloads are below, you know the drill. Don't forget to voice out your thoughts on the PMP Mod v2.02 subtitle mod via the QJ forums or the comments section. Enjoy!

Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]
Download: [PMP Mod AVC 1.02 subtitle mod (fw1.5)]
Download: [PMP Mod AVC 1.02 subtitle mod (fw1.5) Source]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.02 subtitle mod (fw1.5)]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.02 subtitle mod (fw1.5) Source]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod (fw1.5)]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod (fw1.5) Source]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod (fw2.0+)]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod (fw2.0+) Source]
Download: [Font Generator (Windows)]
Download: [Subtitle Mod Fonts] - includes ISO8859, Shift-JIS (Japanese), Uni-Han (Korean), and BIG5 (Trad. Chinese)

Who doesn't love Jonny's homebrew app, the PMPMod? The app, as many of you already know, is an AVC media player for the PSP. We all know that it's a breakthrough in the homebrew arena not only because of its functions but also because this app has been the inspiration of some developers who have been giving us homebrew apps that show tremendous promise -- such as jockyw2001's app, the PMP VLC Player. Jonny, the good developer, was even kind enough to share the source code of the app.

To add to the growing list of developers inspired by Jonny's work is headache. The new developer just released his first homebrew (so be nice y'all!) which is a mod of Jonny's recent work, the PMPMod AVC v1.02. According to headache, "I really really love the new PMPMod AVC 1.02 (using it everyday on my way to work) but it was lacking the very useful feature to save the current video position when stopping the video playback. That feature i knew from an older PMPMod release (modded by malloc?)."

So with that predicament at hand, he took matters into his own hands by "taking the latest AVC 1.02 sources I could find (the ones from Raphael with subtitle enhancements) and re-adding the ".POS file" saving/restoring code. I must admit I am not sure who initially coded that, so props to that coder!" Although this is just a mod of the original version, it is of course a welcome addition to the homebrew world. With that, don't hesitate to dish out your constructive suggestions, opinions, and criticisms through your comments.

Download: [PMPMod AVC 1.02 SUB POS Support]
Discuss: [Forum Release Thread]

Mondy from the iR Shell forums has released a Plugin for Ahman's amazing app thus allowing you to launch PMP Mod AVC v1.02 files from within iR Shell with subtitle support. This is a mod of PMP Mod AVC v1.02 by Jonny which was modified by Raphael to include subtitle support, and then modified by Mondy in order for it to work as an iR Shell plugin.

The plugin modification is based on StoneCut's PMP Mod AVC plugin for iR Shell which was based on Ahman's PMP Mod 2.0 plugin, so some of the credit goes to Jonny, Raphael, Ahman and StoneCut. All you have to do in order to install this is copy the contents of the folder "PMPModAVC" into the X:IRSHELLEXTAPPAPP1 directory on your PSP; where x is your PSP. And remember, because the plugin in the APP1 directory would have been the PMP Mod v2.01 plugin, you don't even have to assign the filename suffix again!

This will overwrite the PMP Mod v2.01 plugin originally supplied with iR Shell v1.6, so be sure to back up the App1 folder if you wish to revert to PMP Mod v2.01 again at a later date. The source code has been included for all the prospective iR Shell plugin creators out there.

Download: [PMP Mod AVC v1.02 subtitle iR Shell plugin]

Those that are using the PMP Mod AVC v1.02 player will be pleased to know that Jonny has updated the PMP Muxer AVC today, bringing it up to version 1.01. This version of his original PMP Mod allows firmware 1.5 users to play full resolution, high-quality AVC movie files converted using the PMP AVC Muxer without having to upgrade to firmware 2.0+ or use DevHook.

These files will then play in Jonnys PMP Mod AVC, and although I have not tested it, should still work with Raphael's PMP Mod AVC subtitle version. This small updated to the PMP Mod AVC Muxer allows raw stream or AVI as an input, making it even easier to convert your everyday video files into the full resolution PMP format.

As with all of Jonny's releases, the source code is also available to download. Feel free to modify it if you wish!

Download: [PMP Muxer AVC v1.01]
Download: [PMP Muxer AVC v1.01 source code]

Raphael has released 2 new versions of his PMP Mod variant with subtitle support. These new versions are Jonny's latest PMP Mod v2.01 with subtitle support and PMP Mod AVC v1.02 with subtitle support. This is great for previous users of Raphael's PMP Mod subtitle versions as well as 2.0+ users, as PMP Mod v2.01 now works on firmwares 2.0-2.6 using either the TIFF exploit or the GTA eLoader. Although PMP Mod v2.01 with subtitle support has already been released, the addition of 2.0-2.6 support and many new fonts make it much better.

Here's what Raphael said: "Many many thanks to tommydanger for his big help with getting this to work with the tiff exploit, too. This wouldn't have been possible without him most likely. Along with this I also have a new set of fonts available for download, that cover the whole region of ISO8859 charsets. So if you do not find a matching font in the release or just don’t know which one fits your needs, try with these fonts."

Raphael has also created a font generator tool for windows. To use, just start the tool, select a windows font with the correct charset, a filename and press "generate". All these files are available for download below. Happy full resolution media playing! For developers and coders alike, the source code for the specified version is included in the download. Full details on the fonts supported can be found in the forum release thread.

Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod for fw1.5]
Download: [PMP Mod AVC v1.02 subtitle mod for fw1.5]
Download: [PMP Mod v2.01 subtitle mod for fw 2.0-2.6]
Download: [Raphael's font generator for windows]
Download: [ISO8859 Fonts]

So much has been happening with PiMPStreamer, the mod for Jonny's PMPMod, this month. First DickyDick1969 released v0.6 of the app that allows PMP Mod users to perform wireless streaming of videos to the PSP, then seven days later he made a small update with v0.61 to ensure that videos sync better with audio. Just recently, with help from Jonny and Raphael, DickyDick1969 was able to make his PiMPStreamer run on PSP's with the 2.0+ firmware.

Now it's Freddie's turn to make PiMPStreamer-related news. He just made what he calls the Pimpy Installer. With this installer for the PiMPStreamer, the IP address of the local server can be detected, it creates the two ini and automatically asks for the port and IP address.

Pimpy Installer currently works only on 1.5 firmware, and as Freddie assured, "tested, working perfect!" Freddie is still making some improvements on this installer and future releases will allow the user to select what firmware they have so that the appropriate version will be installed for them.

Download: [Pimpy Installer]