How Tos

How to transfer media between your PS Vita and PC

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How to transfer media between your PS Vita and PC
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The PlayStation Vita is first and foremost a games console, but it moonlights as a pretty effective media player, too.

It can play music and videos, show off your holiday snaps, and take grainy, low-resolution photographs with its built-in camera.

But, getting music onto the Vita, or getting your prize-winning photos onto your PC, is a pain in the tuckus. So, here's Pocket Gamer's guide to transferring media between your computer and your Vita.

First up, you'll need to download a piece of software on your PC or Mac. It's called the 'Vita Content Manager Assistant', and you can download it from here if you're rocking Windows, or from here if you're more of an OS X kinda guy. Once it's installed, it will sit on the taskbar with a little Vita icon. Right-click and open 'Preferences'. From here, you can choose the folders that the Vita will access to find, and download, photos, videos, and music. You can also use the tool to back up your save games and applications - so select a folder for that, too. psvita-howto-content-01
Grab the USB cable from the Vita box. If you can't find it, it's because it also doubles up as a power cable - so remove the USB cable, and use it to connect your Vita and PC or Mac. On the Vita, the 'Content Manager' icon should be flashing its little head off. Give it a tap and click 'Start' to open up this content-transferring app. psvita-howto-content-02
You'll be given the choice of connecting to a PS3 or a computer. We'll assume you know the difference. For this particular "How to", give the old 'Connect to a PC' button a little tappity tap. psvita-howto-content-03
You'll be asked whether you want to send content from your Vita to your PC, or from your PC to your Vita. Depends on whether you're offloading photographs or filling your new system up with music. For this tutorial, we'll click PS Vita to PC, because I want to transfer a snap to my PC. You'll then be asked what you want to send over: 'Applications' (for backup), 'video', 'music' or 'photos'. Let's tap 'photos'. psvita-howto-content-04
It will then open the Vita's 'photo' app, showing you every picture on the system with little checkboxes next to them. Tick the photos you want to send over, hit copy, and the pictures will appear in the folder you specified in Step 1. It's pretty much exactly the same for other types of content, and when transferring the other way around. This time, the Vita will show you a list of photos, videos, or music files in the folders you chose in Step 1, so just tick the content you want and press 'copy'. Bob's your uncle. psvita-howto-content-05

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer