An increasing number of people want to know how to download music to their PSP.

The Sony PSP was not actually designed for the purpose of playing music. It was created to be a mobile 3D-game machine, a bit like the GameBoy was for the 2D world.

It happens quite often however that these technical gadgets get used for other things that what the original creators had in mind.

Actually the PSP is very capable of playing movies and music as well. The sound quality is fantastic.

You can buy songs on UMD, which is the PSP media format, although these are not commonly sold. The easiest way to get music on to your PSP is to copy files on to it from your hard drive.

If you want to transfer audio CD tracks to your PSP, you have to first convert the music from the CD on your computer and then on to the PSP from the computer.

If you want to do this, you will need a PSP memory card which is big enough to store the music files on, a CD ripping software in case you want to convert CD tracks and a USB cable to connect your computer to your PSP.

You can also get software to make the process quicker and easier. These programs will extract the music from whichever CDs you choose, convert them into the correct PSP format and then transfer them on to the PSP.

Some pieces of software like this can also compile a music library on your computer and remember which songs you have on your PSP so you won't accidentally put them on twice and waste memory.

If you have one of these programs, you just need to connect your PSP to your computer, start the program and press the "synchronize" button.

When downloading music to your PSP, you have the advantage that it does not use a proprietary format like iTunes with iPod. This means that, although the PSP is not a full-blown music player like the iPod, it is certainly a game console with the ability to play your favorite MP3s.