What is an ISO image file? The ISO image file is a duplicate copy of a complete CD-ROM disk saved in ISO-9660 format. ISO image files are widely used for storing CD content and quickly transferring it through the Internet. ISO is a common CD image format for DOS, Windows (Joliet ISO extension), Linux (RockRidge ISO extension), and other operating systems. An "iso" file is just a disk image.

The ISO image is an archive file (also known as a disk image) of an optical disc in a format defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This format is supported by many software vendors. ISO image files typically have a file extension of .iso. The name ISO is taken from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media, but an ISO image can also contain UDF file system because UDF is backward-compatible with ISO 9660.

What is cso? A file with the CSO file extension is a CISO Compressed ISO Image file. These files are mainly used by the PSP2 system for games. .cso is short for Compressed ISO Image, which is a compression method for the ISO image format. It is used to compress dumped PlayStation Portable UMD games, and is an alternative to the .DAX compression method. It is also sometimes called "CISO".

CSO provides nine levels of compression. While the highest levels of compression can introduce slowdown and lengthy load-times in software which relies heavily on disc streaming, even the lower levels are capable of substantial compression. This is partially due to the data layout of a UMD, though more frequently due to the use of Dummy Files as both an anti-piracy tool and a means to more optimally lay the data out physically on the disc.

ISO files are a common disk image distribution format. We'll look at the best ways to converter iso files to cso.

ISO-DAX-CSO Converter

ISO-DAX-CSO Converter is simple Kommander script for converting PSP UMD backups between three file formats ISO DAX and CSO Recent additions are popstation & docmaker. Docmaker can convert PS and PDF files to series of PNG files. ISO-DAX-CSO Converter can convert ISO to CSO.

Source for ciso umdsign daxc Copstation and docmaker are now included in download archive. Reason for this is was minor modifications to sources to avoid warnings and errors during compile and execution. ciso was missing some includes. Copstation makefile is modified so it'll compile and work on SuSE. ImageMagick is package of command line graphic utilities. To compile ciso, daxcr and popstation gcc and zlib-devel package must be installed.
. ISO-DAX-CSO Converter Download

Prometeus (MacCISO-DAX)

Using Prometeus (MacCISO-DAX) to compress a 1.6 gig ISO image to a CISO file. MACISO supporte maintenant la compression/d'compression des ISO au format DAX en plus du CSO. If you run across any problems feel free to contact Dago~WATT; contact details can be found in the ReadMe.txt file. Dago^WATT has released a quick bug fix update for Prometeus (MacCISO-DAX) . The bug occurred when attempting to use space(s) in the directory/file path. v0.81B corrects this problem.

Today Dago^WATT has released a new version of his ISO/CSO/DAX front-end utility for Mac OS X. Released under a new name [Prometeus] v0.8B now includes support for ISOgen. This means you're able to extract & delete/replace files from any standard ISO image, as well as rebuild your own PSP compliant image through an easy-to-use graphical interface. All on your Mac!
Prometeus (MacCISO-DAX) Download

UMDGen

With UMDGen you'll be ready to create & manipulate PSP (UMD) compliant ISO images easily. With this software you can convert iso to cso. This sfotware now displays information from UPDATEPARAM.SFO as well as PSP_GAMEPARAM.SFO. The optimize button added. This function automatically detects and resizes dummy data, removed un-needed padding and dummies the contents of the UPDATE folder.

UMDGen will let you know the image is non-standard and you can choose whether to continue and have UMDGen attempt to read it - *NOTE* depending on the individual image, this could cause UMDGen to close if it encounters data it isn't expecting - but the general rule is if the PSP can read it then presume UMDGen can too. This software provides UMD_DATA.BIN file generator. If your compilation is missing this file then UMDGen gives you the oppertunity to create a new one. It provides ability to change "PSP_SYSTEM_VER" in PARAM.SFO to different firmware version. (Use +/- key while version is selected). UMDGen Download

ISO Compressor

PSP ISO Compressor is, well, an ISO compressor for the PSP. Incredibly often, the need to shrink an ISO arises for the regular PC users, who have plenty of space at hand. danny_kay1710's PSP ISO Compressor front end for Windows supporting several ISO compression formats -- CSO, DAX, and the newly introduced JSO. This software can convert iso to cso format.

PSP ISO Compressor, by danny_kay1710, works like a charm. You are provided with the ISO formats on the left. You have to select the format that you want to convert and to what format you would like to have it. After that, you can input your ISO file to the panel on the right and, at the bottom, there is the quality setting. There you have to select one of the many compression presets that there are. . ISO Compressor Download

YACC - Yet Another CSO Compressor

kapoue3's YACC - Yet Another CSO Compressor provides a practical way to easily convert and compress your ISO images to CSO or JSO format. YACC - Yet Another CSO Compressor class is meant for validation of credit cards numbers and validity date ranges.

YACC - Yet Another CSO Compressor class may also determine the type of card by looking at the number and verifying if it is within the range of numbers controlled by knowm card issuers: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Dinners, etc.

YACC provides many convenient features: CisoPlus! support; no ugly ms-dos window when compress; all tasks are threaded and the GUI doesn't freeze when ciso.exe is launched; batch processing; set compression priority; perform an action after compression completes; execute multiple compressions simultaneously (very useful for hyper threading or dual core cpu owners); easy drag & drop file selection; various language support.
YACC - Yet Another CSO Compressor Download