Sony Playstation 3 – Media Center in the making?

Marc Peters · #1 (**permalink**) 11-21-2007, 09:47 PM

Hacking Microsoft’s Xbox became the latest craze amongst the gaming gurus. But it wasn’t just about pirate games. Those wonderful nerds turned the Xbox into a fully fledge media center PC and with a few minor (and more importantly cheap) modifications, its potential was shown in full glory. With such a huge internet following, the likes of Xbox Media Center (XBMC) became a phenomenon - a must have addition for all Xbox owners. In fact despite being freely available, XBMC is the most complete, the most slick and the most powerful media center software I have ever used. And I’ve used a few. The only major thing missing was High Definition playback.

So the next generation machines with HD capability surely must have the potential to become must have addition to the video-philes arsenal? A Media Center PC for a fraction of the price and without the hassles that plague those machines – noisy, prone to crashing and overheating. We take a look at the Blu Ray capable Sony Playstation 3 to see if Sony’s realized its true potential.

http://www.videoforums.co.uk/reviews..._articleid/263

LJR · #2 (**permalink**) 11-22-2007, 02:15 PM

Hi Marc,

Interesting read.

DivX Inc made an announcement on the 13th November in which they stated they had struck up a partnership deal with Sony to bring DivX support to the PS3 'in the near future'. This still leaves the question of XVID support open though.

From a media center perspective it's probably worth noting that the PS3 does natively support the video formats MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (PS, TS), MPEG-4 SP, and MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and since FW 1.80 which introduced DLNA to allow media server connectivity and playing (it supports DLNA player not server). The problem of ripping the DVD to a compatible format can be resolved using a utility such as VOB2MPG, but the PS3 won't rip a DVD to format it can read from its HDD, which I think is the feature that you were saying should be there (and very neat it would be too).

I'd also point out that the with the sunsetting of the 60GB variant in the EU and the introduction of the single SKU 40GB variant the new PS3 will not be able to play SACD's, nor will it have the in-built memory card slots - both of which the 60GB variants did. Not important to many, but important to some.

I think the PS3 is making the right steps to becoming the media center your article indicates it could be, but for sure it's not quite there yet.

better · #3 (**permalink**) 12-26-2007, 01:16 PM

If it is true than it is going to be a trouble for the X-box, as the people already like the PS3 a lot and if it is having the media center feature than people will attract to it a lot.

Marc Peters · #4 (**permalink**) 01-03-2008, 05:38 PM

Well DivX support is now officially implemented on the PS3. I haven't had a chance to test it, but it's nevertheless a step in the right direction. And now there's another step to a complete transformation into a Media Station - the PlayTV. I know it's been in the running for a while, but it's the first I've heard of it and adds PVR functionality to the PS3. Neat.

LJR · #5 (**permalink**) 01-05-2008, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Peters

Well DivX support is now officially implemented on the PS3. I haven't had a chance to test it, but it's nevertheless a step in the right direction. And now there's another step to a complete transformation into a Media Station - the PlayTV. I know it's been in the running for a while, but it's the first I've heard of it and adds PVR functionality to the PS3. Neat.

A step in the right direction indeed although they were pipped at the post by Microsoft who released xvid and divx support in their Fall update at the beginning of December (which was a surprise to virtually everyone). Sony did implement a limit of 2GB on the divx files which one suspects is to protect their HD movie interests (they don't want to promote the ripping and downloading of HD films). I managed to successfully stream from my Mac to the PS3 all my divx movies. Also, like the 360, they only made it compatible with movies encoded with Dvix 4.x and above. Given that 4.xx was the first version of divx which supported the ratified MPEG 4 format I am not surprised by that. I also heard from sources that xvid also appears to work for the most part although I haven't personally tried that myself on the PS3, only on the 360 (which works well).

Marc Peters · #6 (**permalink**) 01-05-2008, 11:29 PM

I've got oodles of Xvid material on a Freecom Media Drive, so I figured i'd hook the player up to the PS3 to see if it recognised the files. it didn't even recognise the drive unfortunately - the drive just kept on going through a power up cycle. I guess it just didn't want to be made redundant by the PS3! But seriously, the days of my other players are numbered...

LJR · #7 (**permalink**) 01-06-2008, 10:07 AM

I have a Freecom attached to my Mac. I use the eSATA interface but I guess from what you was saying that you tried hooking up to the PS3 over USB. I would have thought it would have seen the drive to be honest. Shame it didn't. Have you tried connecting it to your PC and just streaming it to the PS3? It was quite easy to set up. Also, did you notice that you can now stream WMV and WMA files too to the PS3

Who'd have thought huh?

Marc Peters · #8 (**permalink**) 01-06-2008, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LJR

I have a Freecom attached to my Mac. I use the eSATA interface but I guess from what you was saying that you tried hooking up to the PS3 over USB. I would have thought it would have seen the drive to be honest. Shame it didn't. Have you tried connecting it to your PC and just streaming it to the PS3? It was quite easy to set up. Also, did you notice that you can now stream WMV and WMA files too to the PS3

Who'd have thought huh?

It just refuses to play ball. Windows sees it as a standard external drive, but the PS3 doesn't. Go figure!

the next thing you know the xbox will have a Blu Ray addon...

LJR · #9 (**permalink**) 01-06-2008, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marc Peters

It just refuses to play ball. Windows sees it as a standard external drive, but the PS3 doesn't. Go figure!

the next thing you know the xbox will have a Blu Ray addon...

lol Given the recent Warner announcement that they are dropping HD-DVD I wouldn't be surprised...well actually I would but I definitely think it'll be in their next release of console in a few years time

I'll try my Freecom on the PS3 and let you know what I get.

CybaSumo · #10 (**permalink**) 04-30-2008, 09:32 PM

if ever, that will be the coolest console that human history has...