A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

[itch]

I've a couple of questions regards PS3's BRD playback. The first is how do you stop watching so you can resume from the same place? Watching Spiderman 2, whether I stop, pause, or anything, it always starts playback from the beginning.

Some discs have their own bookmark feature which needs to be used when present. It seems to usually be in the chapters menu, so check there for info on setting a bookmark. I believe it generally uses the colored buttons on the remote.

I think discs that don't support bookmarks will resume automatically but not sure if that's 100% true. At least some should. It is really unfortunate the resume isn't consistent across discs.

 

[AzBat]

FYI, latest release of PlayOn from last Thursday added support for Amazon Video-On-Demand & also has a new 3rd party plug-in feature. Now, if they can just add ABC, I'll never have to watch on the PC or OTA.

Tommy McClain

 

[patsu]

I think discs that don't support bookmarks will resume automatically but not sure if that's 100% true.

Yes, as far as I know, HDD videos, DVD and non BD-Live (Bookmark) movies will resume from the point where the viewer left off.

 

[patsu]

v.1.10.5 available

Minor PS3MediaServer fixes: http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/

- Fixes:

Regression in FLAC playback
Fixed subtitles font detection on Windows
Flaw in the transcode/remux buffer, in some cases, the video stopped after a few minutes
Cache bug when streaming web medias
Duplicate items issue on Linux
Upnp alive message sent sooner at the start of the server

 

[patsu]

Logitech Harmony PS3 Blu-ray Control coming soon

http://blog.logitech.com/2009/03/20...ou-with-logitech-harmony-ps3-blu-ray-control/

Yesterday, an Engadget reporter did some digging on an FCC Web site and uncovered our plans to manufacture an adapter that allows our Harmony remotes to control the PS3. We can’t give you all the details just yet, but we can say that this adapter will, when used with any Harmony remote, give you complete control of your movie-watching experience on PS3. It will also turn the PS3 on and off – and allow you to set up your Harmony activities to include the PS3 just as you would any other device. You also won’t need to dedicate any of your valuable USB ports to get that control.

I visited a friend in Logitech yesterday. He gave me some PS3 perhiperals. I shall ask for the Harmony set next time I see him

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You could have a widget that fits over the IR LED which reads the output from the Harmony and retransmits as BlueTooth, with an IR repeater on the other side. The trick then would be getting something that fits nicely and looks good. Otherwise I can't see any solution that doesn't involve opening up the remote and changing its gubbins.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I think that's exactly what this Logitech device does. Only you don't attach it to the remote (that's silly!) you set it on your TV or entertainment center. It is an IR receiver that translates commands from the remote probably over bluetooth into something the PS3 understands. You can put the adapter anywhere you can find since it's wireless on both ends of the connection. Not needing to be tethered by USB and having both the effective ranges of IR and Bluetooth to work with means it's a really flexible solution.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You can put the adapter anywhere you can find since it's wireless on both ends of the connection. Not needing to be tethered by USB and having both the effective ranges of IR and Bluetooth to work with means it's a really flexible solution.

Oh, of course. Wireless and all that Just a little IR >> Blue Tooth repeater box.

 

[patsu]

The IR device sounds like a part of the total solution. Logitech peripherals typically incorporate proprietary software to improve usability.

You also won’t need to dedicate any of your valuable USB ports to get that control.

The hardware may have additional USB ports, or use Bluetooth.

 

[Apoc]

I see all of you stream from a pc and let it do the transcoding, but how do ps3 or 360 work when you don't have a pc near them? I want to buy a ps3, and i'd like to be able to connect a 500GB/1TB hd full of 1080p vobs (transcoded mkv). Will it work?

 

[vanquish]

I have a bit off topic question, but I suppose this is the best thread (other than starting a new one).

Do PS3 games and DVDs/Bluray's support Full RGB?
http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/rgbfullrange.html

Or should this always be set to limited (even if your TV supports Full RGB) as the source material is not 'mastered' using Full RGB range?

PS: and what about 360 games?

 

[patsu]

I see all of you stream from a pc and let it do the transcoding, but how do ps3 or 360 work when you don't have a pc near them? I want to buy a ps3, and i'd like to be able to connect a 500GB/1TB hd full of 1080p vobs (transcoded mkv). Will it work?

I have seen people on the net use 320Gb FAT32 drive on a PS3.

FAT32 has a maximum partition size of 2Tb. I think Windows kinda limited it to 32Gb by default. You'll have to find third party ways to format it.

 

[green.pixel]

FAT32 is limited to 4GB/file, so you would have to split the bigger files using something like HJsplit.

 

[patsu]

Yes, or like me just copy the files from a media server to the PS3 internal drive as a working set. There is no 4Gb file limit there.

 

[green.pixel]

Of course. My answer is for Apoc wanting to connect external HDD, so he would need to format it in FAT32, 'cause AFAIK PS3 can't recognize NTFS/HFS+ file systems in UBS drives.

 

[patsu]

Ha ha, I was responding to Apoc. The reason for him going to external HDD solely is because he doesn't have a PC near his TV. I'm just saying the alternative is to set up a network. He'll have more flexible use cases then: Streaming from PC/Mac (requires high speed network), copy from PC/Mac (requires mid-to-high speed network), or USB drive (requires chopping large files into 4Gb segments).

 

[green.pixel]

Yes, he could add 500GB 2.5" drive in PS3.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

This is kinda related, and slipped under the radar. FixStars are releasing software CodecSys CE-10 which lets you use your PS3 as an external video encoder connceted via Gigabit, encoding Full HD movies at faster than realtime speeds. Due out in June, there's no price listed, but it does mean encoding video for you media server could be far quicker on PS3, and if you factor the time to rip media for PC or XB360 versus PS3, PS3 offers a great value proposition (depending of course on the cost off CE-10!).

 

[joker454]

This is kinda related, and slipped under the radar. FixStars are releasing software CodecSys CE-10 which lets you use your PS3 as an external video encoder connceted via Gigabit, encoding Full HD movies at faster than realtime speeds. Due out in June, there's no price listed, but it does mean encoding video for you media server could be far quicker on PS3, and if you factor the time to rip media for PC or XB360 versus PS3, PS3 offers a great value proposition (depending of course on the cost off CE-10!).

That's awesome. I'm hoping Sony will follow and add PS3 support to their Vegas Pro software someday. I use Vegas Pro extensively (just upgraded to 9.0) and it already supports network rendering, so PS3 render slave support would be legit.

 

[green.pixel]

I suppose that since PC GPUs can decode H.264 content (including the future stuff being encoded with CE-10), drivers and players don't need to be updated since all codecs, no matter from which company, must comply with the H.264 format specs ?