A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

[patsu]

Software will always need to be updated to fix bugs and address ambiguity in specs. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes sh*t happens.

 

[Zassk]

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?

In general, this works for both consoles, if the files are of a supported format. Using external USB hard drives is an often-ignored solution. There are FAT file size limitations mentioned earlier, but you can get around that by copying files to the PS3 drive, or by formatting the external drive as HFS in the case of the 360.

 

[obonicus]

I haven't seen anyone mention this but I am ordering the Logitech for the PS3, today. $60 US

Please give us impressions.

 

[obonicus]

Hmm, something I was wondering about is whether the adapter takes up remote #7 by default, the article doesn't seem to mention it.

 

[patsu]

BD Managed Copy (final spec) and PS3

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2894

Video entertainment site Video Business has contacted the chairperson of the AACS Licensing Authority, Michael Ayers, who confirmed that virtually all Blu-ray discs released after the first quarter of 2010 will offer consumers the ability to make one full-resolution backup copy. There are some exceptions where the studio won't be required to offer Managed Copy, such as for small distributors and when the content owner may not have all the necessary rights to allow copying.

Content owners will be in tight control of the backups made, and will be free to charge for the copy.

Managed copies are possible on to various media: burned to writeable BDs or DVDs, downloaded on a Windows Media DRM-compatible portable player, hard drive or memory card, or as a bound copy, such as a digital copy file on the disc. Surprisingly, the AACS-LA has not received a submission from Apple to make Blu-ray copies to Apple devices, and thus downloads to iPods, iPhones and other Apple devices are not approved at this time.

When managed copy is operational, the disc menu on the BD will include an option to make a managed copy, or the consumer will access copy through the player controls. Then, the player will connect online to an authorization center (run by a studio, supplier or the AACS-LA), which will give the go-ahead to make a copy. Discs are serialized, so that the authorization centers can tell whether a copy has already been made off a given disc.

Most existing BD players and devices don't support Managed Copy, so in all likelihood a new player will be needed. A notable exception is the PS3: back in April 2008, Sony engineers claimed that, once Managed Copy was adopted, it would be possible to add the feature to the console via a firmware upgrade.

 

[joker454]

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=2894

We already have managed copy, it's called AnydvdHD

 

[patsu]

Not me over here. Not going to buy additional software to make a backup of my movies.

If Sony wants to value add, they might as well give us options to re-encode the video to 720p or something (to save HDD space). Should be fast using teh Cell, and I don't have to tie up my laptops. They don't have to worry about me redistributing full resolution movies too.

 

[joker454]

Not me over here. Not going to buy additional software to make a backup of my movies.

Fair enough, although I doubt the movie studios will ever provide a managed copy setup that is flexible enough. Plus the studios aren't required to support it so not all new releases will work with it, and the entire current blu-ray catalog won't support it either. So they are left with a half assed solution that will likely still be drm'd to oblivion. Maybe this would have been feasible if the blu-ray spec supported it from day one and made it mandatory, but now it's too late.

In the meantime I'll keep enjoying every movie I own on every device I have thanks to AnydvdHD. House guests seem to enjoy having an entire movie catalog watchable via 360 dumb terminals in the guest rooms. Likewise after I get an iPhone, I think I'll make some iPhone versions of my favorite movies to carry around with me anywhere. Ahhhh....true fair use

 

[Shifty Geezer]

1.2x at 1080p Showing my ignorance here, when video is reintranscodified, isn't this a lossy encode of a lossy source, adding more compression artefacts? Or can these newfangled codecs scale the video along the same lines, so the same compression is an exact copy, and a 10% compression of a 10% compressed video is exactly the same as a 20% compression of the source?

I'm used to working in uncompressed formats. The idea of recompressing JPEGs as JPEGs offends me. I don't like the idea of mutilating video signals in the same way.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Fair enough, although I doubt the movie studios will ever provide a managed copy setup that is flexible enough. Plus the studios aren't required to support it so not all new releases will work with it, and the entire current blu-ray catalog won't support it either.

Good point. Guess I won't be using this then to find something to fill up my PS3 HD with!

 

[patsu]

Old releases don't have Managed Copy (until they re-issue them). At the same time, "virtually all Blu-ray discs released after the first quarter of 2010 will offer consumers the ability to make one full-resolution backup copy"

Once the copy is made, the PS3 can technically work on the video independent of the studio setup. But I'd prefer following a predefined standard/convention rather than making the choices/setup too varied. That way everyone just focus on one format. More variation generally means more trouble ahead.

1.2x at 1080p Showing my ignorance here, when video is reintranscodified, isn't this a lossy encode of a lossy source, adding more compression artefacts? Or can these newfangled codecs scale the video along the same lines, so the same compression is an exact copy, and a 10% compression of a 10% compressed video is exactly the same as a 20% compression of the source?

Yap, will be lossy but some may not care (due to large HDD requirement. It's a consumer choice). Also I wonder if they can cache previous encodes and then just download the final copy to us to avoid waiting for hours of encoding. The rights probably disallow that by default, but I wonder if the studios themselves can/will allow it. It would be a degenerate form of movie download business. Some Blu-ray movies already distribute with a digital copy on DVD anyway.

 

[joker454]

1.2x at 1080p Showing my ignorance here, when video is reintranscodified, isn't this a lossy encode of a lossy source, adding more compression artefacts?

You can dump the blu-ray straight to hdd, and use tsmuxer(free) to create a single m2ts file that has all the crap removed, so it just has a single video track and the best english audio track in that one file. I delete everything else since I have the original disk anyways if I want to watch the extas. That single file will have no loss in quality, it will look identical to the blu-ray since no re-encoding was done at all. It will be a huge file though, typically around 20gb or so.

I do make small re-encodes of that file as well though for use on other devices where the quality loss is no big deal. Those files tend to be around 3.5gb. They may not look as good as the original, but it's damn nice having your entire movie collection with you on a plane. They still look really nice on small tv's as well.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You can dump the blu-ray straight to hdd, and use tsmuxer(free) to create a single m2ts file that has all the crap removed, so it just has a single video track and the best english audio track in that one file. I delete everything else since I have the original disk anyways if I want to watch the extas. That single file will have no loss in quality, it will look identical to the blu-ray since no re-encoding was done at all. It will be a huge file though, typically around 20gb or so.

Okay, that makes it worthwhile. Clearly any managed copy system will need options for compressions, but actually the single-copy system is going to be broken in that respect. You'll want a full quality master on the home media server, and shrunk versions for portable use etc. If they don't provide the full-feature multiformat service, is little more than a token gesture. Everyone who's serious about media ripping will use 3rd party apps, and it'll still be a case of people's consciences being the only limiting factor to piracy.

 

[patsu]

In their current worldview, copies for portables and DVD player are called "Digital Copy". It comes free with some Blu-ray movies (usually on a second DVD disc).

"Managed Copy" technically allows the studio to control the copy better, which enables the user to get the full resolution movie. I don't think most consumers want the huge files sitting on their HDD. So it's mostly for people who care.

For the rest of us, different lower res movie for multiple purposes work better. Some form of "Managed Copy" (20-30Gb) -> "Digital Copy" (say, 3-4Gb) would be useful. It saves equipment, and hours of encodes + experiments. I believe joker454 uses the lower spec'ed copies for DLNA streaming.

Or better yet, just move "Digital Copy" online so that we can do it for any movie. I guess that's essentially what I'm suggesting above (Sell lower quality video at low cost once people bought the Blu-ray version). It'd be doable for all BD-Live players, not just PS3. If they do that, people who bought AnyDVD HD can still make unlimited copies since they paid for the software.

 

[joker454]

Okay, that makes it worthwhile.

One thing I forgot to mention, my re-encodes work fine on the consoles, but that original huge m2ts file does not. I have never been able to properly play m2ts files on consoles. I do have a PC plugged into the TV though and it plays them just fine using MPC-HC(free). That software also supports the video card for decoding, so my cpu gets < 10% cpu use during playback because it fully uses my ATI 4850. Or in other words, for $200 you can build a PC that will play blu-rays without breaking a sweat. It will also power up faster than the conoles, about 1 second to come out of sleep mode, and you don't have to spend two minutes wading through fbi warnings, forced trailers, etc.

 

[patsu]

Yes, Managed Copy should solve the m2ts playability problem because the studios will do their QA on Blu-ray players, especially the PS3. They are on-the-hook to guarantee that basic experience.

In general, home-encoded m2ts files should play fine on PS3 though. Perhaps you meant playing large m2ts file over DLNA ?

I seem to recall someone here was able to play the large m2ts files via the web browser.

 

[joker454]

Perhaps you meant playing m2ts file over the network ?

Both network and local. Network they never worked. I finally did get around to trying some movies locally on PS3 and they didn't work right either. Sometimes video would really stutter, sometimes there was no audio, etc, a host of issues. Which of course is really odd because it plays the same movie off optical disc with no problem, so I presume they purposely hobbled hdd playback support. I tried both the m2ts file straight from the optical disc after anydvd decvrypted it, and I tried it with my remuxed version where I removed the extras, both had the same issues.

 

[patsu]

That's why I prefer studios to do it. They and the vendors will make sure the managed copy works at full original resolution with this announcement. The original Blu-ray movies is an AVCHD structure to begin with (One can get m2ts video stream from it with no loss).

Playback large video via DLNA is a different animal altogether. We all went through some pain with it.

Seriously, they don't even need to invest a lot of media infrastructure to enable Digital Copy online. Just implement some sort of authentication + Blu-ray coupon code platform. Let the users redeem the coupon in Playstation Store or any other digital download outlet to get their discounted (or free) downgraded movies.

The online movie store providers should be more than happy to take the additional businesses and customers.

 

[joker454]

That's why I prefer studios to do it. They will make sure it works. The original Blu-ray movies is an AVCHD structure to begin with (One can get m2ts video stream from it with no loss).

Well, "works" to the studios is all relative. Will they really work trouble free on all devices? Call me a skeptic, but I doubt it. Digital Copy is a prime example. Don't know if you've tried it or not but it's restrictive to the point of worthlessness. Digital Copy was perfectly planned, but executed with neolithic incompetence (that's a movie quote I always wanted to use).

Now I might be wrong, and maybe the movie studios in their endless benevolence will let us actually watch our content where we want, but I think it's more likely that Israeli's and Palestinians would go to karaoke together.

 

[patsu]

Not all, but PS3 is by far the dominant Blu-ray player. The "compatibility" experience should be the best there. Otherwise they'd hear it from the media. I believe some Blu-ray author mentioned that PS3 is their dev and QA machine. They have to make it work there first, followed by other market leaders.

As for Digital Copy, I think they made it too complex. Still Blu-ray people seem to use them more:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/01/0...-accessing-digital-copy-twice-as-much-as-dvd/

In short, BD movie buyers accessed Digital Copy around twice as much as did DVD buyers, and it was found that the uptake rate is "measurably growing among Blu-ray consumers with successive Warner releases." Still, data shows that Digital Copy usage across the industry is still relatively rare, with title uptake across studio titles ranging between 5% and 13%.

I agree we should keep the studios away from tech implementation though (They are great at producing and encoding movies but...).