A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

[patsu]

Frankly, there is no right or wrong model here. It depends on your budget and needs. It doesn't have to be all on one central storage either. That scenario is too idealistic/restrictive for me.

My PS3 and my cheap home NAS box holds about the same collection of media. My PSP has a subset, plus an additional collection of sexy photos. My office PS3 has a different subset, plus a few movies and TV episodes I bought from PSN when I was bored at work. Now that I go to the public library with my son every week, I borrow CDs I would never buy and rip them to the PS3 to try. I remove them when I run out of space, and if I find something I like, I go buy the right bundle. I also do *a lot* of YouTube, Blu-ray plus some PSN download and NetFlix streaming on my PS3.

I let my needs dictate where these media go. As long as one is not stuck with proprietary format and DRM, he should be okay. Once I add iPad and iPhone to my media "network", they will definitely keep their own local collection too.

For me, I am looking forward to Blu-ray Managed Copy and any progress Sony make in the Marlin DRM. At this moment, the purchased PSN videos are the only ones that tie me down to PS3.

It is extremely easy to build up your media on the PS3. If you have a DLNA server, you can bulk copy them to the local HDD, or copy them one at a time on-demand. Ripping music and copying photos from digital camera via USB is a piece of cake too. It does not have a good nested folder scheme to organize the media. The Photo Gallery app is a good idea though, but they should improve it further.

 

[NavNucST3]

I use playon, playback, and PS3 Media Server.
PlayOn works on all three consoles
and Playback and PS3 Media Server works on PS3/360

So for me it can't be my Mac software that makes one of my consoles king over another. I have the PS3 Harmony adapter so I no longer have to worry about controls through controllers so for me it boils down to "owning" my content and at what cost.

It is typically 1600 points for me to buy a 1080p 5.1 movie from the Zune Marketplace (which I still think sucks in terms of licensing and ease of use when compared to Video Marketplace) if I was more like, joker, I would get my points at a discount but since I'm lazy, I do all my points buying from the 360, but even then buying Star Trek costs me a flat $20 (1600 points) + no tax (my friends in NY are not that lucky). At the time that I bought Star Trek it was either slightly below the Blu-ray on Amazon or the same price and this is the price point at which I bought my 100+ HD DVDs and BDs. When I bought Iron Man it was definitely the same as Amazon. I can begin watching these within about 20-30 seconds of purchasing them and I can later on download the files to my Mac (via Parallels and Zune Software; DRM'd naturally) or to my 360.

Spoiler

For some full disclosure I am long on NFLX, DIS (formerly MVL), and have SNE, MSFT, NTDOY through ETFs or other funds.

I own the entire season of Wolverine and the X-Men and Fantastic Four in 1080p which to my knowledge aren't currently offered on Blu-ray or weren't when I bought them. As far as I know I still can't buy HD movies on PSN Video and I don't think I can re-download videos for free yet either.

As far as content navigation goes I still consider it easier for me to browse the 360 than the PS3 if for no other reason than the triggers and bumpers on the 360 and reverse order scrolling, the Triggers give you page up/down and the bumpers give you left/right paging and while a list may be sorted # - Z on the 360 I can press up on the stick and scroll from Z - # and then use the triggers again for paging. Where this really bugs me is when trying to listen to music from the PS3 and going through my songs, I have gone over this before but on the PS3 trying to find a specific song or artist when you see a list of sync icons is not easy, it wouldn't be too bad if there was some flyout or something to let me know which letter I was currently on while scrolling. Also, marketplace.xbox.com (zune.net for video ) integration always seems to be left out of these conversations.

For photos the PS3 is fantastic and far superior, the 360 you can stream them, plug in an ipod or camera and show them but it certainly doesn't have the aesthetics of the PS3 viewer. It should be noted that you can copy a picture to the 360 but only to use as a background; I have five or six photos on my 360.

Deleting items on the 360 is certainly a pain and I will definitely not disagree with that "Deletion Suggestions" made it easier to find things but getting rid of multiple items is still a pain.

The last "CDs" I purchased were DVD Audio and SACD years ago and I purchased the upgrades for my itunes library so I have access to all of my music from either device but I can use custom soundtracks on my 360 in all my games. I added two or three albums to my PS3 to listen while playing Super Stardust HD but not by ripping them.

So all in all the TV show prices are the same but I pay no sales tax on 360 so its cheaper for me and I get to purchase HD movies. If I went the completely free route and just used PlayOn for netflix (non-disc method), hulu and the 6-10 other network plugins I have for it and the LocalFiles plugin, then for all but HD even my Wii would be sufficient.

It might be more helpful if we could point back to a thread with our gaming/home theatre setups in them as it might help to explain why people feel certain ways about certain things. Telling a guy he should care about CD/HD bitrates if he is rocking TV speakers on a 26" LCD HDTV (my sons setup) probably is going to go over his head compared to a guy with a 100" 1080p 2.35:1 projector with 7.2 sound system.

 

[upnorthsox]

Ok, two questions.

1) If your PS3's hdd crashes tomorrow morning, does that mean you will lose all that data, music, videos, photos or whatever, that aren't backed up?

2) Are you ok with that?

I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of "its ok to lose data", but I'm having a hard time of it.

But you can replace ps3 with PC for both of your last 2 posts and everything is still relevant.

 

[patsu]

As far as I know I still can't buy HD movies on PSN Video and I don't think I can re-download videos for free yet either.

Movies on PSN are available in both HD (720p I think) and SD editions. For digital movies, I usually rent SD versions and let PS3 upscale them (cheaper). If I like the movie, I would NetFlix or buy the Blu-ray version. I have a friend who rent Blu-ray movies via RedBox. Sometimes he passes the BR movies to me so I watch them for free (and vice versa).

 

[joker454]

But you can replace ps3 with PC for both of your last 2 posts and everything is still relevant.

For sure, I mentioned PS3 since that's what patsu likely has, but it applies to any box. I'm just not a fan of keeping any data local because I don't trust hdd's to not crash, and I think inevitably no matter how diligent one is there will be a point where some machine somewhere ends up with data that is only on it and hence at risk to be lost. For example, copying some photos to a console just to look at them quickly with the intent to back them up later, but then forgetting to do so. So we keep everything on a central raid which occasionally automatically backs itself up to another raid. It's worked for us for a long time now as we don't have to worry about anything, it all takes care of itself and our data is viewable anywhere from any device.

 

[patsu]

Just backup the PS3 as and when needed. I have to do it for my game saves anyway. If it's important media, it would usually end up in my office PS3 too.

Some photos are captured via iPhone, which is sync'ed via a different route. I still copy all these media to the PS3 via DLNA. The key thing is I like viewing the photos and home videos on the big screen TV.

 

[NavNucST3]

Movies on PSN are available in both HD (720p I think) and SD editions. For digital movies, I usually rent SD versions and let PS3 upscale them (cheaper). If I like the movie, I would NetFlix or buy the Blu-ray version.

Of the 10 movies I looked at none were available for purchase in HD they were available for rent in HD and purchase in SD. I should add that I searched from within the HD available section.

 

[patsu]

Ah, I only rent digital movies. That's why I always see the HD option I guess. If I buy, I'd get the Blu-ray version so that I can share it with friends, and watch it on open-standard media players.

 

[NavNucST3]

Ah, I only rent digital movies. That's why I always see the HD option I guess. If I buy, I'd get the Blu-ray version so that I can share it with friends, and watch it on open-standard media players.

Well, I tell myself it is for environmental reasons which is probably 60% true but really its about convenience for me of having "instant" access to my collection. Right now I have maybe 100 titles (360, PS3, HD DVD, Blu-ray) in my entertainment center and then another 200+ HD DVD/Blu-ray in my office closet due to lack of space...this after having replaced the majority of my physical books with Kindle versions and I still have "no space". We only have two TVs in our household (Living room/sons room) so it isn't a big deal for me because all of our laptops and iMacs have parallels on them with Zune Software installed so I still have multi location access to my downloads and streaming from the titles that have (PC/360/Zune) licenses.

I understand some peoples need for physical items I have a Halo helmet and Big Daddy figurine sitting in my office, but for music and movies I'm not that interested. My friends and family fall into two groups, ones that are sufficiently liquid that they can drop $10-15 on a movie and the other friends who only pay Comcast for their d/l speeds to get movies...for the second group no need to share they are doing well enough on their own.

 

[patsu]

For me, DVD/Blu-ray is more flexible because the central home media storage concept breaks down when I walk out of home. I spend quite a bit of time at work, and also we watch movies together at friends' place. Plans are usually ad hoc.

If I buy the movie, I also don't like the idea of tying down by PSN or XBL DRM. More of my friends have Blu-ray players, or are getting one. So the flexibility to play the movie on their players is important. For instant gratification, usually I'd get an anticipated BR movie on day one. Otherwise, it's mostly rental/download.

I guess if I really want to, I can rip Blu-ray to my computer and portable players too, like what joker454 is doing. But there is no immediate need for that. Will wait for Managed Copy to see what it's all about.

EDIT:
I'd say the only missing piece for me right now is something like Marlin DRM or Disney's KeyChest. I already have the ability to take/access movies anywhere I go. So if it's just cloud access, it won't buy me much (especially if I have to pay for it).

The other more advanced use cases are:

* Upgrade the media apps on PS3. Chief is the ability to manage and search media using alternate means. SenseMe or Pandora for music, sketch recognition + photo search, search photos using face recognition on people in the photos, etc.

* Write access to file servers

archie4oz, is Sony looking into the above areas ? I feel they will add a lot of value to PS3 customers (and of course prospects). Or Sony will fall behind.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I firmly believe that the idea that ALL data has to be accessed from ONE spot is totally wrong. I think that the idea is to make sure that ALL your data is on one "spot", and then it doesn´t matter if you have some of it duplicated on mutiple locations, like a phone, a PSP, locally on a PS3 or on a notebook you use for work. I don´t have to micro manage, i just have to make sure that i copy pics, mp3s, etc on to my main storage, then i can mess around with it on all my devices and not having to worry what happens with the fragments.

That is exactly my philosophy. Why bother storing media on another device within the home unless that device is portable and you want to take your media with you on the go.

It's much easier and more organized to have all your media centrally stored where it's easy to access from any device in the house and where it's also conveniently easy to backup. It's easy to mirror important data (family photos and video) and additionally to back them up for storage offsite (bank vault ). And have it all accessible from anywhere on any device.

Add on an internet portal and I can not only access all my media files from anywhere in the house (or the yard with Wi Fi), but I can also access it from anywhere in the world.

Now if playing over the LAN of your home is a problem (if you are pure Wi Fi for example) then I suppose I can see why you might want to store some files on each machine, but man that would be a royal PITA.

In this sense, whether PS3 or X360 serves as a better media portal is going to be down to personal preferences, as they both have advantages and disadvantages versus each other.

Regards,
SB

 

[joker454]

I firmly believe that the idea that ALL data has to be accessed from ONE spot is totally wrong. I think that the idea is to make sure that ALL your data is on one "spot", and then it doesn´t matter if you have some of it duplicated on mutiple locations

Yeah I agree, that's totally fine. You have the one repository of all data and then perhaps you dupe stuff elsewhere but you don't have to care about them since you know they are dupes. That way there is no micro managing and everything is backed up. I do that as well a little bit, for example I have some blu-rays copied onto my laptop so that I can always fire up "The Running Man" on a plane or hotel if I feel the need (no raid access when remote). But my wife and I know that any data not on raid is expendable and can be deleted without fear.

Add on an internet portal and I can not only access all my media files from anywhere in the house (or the yard with Wi Fi), but I can also access it from anywhere in the world.

We've thought about trying that, it's just security concerns that have spooked us a bit for now. But it would be really cool to be able to see all our data anywhere, although I can't imagine the blu-rays would stream all that well over wifi

 

[Silent_Buddha]

We've thought about trying that, it's just security concerns that have spooked us a bit for now. But it would be really cool to be able to see all our data anywhere, although I can't imagine the blu-rays would stream all that well over wifi

I don't do streaming unfortunately (or fortunately) depending on POV. My media server/HTPC/file server at home is a standard WHS box with some modifications. So for access to media over the net, I use the standard WHS portal which has limited access. But is more than enough for uploading and downloading of media, as well as accessing enabled PCs in the house through web based RDP.

Nice thing is that it mandates strong passwords for anything but basic upload/download accounts, so family members can't just create an account with a weak password that would expose a machine.

Regards,
SB

 

[patsu]

I used to think that way until I realized that devices are getting more and more powerful. Even a dingy digital camera can have large storage now (Moved my PSP memory stick there). Importing photos from digital cameras and iPhones are more like syncing these days. I also don't need to clear out my cameras that often. I have simple NAS HDDs that keep most of the media, but they are no longer that important since there is at least another copy elsewhere (like on my PS3 since "everything" is there too).

Most importantly, my use cases involves more outdoor use too; thanks to laptops, iPhone and free Internet storage. I even retired my old NAS storage without any issues. I just don't depend on it anymore.

 

[NeoTechni]

* Upgrade the media apps on PS3. Chief is the ability to manage and search

Search would be good

* Write access to file servers

Does DNLA even support that?

EDIT: http://www.dlna.org/digital_living/how_it_works/
Not from what I can find. The best it can do is support uploading photos from a client device

 

[patsu]

Search would be good



Does DNLA even support that?

EDIT: http://www.dlna.org/digital_living/how_it_works/
Not from what I can find. The best it can do is support uploading photos from a client device

No, DLNA doesn't support writing. But PS3 can do SMB if someone wants to write a driver. ^_^

 

[NeoTechni]

But PS3 can do SMB if someone wants to write a driver. ^_^

I wish. I wanted that more than DNLA.

But even Linux can't do SMB properly, and they've had years more than Sony to work on it, and more need for it

 

[betan]

I don't know what's going on here. Samba works fine for file sharing, have been using it forever.

The question is how someone can write a smb driver for PS3 unless they work for Sony.

 

[patsu]

Yes, someone in Sony has to do it. I was posting from my iPhone, had to keep it brief.

 

[bkilian]

Yes, Netflix has a limited digital library though (Mostly catalog titles). New ones are 28 days late compared to DVD/Blu-ray. XMB version is coming in Fall. Only for US.

Limited, yes, but still quite adequate. Just last night I watched "Transmorphers: The fall of man"... well.. at least the first 10 minutes, just to see how bad the effects were. They're bad. Oh John Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner), how the mighty have fallen... And to be accurate, the XMB version is _rumored_ to be coming in the fall.

Best version so far is PS3 Media Server. It's free and open sourced.

And completely usable from a 360, so not really a distinguisher. Media Center is not a DLNA server. If you have your Media Center connected to your cable, it essentially allows you to forward your DVR/Cable TV to any TV in the house connected to a console, without paying the cable company any extra money. Fully functional, you can watch live TV, record new programs, and also use it for everything you could use a DLNA server for. Never found much use for it myself, since the DLNA media sharing is good enough for my purposes, but for the folks that have a media center, it's incredibly useful.

When that xbox 360 article was written, the PS3 score was 38/130 so the article is certainly out of date. And there's quite a bit of conflicting information out there.

http://hcc.techradar.com/reviews/ne...nsole+both+better+and+worse+original+28+08+09

"But with this iteration there’s a notable increase in audio jitter, which is up to 461.7ps. And as a DVD player it’s poor, with a measured high frequency response of -6.14dB (@ 5.8MHz). ‘This is where the wheels fall off - a dreadful figure,’ bemoans the Lab report."

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?articles=125&function=search

"0dB @6MHz"


Also you can play h.264 encoded files with AC3 5.1 audio in the mkv container if you installed the Divx MKV media foundation pack without transcoding in Media Center.

The XBox DVD player is not top class. It's functional, and does a reasonable job displaying actual content, but it was never designed to pass arbitrary test discs. MS decided that it was good enough, and have concentrated on bringing other more interesting features to the system instead of writing reams of extra code to make sure you can detect broken 3:2 cadences.