A comparison of PS3 and 360 as media players

[Arwin]

It's been a really long time since I tried, but the last time I did the consoels were incapable of playing back .m2ts and .mts files with 5.1 or better audio over a network, which to me was a severe handicap since they are used for two of the most prominent hd video sources today namely blu-rays and hd video cameras. Hence why I long abandoned the consoles for media playback and instead use a htpc downstairs and a popcorn hour c-200 in the bedroom. Has that situation changed at all on console, can they now stream common media from hd camcorders and blu-ray movies? I don't want any hack transcode type fix, or have to keep a pc on full time to support this, I just want the consoles to be able to do what my wimpy c-200 can do namely play m2ts and mts hd video/audio media right from my raid drives. Last I checked this was not possible but that was a long time ago, if that's changed then I'll try them again but somehow I doubt it.

I haven't tried, but I haven't heard that anything has changed in that regard. I was thinking of doing what you had been doing, but that's basically what spurred my post below.

However, there is an application you can install to play and edit HD video straight from hd camcorders on your PS3, although I think it is probably limited to a few brands only, maybe even just Sony.

 

[mrcorbo]

Certainly not in the UK. A laptop capable of BRD playback isn't to be picked up for less than something like £700, doing a quick search for BRD enabled laptops.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-...00gb-hd-blu-ray-windows-7-hp?source=shopzilla

Outside of that though, you're definitely right. As long as you can't rip DVDs to HDD on the consoles, you're immediately at a huge disadvantage. But I don't think these consoles were ever trying to be standalone, PC free media servers, but media extenders of sorts. In that respect you aren't making a fair comparison, unless your complaints are solely about media support etc.

I'm not even considering scenarios where your using the device in isolation. That tilts the balance even further. Even purely as a gateway device they don't measure up. The three main issues I have are interface, format support, and network share support. DLNA is the only game in town for most of these media gateway devices and it's just too restrictive forcing a user to make tradeoffs between quality, performance and usability. If your system proritizes one of those, you have to make sacrifices in the other areas to allow for it.

 

[mrcorbo]

So, ah, what exactly did the consoles not do that your laptop does? I think I missed that in your post..

It's a long list, but here's one that struck me immediately. Have you tried seeking within an HD stream that is being transcoded into one of the limited formats that the PS3 (let alone the 360) supports? How long can you do this before playback is broken. How about moving to a specific chapter? Nope. Chapter information gets lost in the translation. Navigation is one of the most basic functions of a media player and I've found these media players to be very poor at it.

I can elaborate more given more time and could probably work up a pretty impressive rant, but I'll have to stop there for now.

 

[tuna]

It's been a really long time since I tried, but the last time I did the consoels were incapable of playing back .m2ts and .mts files with 5.1 or better audio over a network, which to me was a severe handicap since they are used for two of the most prominent hd video sources today namely blu-rays and hd video cameras. Hence why I long abandoned the consoles for media playback and instead use a htpc downstairs and a popcorn hour c-200 in the bedroom. Has that situation changed at all on console, can they now stream common media from hd camcorders and blu-ray movies? I don't want any hack transcode type fix, or have to keep a pc on full time to support this, I just want the consoles to be able to do what my wimpy c-200 can do namely play m2ts and mts hd video/audio media right from my raid drives. Last I checked this was not possible but that was a long time ago, if that's changed then I'll try them again but somehow I doubt it.

I think this works pretty well on the PS3. I have watched many blu-ray rips like that.

 

[mrcorbo]

It's been a really long time since I tried, but the last time I did the consoels were incapable of playing back .m2ts and .mts files with 5.1 or better audio over a network, which to me was a severe handicap since they are used for two of the most prominent hd video sources today namely blu-rays and hd video cameras. Hence why I long abandoned the consoles for media playback and instead use a htpc downstairs and a popcorn hour c-200 in the bedroom. Has that situation changed at all on console, can they now stream common media from hd camcorders and blu-ray movies? I don't want any hack transcode type fix, or have to keep a pc on full time to support this, I just want the consoles to be able to do what my wimpy c-200 can do namely play m2ts and mts hd video/audio media right from my raid drives. Last I checked this was not possible but that was a long time ago, if that's changed then I'll try them again but somehow I doubt it.

I think this works pretty well on the PS3. I have watched many blu-ray rips like that.

You're using a NAS with a built-in DLNA server or ???

 

[Tahir2]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer
Certainly not in the UK. A laptop capable of BRD playback isn't to be picked up for less than something like £700, doing a quick search for BRD enabled laptops.

Allow me to go one better:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5083826/Trail/searchtext%3EMSI+CR630.htm

MSI CR630 Blu-ray 320GB 15.6 Inch Laptop - £399.99

Watch high-quality Blu-rays on this stylish laptop which offers a wealth of other fantastic features to meet all your computing needs. Communicate easily with friends and family around the world using the built-in camera with microphone and experience great quality gaming with its HD graphics card.

4GB or DDR3 RAM as well as a 320GB HDD.

In fact this laptop was on offer a few months ago for £299.99 and my lucky cousin bought one at my recommendation.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Okay, a couple of freak prices aside, or maybe a sudden price reduction, you can't expect Joe Public to get a £300 laptop normally to play BRDs and stuff. If you want a BRD supporting HD movie player, you either have to buy a standalone or a PS3, and in that respect a PS3 remains great value. That may just be changing if there's a sudden flush of £300 BRD enabled laptops, but that seems unlikely to me for a while given how laptop prices seem to have stayed fairly high over the past year or two. From that perspective console may not be the best experience, but they are great value and serve a niche.

 

[jonabbey]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/156-...00gb-hd-blu-ray-windows-7-hp?source=shopzilla



I'm not even considering scenarios where your using the device in isolation. That tilts the balance even further. Even purely as a gateway device they don't measure up. The three main issues I have are interface, format support, and network share support. DLNA is the only game in town for most of these media gateway devices and it's just too restrictive forcing a user to make tradeoffs between quality, performance and usability. If your system proritizes one of those, you have to make sacrifices in the other areas to allow for it.

Hm, yeah, I don't get chapter navigation or anything like that, but the PS3 can do 120x scanning with the DLNA server I'm using on my Linux server without any problem, against DVDs ripped and converted to h.264 AVC.

 

[joker454]

I think this works pretty well on the PS3. I have watched many blu-ray rips like that.

Really, it plays raw blu-ray dumps? I don't re-encode anything I just dump the blu-rays to raid. You sure those play on ps3? If so then awesome I'll go buy two more ps3's right now for other rooms.

You're using a NAS with a built-in DLNA server or ???

I don't use dlna at all, I use the popcorn hour c-200 and it sees my Dlink dns-343 raid unit directly, no dlna needed. That's probably why it works so fast. I have 117 blu-rays dumped onto a raid unit with the movie, best hd audio and chapter stops and everything else stripped away, so no re-encode it's the original content. The c-200 plays them all perfectly (note it was garbage at first but they firmware fixed it), and I even get full chapter stops, menu functionality if I want it (I kept menus on one disc) and it rewinds/fast forwards really fast. I've been using it for over a year and still haven't found anything even remotely close to to in in functionality to replace it. But it Tuna above is right and the ps3 can now do all this as well then I'll replace it with a ps3. Well actually I'd have to check audio levels first, the c-200 is totally silent so I'd first have to see if the ps3 was quiet when playing movies.

 

[mrcorbo]

Okay, a couple of freak prices aside, or maybe a sudden price reduction, you can't expect Joe Public to get a £300 laptop normally to play BRDs and stuff. If you want a BRD supporting HD movie player, you either have to buy a standalone or a PS3, and in that respect a PS3 remains great value. That may just be changing if there's a sudden flush of £300 BRD enabled laptops, but that seems unlikely to me for a while given how laptop prices seem to have stayed fairly high over the past year or two. From that perspective console may not be the best experience, but they are great value and serve a niche.

TBH I'd say a big portion of why I wouldn't expect Joe Public to buy a laptop to use as a media gateway is that Joe Public is generally ignorant of the fact that it can be used as such. This doesn't really factor in to a discussion of whether it's a better option or not. Laptop prices haven't changed, but the capabilities of the budget-priced models are always increasing as PC hardware always does. Dedicated hardware for decoding of HD video formats is now present in the lowest of the lowest end integrated graphics cores on mobile processors these days and BD-Roms are already commodities. The playback software licenses are probably as big of an added expense as the drive, really.

And as another value-add, the laptop is still portable. I can disconnect the HDMI cable and the power cord and maintain the same functionality anywhere in and around my house I can get a strong enough wireless signal. And I can still take it on the road when necessary, though this latter function is probably going to be better-served by a large-screened smartphone soon.

 

[mrcorbo]

Really, it plays raw blu-ray dumps? I don't re-encode anything I just dump the blu-rays to raid. You sure those play on ps3? If so then awesome I'll go buy two more ps3's right now for other rooms.




I don't use dlna at all, I use the popcorn hour c-200 and it sees my Dlink dns-343 raid unit directly, no dlna needed. That's probably why it works so fast. I have 117 blu-rays dumped onto a raid unit with the movie, best hd audio and chapter stops and everything else stripped away, so no re-encode it's the original content. The c-200 plays them all perfectly (note it was garbage at first but they firmware fixed it), and I even get full chapter stops, menu functionality if I want it (I kept menus on one disc) and it rewinds/fast forwards really fast. I've been using it for over a year and still haven't found anything even remotely close to to in in functionality to replace it. But it Tuna above is right and the ps3 can now do all this as well then I'll replace it with a ps3. Well actually I'd have to check audio levels first, the c-200 is totally silent so I'd first have to see if the ps3 was quiet when playing movies.

My comment was directed at Tuna. I'm curious how he's accomplishing that myself.

 

[mrcorbo]

Hm, yeah, I don't get chapter navigation or anything like that, but the PS3 can do 120x scanning with the DLNA server I'm using on my Linux server without any problem, against DVDs ripped and converted to h.264 AVC.

Not really the same thing as streaming HD video and lossless multichannel audio, though. DVDs are easy. Even the gimped consoles can do that OK

 

[mrcorbo]

Lets not forget ease of use, the PS3 is very easy to use, the only issue is supported formats. But aside from the classic pirate formats, it play nice with most family equipment.

And afaik there is plenty of issues in regards to HTPC ,deinterlace, framerates and sound. I look forward to fighting them all when i finally buy a Sandy Bridge HTPC

Check out the interface of this media center app as an example. This is the 2-machine-license commercial app that I use and have been using to manage a (now) 11,000 track music library and currently a smallish, but growing, hard disk based movie/TV series collection. Now, whether the aesthetics of this interface agree with you or not, know that functionally, it is light years beyond any DLNA-based client I have ever seen when it comes to navigating through a large media library. It's not just a matter of being able to customize the interface to sort according to almost any criteria you may choose. Just scrolling through even a long list is pretty much instantaneous. I can get to and play any given song using the free android app they created on my cell phone over its' cellular internet connection faster than I can get to that song on my PS3 or 360 (the 360 is a bit faster than the PS3 actually). It's ridiculous.

This is what I mean by ease-of-use. Once setup, this software makes it much easier to access and playback my media than it ever has been with one of my consoles. As I've said before, the initial setup of a media PC can be tricky, but once this is completed it's very pleasant to use day-to-day. This was not always the case, but the whole segment has evolved with even the setup process now being much easier, largely by the efforts of enthusiasts whose motivations don't lead to them intentionally restricting functionality so as to not impact their ability to extract revenue from the people using their solutions.

 

[Tahir2]

I have to admit my PS3 gets extensive use as a media player and games a distant second.

Not only is it quite cheap for a high-end Bluray player (mainly due to it being update able via firmware) but it is very simply to use compared to a laptop for instance.

Not quite as easy as putting a disc in the drive and pressing play but much easier than loading Windows, logging in, opening your chosen media player and launching your movie.

Funny thing is the £299/£399 laptop will probably NEVER get used as a Bluray player in its lifetime.

 

[mrcorbo]

I have to admit my PS3 gets extensive use as a media player and games a distant second.

Not only is it quite cheap for a high-end Bluray player (mainly due to it being update able via firmware) but it is very simply to use compared to a laptop for instance.

Not quite as easy as putting a disc in the drive and pressing play but much easier than loading Windows, logging in, opening your chosen media player and launching your movie.

Funny thing is the £299/£399 laptop will probably NEVER get used as a Bluray player in its lifetime.

Is it easier/faster than waking the laptop from sleep and either having autorun automatically launch the default player application or alternatively launch a dialog giving you the option to do so?

 

[Tahir2]

I would say yes because the laptop is used as a portable device in many different places whereas the PS3 would probably sit in a fixed location.
So add to that routine - plug laptop into TV via HDMI/HDMI switch.

The other thing to note is that most people are not that tech savvy so even putting a computer to "sleep" and waking it up can be a challenge for some.

The PS3 is simpler, I feel, but still not simpler than a dedicated Bluray player.

The biggest problem I have had is the initial setup via my main PC to my TV which has been a bit of a pain (as it is all connected via an AV amp). The PS3 simply worked and the PC (Windows/drivers/applications are to blame here really) was such a headache I don't have the time or inclination to bother with it anymore as a media device. YMMV.

 

[Arwin]

Is it easier/faster than waking the laptop from sleep and either having autorun automatically launch the default player application or alternatively launch a dialog giving you the option to do so?

That's what I was thinking too - if I was using a laptop for media playback I would use sleep all the time. Or perhaps Ubuntu 10.10 if there is any decent media playback on that, because that boots up crazy fast. But the PS3 can be configured to work even easier too. If you enable autostart, all you need to do is insert your disc. You don't even have to turn the PS3 on, that happens automatically as soon as it detects a disc being inserted ... doesn't get much easier than that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There's a big difference to what is technically possible with a PC, and what the typical user is capable of doing! If given a choice between PS3, switch on, put in the BRD and play, and a PC where they don't know about hibernate modes and use Media Player instead of Media Centre to play files because they don't know how to switch between the two, and where the Media Centre is basically the same sort of interface as XMB anyway, and they don't know or are scared to buy alternative players, the PS3 provides a safer, more comfortable option.

That's the big issue with PCs, and moreso with Linux. User friendliness needs to be transparent and ubiquituous. Windows won't ever provide that while security is such an invasive issue, and it's a polarised experience with applications that provide a simple experience running on the desktop interface. It wouldn't be hard to set up a laptop as a portable media player for Joe Public, but that's comparing the real, generalised experience. Comparing that general experience, consoles offer a switch on and play experience for games and movies, whereas PCs don't, which is a considerable part of the consoles draw. And as such, they only target the most basic media formats to be used by the most basic users, although they should get updates to newer necessary formats like HDV from camcorders.

 

[jonabbey]

Our PS3 is in a separate room from the living room, connected to the tv and in-wall speaker through in-wall cables. Being able to use a Logitech infrared to bluetooth remote adapter in the living room makes for a very convenient media gateway. Netflix, Hulu, all of our ripped DVDs, and Blu-Rays if we want to go to the media room and insert a disc.. works great.

 

[Nesh]

Is it easier/faster than waking the laptop from sleep and either having autorun automatically launch the default player application or alternatively launch a dialog giving you the option to do so?

Sometimes we do sometimes we dont have our PC's in sleepmode. For consoles its always fast access.

Also the console is always connected to the TV. The PC or laptop? Not so much,
We tend to use the PC as a media server to play our movies on our consoles because of that instead of using wires to connect the PC or laptop to our TV