PS3 Firmware 1.80 - PS/PS2/DVD upscaling, DLNA and more!

[wco81]

Damn, finally got my NAS to index my iPhoto library but all I get is some low rez, blurry pics.

I check the info on each pic and it's downrezzed to like 360x202. What an odd resolution.

Must by the NAS sending downrezzed images. Unless it's only finding the thumbnails iPhoto stores things at, rather than the actual image files, which are 8 MP each.

EDIT: OK I think I must have pointed it at the thumbnails folder, because I navigated around and now getting 2160x3840 pics.

Looks good on my HDTV.

 

[Mize]

thanks W.
I was thinking that iTunes has some DLNA capability I was unaware of.
I'll try Nero pointed to my library...

 

[wco81]

I've been playing around with it a lot.

So for the Mac, I downloaded EyeConnect and it will serve up iTunes and iPhoto while retaining things like iPhoto albums. But no playlists in iTunes as far as I can see.

Here's the odd part. My NAS shows up in the PS3 with "unsupported data" for all the AAC tracks.

But the very same tracks, through EyeConnect, show up as .m4a files. However, there's a little PCM box. So EyeConnect is apparently converting AAC to PCM before it gets to the PS3.

I guess other DLNA software does similar things.

Now I can appreciate the out-of-the-box transparency of something like AppleTV.

I'd been content to view my photos on my computers but having them up on the HDTV is nice. No music though in the PS3 slideshow mode.

 

[patsu]

I'd been content to view my photos on my computers but having them up on the HDTV is nice. No music though in the PS3 slideshow mode.

Press the "Playstation" button to enter XMB (while viewing slideshow). Then select your favorite music.

EDIT:
DLNA is still relatively fragmented. So it's great that Sony took the lead to popularize it. We should see improvements in:
(1) Better transcoding and user experiences (e.g., rewind, forward) on Media Server software
(2) Better and more decoder on the player side. In this case, PS3 already supports more media format than DLNA's basic profile. So hopefully Sony find time to enable them.

 

[wco81]

I don't understand why DLNA needs to transcode if the client (PS3 in this case) has the decoders. Why not just stream bits and let the client figure out what to do with it?

I've tried copying via the DLNA mounts and it is dog slow. Surprised it could stream fast enough to play back the media. Or is it doing some kind of transcoding even as you copy it?

Hmm, I can also enable HTTP and FTP. Wonder if the PS3 browser would be able to find the media that way.

 

[xatnys]

Anyone know if Sony plans to allow us to use pictures as backgrounds/wallpaper?

 

[Asher]

I don't understand why DLNA needs to transcode if the client (PS3 in this case) has the decoders. Why not just stream bits and let the client figure out what to do with it?

I've tried copying via the DLNA mounts and it is dog slow. Surprised it could stream fast enough to play back the media. Or is it doing some kind of transcoding even as you copy it?

Hmm, I can also enable HTTP and FTP. Wonder if the PS3 browser would be able to find the media that way.

It depends on the DLNA server. Nero has an option to transcode it, or just pass the original file.

 

[patsu]

I don't understand why DLNA needs to transcode if the client (PS3 in this case) has the decoders. Why not just stream bits and let the client figure out what to do with it?

Probably to support the most number of DLNA players since "everyone" is supposed to implement the 3 default decoders. As Asher mentioned, smarter Media Servers can support more advanced codecs.

 

[crazygambit]

This is a little OT, but my downloads stop when I play VF5, I only got my PS3 recently and since I didn't test it out with 1.7 I don't know if this broke it or it never worked. It works fine when I play demos though.

 

[djskribbles]

downloads should continue unless you go online. i haven't tried this since 1.8.

 

[crazygambit]

downloads should continue unless you go online. i haven't tried this since 1.8.

That's exactly what I thought, and since VF5 doesn't have any online functionality I'm aware of, I'm a little confused. If someone else has it, please test if your downloads continue. It's kind of a bummer. I'll see if it's working with Resistance.

 

[RobertR1]

Couple of issues:

I did the network setup with Windows media player 11. I can see the library folder but no files inside (i did the allow device in WMP11). Just bringing up the folder list is very slow though. Why won't the files show up?

If I had the controller connected and it's charging, it'll ask me to "hit the PS button" loads. Anytime I switch games, in/out of PS store, dvd playback.

 

[Arwin]

Couple of issues:

I did the network setup with Windows media player 11. I can see the library folder but no files inside (i did the allow device in WMP11). Just bringing up the folder list is very slow though. Why won't the files show up?

Two basic things I came across:

- by default, WMP11 only shares stuff with a certain rating. If most of your stuff is unrated, it won't show up. You can change this setting though.

- if you want to look at pictures, you have to go into the DNLA server through the Pictures menu on the XMB. If you want to look at music, you have to go through the Music menu on the XMB, and so on and so forth.

If I had the controller connected and it's charging, it'll ask me to "hit the PS button" loads. Anytime I switch games, in/out of PS store, dvd playback.

Hmm, that's really odd. Do you have any other USB devices hooked up?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Couple of issues:

I did the network setup with Windows media player 11. I can see the library folder but no files inside (i did the allow device in WMP11). Just bringing up the folder list is very slow though. Why won't the files show up?

If I had the controller connected and it's charging, it'll ask me to "hit the PS button" loads. Anytime I switch games, in/out of PS store, dvd playback.

I had problems with WMP11 too, only the photos showed up, and even there the connection was often lost or the folders showed up slow.
Switching to Nero, the problems are gone.
I think I did reset the parental level to "off" on the PS3 setups, as I read somewhere that might be the cause for the WMP11 problems, butI don't know if it helped as I switched to Nero at the same time.

Never had the "hit the PS button" notification, except in the beginning of PS/PS2 games, though I almost never use the PS3 for charging the controller, I use my Wii for that (about the only use I've had for Wii since I bought the PS3, sadly not to say Wii isn't any good, just the lack of good games )

About the PS/PS2 and DVD upscaling. I've tested them for a couple of nights now and came to the conslusion that I'll keep my PS2 still, or run the games unupscaled on PS3. My display does much better job, for example GT4 was a horrible jaggy mess if upscaled by PS3 to 720p, while if run natively and letting the Optoma HD72i upscale, it looks very good.
The smoothing, I've not had much time to experiment with, but I think it'll depend on the game.

DVD upscaling on the other hand is much better with PS3 than my projectors, which is funny because the projector should have a quality Faroudja upscaling.
With my Pioneer DV-696 DVD player on the other hand, the projector did a better job than the player.
Comparison with the PS3 upscaling vs. projector upscaling of PS3 576p material showed a visibly cleaner, stabler and sharper picture with PS3 handling the scaling to 720p.

So to me, PS/PS2 games not scaled by PS3, DVD's scaled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For *most* video playback situations going Y Pb/Cb Superwhite will give the best results... but then again from a film/video perspective, that was the original reason for that colorspace inclusion in the first place way back in firmware 1.3 or whatever. For the majority of people, the majority of the time (games, XMB, etc..), they're going to be dealing in RGB (and likely Limited) anyway.

It stuff like this that shows what a stupid, inane mess companies are making of the AV industry! Having to mess about with such numerous and confusing settings is not what watching films and playing games is about! It's bad enough having to set widescreen zoom amounts, which plenty of people still can't get right and watch stretched people. Now they also have to faff about with more settings? Surely Joe Public is always going to turn on Super White and MegaBlack and Funky-Grey and Full Extra Total Everything because the names sound like more and better stuff?! Very few are going to research what this stuff does and when it should be used.

In the 80's I would put a game in my Amiga and it would run. My friend would put a game in his PC and have it not run properly, and spend as much as half an hour or longer editing 'config.sys' and 'autoexec.bat' files. I wonder how long it'll be adding more and more options until we've regressed to the same systems on AV gear? When will be editing .ini files for particular movies? When will we have sunk to installing drivers for different TV programmes?!

 

[patsu]

Agreed ! I was thinking about the same thing too. I guess it's a fight between hardware guy's "save every penny" philosophy and software guy's "must be easy to use" approach. Along the way, hardware standards and implementation skimmed on features and consistency to lower BOM cost. A few manufacturers innovate in very specific areas to differentiate.

Now when Sony or any manufacturer tries to have a consistent and optimal performance on these devices, they have hundreds and thousands of combinations to worry about. Once Sony has implemented the detailed support for these individual options on Cell. They will need to add an abstraction layer on top to simplify the configuration.

e.g., As an alternative, language support can be specified in 1 place instead of BD Language Setup, DVD Language Setup and System Language Setup. OTOH, they probably want to leave the Full/Limited RGB option and other advanced options intact so that experts can fine-tune their configuration. So far, I have seen posts reporting varying results based on the same exact settings.

Before 1.8, I have never heard of Full/limited RGB range. It makes a pleasant difference on my set. Colors are noticeably more intense although the picture appears darker.

 

[Arwin]

My display does much better job, for example GT4 was a horrible jaggy mess if upscaled by PS3 to 720p, while if run natively and letting the Optoma HD72i upscale, it looks very good.
The smoothing, I've not had much time to experiment with, but I think it'll depend on the game.

You should test with Smoothing though. Your TV may well do both itself.

 

[Mize]

Nero only seems to work on "auto-detect" but then the video streams are very pixelated.

Any solution?

 

[rabidrabbit]

You should test with Smoothing though. Your TV may well do both itself.

Yes, I did some more testing.
Now I've settled with letting the PS3 output everything at 1080p and the projector downscale them to it's native 720p.

I know it's against the philosophy of doing as little back and forth scaling as possible, but with Blu-ray's it actually isn't doing but only one scaling.
Some scenes, especially ones with high contrast horizontal lines showed some jaggies with PS3 Blu-ray@720p, while @1080p downscaled to 720p by the projector is clean of them, also resolution test images show a more stable image with no loss of detail compared to PS3@720p.
A scene where I easily detected the jaggies was for example on Open Season BD, in the very beginning where the girl is loading the back of the pick-up truck, there's some chrome coloured railing on the right of the backside of the car and it showed jaggies on PS3720p, whereas @1080p it was smooth. Same I notice on Casino Royale disc in some scene with a speedboat driving from left to right on the screen, there was jaggies on some chrome finishing of the boat.

With DVD*s and games the PS3 first scales to 1080p and the projector then to 720p, but I don't see a loss of quality with DVD's at all.
In fact I think DVD's look as good as when PS3 scaled them directly to 720p.
I might just imagine things, but it looks like they actually look quite a bit better now with 576i -> 1080p -> 720p scaling. No detail seem to be lost in the scaling chain, at least according to test images, so I'm happy with what my eyes tell me.

The main peeve with PS2 games being upscaled is just that the image aspect ratios seem to be a bit screwed in most games. 16:9 games appear a bit flat or narrow, depending on the setting, and I haven't yet found a setting that would be good. And I doubt I will, at least with this firmware version.
Haven't tested with scaling on and off yet, but I think I'll leave it a t on for time being, as it doesn't seem to soften the image too much.

The PS2 games do look very washed out compared to PS3 games and DVD's. Guess there's little to be done except adjust brightmness / contrast everytime I play a PS2 game.

Overall though, I'm very happy with what the 1.8 update brought. The DVD playback quality was the most disappointing before, whereas now it's better than my standalone Pioneer.

The DLNA is the no1. feature for me. No need to buy that bigger 2,5" HDD just now as I can free a lot of space from PS3 HDD now as I can just stream them from my PC.

Edit: Sorry for the bad english and typing errors, it's late....

 

[Asher]

I'm experimenting with DLNA servers.

Nero Mediaserver wouldn't work streaming in realtime on my system (Athlon 64 3200+), so I tried TVersity. I installed that, but the PS3 can't detect it no matter what I do.

Nero Mediaserver is now proving to be buggy...it crashes constantly, at least on Vista (32-bit). Now when I try to start it up, it tells me that a component is missing and I've got to reinstall. Bizarre.