Sony's PS3 download plans?

[Arwin]

Has anyone tried installing Linux in the same partition as the Game OS ? I am under the impression that 1.6 allows that. If so, this may be another way. If not, what exactly did 1.6 enhanced regarding Other-OS installation ?

I understand this means the PS3 now has the otheros.self available and you only have to provide the conf file for the OS you are installing, whereas previously you had to provide both yourself through an USB stick or something similar. Linux partition is still going to be a separate partition invisible to the XMB.

 

[one]

Ah, I never put 2 and 2 together... I guess it stands to reason that Sony only supports the few codecs that they do due to licensing. Not piracy (otherwise no one would support mp3's). Has Sony mentioned when it would provide support for playing music off an iPod yet?

Who mentioned piracy before you?

You need to be licensed by Fraunhofer IIS to do MP3 support BTW. iPod has Fairplay DRM which is not a codec issue.

 

[patsu]

I understand this means the PS3 now has the otheros.self available and you only have to provide the conf file for the OS you are installing, whereas previously you had to provide both yourself through an USB stick or something similar. Linux partition is still going to be a separate partition invisible to the XMB.

Ah ok ! Thanks for the quick response.

EDIT: I wonder whether it's a good idea to have a scratch area where Linux can copy files/folders to, from which Game OS can read (and vice versa). Might be a stop-gap in the mean time.

 

[one]

Does the PS3 not recognise SMB shares? SMB is pretty universal, everyone supports it more or less. Well at least when I am connecting to my 2k3 Server from my Mac I don't have to do anything special, I can even write to the share (as it is presented as SMB not NTFS and windows takes care of everything else in the background). Most NAS's I have seen should support SMB.

SMB (also known as the CIFS protocol) has a legal issue.
http://us1.samba.org/samba/ms_license.html

 

[patsu]

Yes, SMB is not safe for Sony to bundle.

Perhaps the easiest stop-gap is to use WebDav as an alternative. e.g., use the web browser to navigate and download from WebDav repositories

... or add FTP to the web browser.

 

[Diamond.G]

Who mentioned piracy before you?

You need to be licensed by Fraunhofer IIS to do MP3 support BTW. iPod has Fairplay DRM which is not a codec issue.

Hmm, I got my conext WRT piracy messed up. I now note that ppl were talking about paying for licenses all along.

Why should Sony worry about the SMB/CIFS license issue, the license is free if they aren't releasing XMB under GNU GPL?

After reading the article, it seems the MS verbage is for an abandoned form of SMB/CIFS communication.

Anyhow, when Sony starts offering Movie downloads how are they going to protect the MP4's? I haven't found anything that readily states what kind of protection that container offers.


Note: I speak from System Administration experience, EMC was/is the provider of our NAS hardware and software. They used CIFS to present combined LUNS to Windows for use as actual drives. This was done because Clarions dont' run Windows. I would like to think if EMC isn't worried about the CIFS licensing (and they provide this equipment for a long list of U.S. Government contracts) why should Sony (whom is much larger than EMC)?

 

[one]

Hmm, I got my conext WRT piracy messed up. I now note that ppl were talking about paying for licenses all along.

Why should Sony worry about the SMB/CIFS license issue, the license is free if they aren't releasing XMB under GNU GPL?

After reading the article, it seems the MS verbage is for an abandoned form of SMB/CIFS communication.

Oops, it seems I quoted a wrong doc. This more recent news item is probably more appropriate.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39186884,00.htm

They can put SMB or anything on PS3 (it already supports Windows Media Audio) but it's always trade-off between its value and royalty payment to a license holder.

Anyhow, when Sony starts offering Movie downloads how are they going to protect the MP4's? I haven't found anything that readily states what kind of protection that container offers.

Note: I speak from System Administration experience, EMC was/is the provider of our NAS hardware and software. They used CIFS to present combined LUNS to Windows for use as actual drives. This was done because Clarions dont' run Windows. I would like to think if EMC isn't worried about the CIFS licensing (and they provide this equipment for a long list of U.S. Government contracts) why should Sony (whom is much larger than EMC)?

Microsoft has PlayReady DRM that supports H.264.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/feb07/02-123GSMNewTechnologyPR.mspx

As for PS3, I think this framework is a good candidate.
http://www.marlin-community.com/

 

[Diamond.G]

After a lil Wiki reading. It seems MS owns the patent to FAT32 as well. I understand that NTFS is more expensive than FAT32, but if you are going to pay for a license it might as well be the one that is inherently securable (WRT permissions) and is inuse by at least 60% of the Windows using population.

Linky

Does the PS3 allow you to format the external drives as anything but fat32? I am curious how they would lock down the filesystems to keep ppl from copying movies from the OS side. Does the system not even present you with the option of copying the files to the external drive?

 

[inefficient]

This is interesting news:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6541035.stm

Virgin Radio and its digital networks have launched on the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 games consoles, and claim to be the first UK stations to do so.

Users of the hardware will be able to access a customised Virgin "player" on their console's web browser.

As well as linking to radio output, the system also offers videos and exclusive session recordings, as well as concert tickets, CDs and tracks for download.

It seems they are just talking about something for the PS3 browser though and not an actual streaming application.

 

[patsu]

After a lil Wiki reading. It seems MS owns the patent to FAT32 as well. I understand that NTFS is more expensive than FAT32, but if you are going to pay for a license it might as well be the one that is inherently securable (WRT permissions) and is inuse by at least 60% of the Windows using population.

I think it's because most of the existing USB thumbsticks and consumer devices use FAT32 (e.g., digital cameras). If Sony does not provide it, they will not be readable.

 

[Diamond.G]

I think it's because most of the existing USB thumbsticks and consumer devices use FAT32 (e.g., digital cameras). If Sony does not provide it, they will not be readable.

Ah, yes but I was thinking more along the lines of being able to get your content from your pc to your ps3.

Shoot if anything Sony should provide a means for converting movie files to h264, since the PS3 is such a great media powerhouse. I would love to convert my 120gb of anime to H264 and in at least 720x480 rez. I gather the PS3 should be able to crunch through that much data in about three or four hours.

 

[patsu]

Ah, yes but I was thinking more along the lines of being able to get your content from your pc to your ps3.

Shoot if anything Sony should provide a means for converting movie files to h264, since the PS3 is such a great media powerhouse. I would love to convert my 120gb of anime to H264 and in at least 720x480 rez. I gather the PS3 should be able to crunch through that much data in about three or four hours.

Yap ! I know where you're coming from.

The current use cases only cover PS3 as a simple hub for devices such as thumb drives and digital cameras.

For LAN-based media center use cases, I think Sony has not revealed its hand yet. DLNA was demo'ed but we have not heard anything since. Remote Play is another feature that is gimp'ed right now.

For LAN-based file exchange, there is also no good solution beyond the web browser. However the aforementioned DLNA protocol also allows the user to browse a media repository (via HTTP extension)

Further out, for WAN media sharing, I believe (Sony mentioned) they will position Playstation Home for that.

 

[Jesus2006]

For LAN-based file exchange, there is also no good solution beyond the web browser. However the aforementioned DLNA protocol also allows the user to browse a media repository (via HTTP extension)

Further out, for WAN media sharing, I believe (Sony mentioned) they will position Playstation Home for that.

Just tried creating a web server (in C:\InetPub\wwwroot) on my local WinXP PC here and access it from the PS3s browser - works just fine

Now all you'd need was some kind of java or flash app that lets you browse your media remotely.

 

[-tkf-]

I appreciate that. But if you want a central store of 250 GB filled with ripped DVDs to transmit around your home, PS3 isn't going to interact nicely with that. It'll need some jiggery-pokery, which means hassle for technophobes - not what's wanted.

Nope Ripped DVD´s wont do on a PS3 with the current file size, if thats you primary use for a media center look somewhere else. You would have to rip each and everyone to a single VOB or MPEG2 file of course. And 250GB is only 35 dvd´s hardly worth the hassle.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

And 250GB is only 35 dvd´s hardly worth the hassle.

Are you sure its 35, coz for a 5gb ripped DVD, that equates to 50

 

[Diamond.G]

Are you sure its 35, coz for a 5gb ripped DVD, that equates to 50

I think he is assuming the disc are 8gb. I figure if you just rip the DVD and don't do any compression at all (keeping menu's and extra's) that could be about right. And heaven forbid you own the super deluxe extended version of lord of the rings, or the ultimate matrix collection.

 

[-tkf-]

Are you sure its 35, coz for a 5gb ripped DVD, that equates to 50

I took 7GB, you could also just download warez copies that are stripped beforehand and downsampled if quality doesn´t matter, but i doubt that someone who wants a media center would want that.

But lets say 50 DVD´s, hardly worth the hassle.

 

[-tkf-]

I think he is assuming the disc are 8gb. I figure if you just rip the DVD and don't do any compression at all (keeping menu's and extra's) that could be about right. And heaven forbid you own the super deluxe extended version of lord of the rings, or the ultimate matrix collection.

In that case some nice single Disc SVCDs would be pefect, 350 movies in super bad quality

Why anyone would want to recompress DVD´s just to but as many as possible on a Harddrive so that you don´t have to find the disc and insert it into the player is course a good question

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You're looking at 4-5GB per movie without any of the crap. It's nicer to have them on tap rather than have to reach for DVDs, and of course you're not limited to 250 GB - you can always slap in more storage. It's the principle of the thing.

On a side note, how would DVD movies be if recoded via h264? Should be smaller with the modern codec, but how would quality be affected? And playback on other devices?

Is DNLA something that existing NAT storages can handle, or a protocol that'd need specific hardware?

 

[Diamond.G]

You're looking at 4-5GB per movie without any of the crap. It's nicer to have them on tap rather than have to reach for DVDs, and of course you're not limited to 250 GB - you can always slap in more storage. It's the principle of the thing.

On a side note, how would DVD movies be if recoded via h264? Should be smaller with the modern codec, but how would quality be affected? And playback on other devices?

Is DNLA something that existing NAT storages can handle, or a protocol that'd need specific hardware?

I have re-encoded dvd clips as h.264 (cause i use a Mac and to use iMovie you might as well). The quality is superb, no noticable difference to the dvd. The downside is space used can go up quite a bit if you use a bitrate higher the 2000kbps. And the quality difference isn't noticably better (with the higher bitrate).

And from what I have found thus far, it looks like DNLA may need hardware. As I haven't found any software for it (not even from Sony).