Sony To Use PS2 Chip In Flat-Screen TVs

Thanks to GameSpot for its news story reporting that Sony is intending to use the PlayStation 2's CPU chip in a flat-screen TV that will be released in Japan this fall. According to the story: "Sony plans to take advantage of the PS2 chip's CG capabilities to create a high-quality graphical user interface (GUI) for the flat-screen TV [apparently similar to the PSX's DVR menu in style], which will allow smooth and easy control in navigating the TV's menu." There's no indication of any game-like functions for the TV, but: "The release of the new flat-screen TV can also be considered as the prelude to Sony's next-generation electronic products, some of which are expected to operate using the PS3's Cell chip when they are released in 2006."

Comments

Linux?

[mungeh]

I wonder if they'll release a hard drive and linux pack to go with it?

Re:Linux?

[zonker]

next comes the inevitable beowulf comment... oops. guess mine was it.

Bad news guys!

[Anonymous Coward]

Disc Read Error is coming to a TV set near you!

Not bad for me!

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be bad news for some but not for me. If the TV can pre-emptively give me a Disc Read Error, that means I won't even need a PlayStation 2 to get one! Then only saps would buy other brands of TV! Thanks Sony for saving me $150!!

Re:Not bad for me!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd save $150...by spending several hundred (if not thousand) dollars on the TV itself? Not such a great deal.

Re:Well done Sony..

[gl4ss]

how many guys you know that have problems with the ps2 _cpu_ which was what was talked in this?

they're not going to integrate a full ps2 into the tv..

Re:Well done Sony..

[C32]

RTFA (Read the fine article)..

They will be using a PS2 CHIP, not an entire PS2 with drive assembly, to drive on screen menus.. IE 3d graphics buzzing around when you want to change the channel :)
This is NOT for playing games or dvds.

IMO a very smart move by sony; use the economies of scale for their old-tech, one-chip PS2's to differentiate their other consumer goods..
All LCDS and plasmas are more or less identical anyway, so cabinet design and OSD quality will be key factors in TV purchasing...

Sounds like

[oasis3582]

a fantastic excuse to make Sony TVs even MORE expensive! SWEEEEEEET!

Re:Sounds like

[charstar]

Or cheaper!
Low cost processors that have been proven in the marketplace.... sounds good to me!

Re:Sounds like

[oasis3582]

Ideally, yes, but most likely not. Marketing will make sure that the box will say "Powered by PS2 technology" all over it. Also, the chip is being put in there not to replace anything, but to add flashinees in menus, etc. Necessary? No. Something you will pay more for? YES.

Someone beat me to the Linux

[tod_miller]

So I'll have to wait until I can make a cluster of these for easy channel flipping! :-)

I for one see this as a way of stremaing 3d animations on top of ANY programming on ANY channel!

That is scary! That is REALLY scarey!

PS3

[weapon]

Does this mean that the new PS3 will only run with a sony TV, or that it will run better with a sony tv.
eg. on the TV designed for the PS3

Weapon

Re:Well done Sony..

[blueZhift]

I concur. Given the money they've invested in chip development, it's good to see that they are getting the most out of it. That can only mean good things for gamers too as economies of scale further push down the cost of manufacture which usually means less cost for the consumer. It'll be interesting to see if once the PS3 makes its debut, if Sony will later release slimmed down, sexed up version of the PS2 maybe a PSTwo...

Not News

[TheRealMindChild]

This kind of thing has been talked about for a LONG time... hell, before the PS2 was even produced, that the "emotion engine" chip would be used for a wide variety of things outside of the PS2 because of its power.

I know you die hard XBox fans love to beat down the PS2, but the only reason it hasnt become the undisputed king, was the bad decision to limit the Video RAM to 4MB.

Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[Jerf]

Can we get one of these in my cable box? I can't believe it is two thousand fucking four and it takes upwards of three seconds for my cable box to register even the simplest of keypresses. I could program a damn Commodore 64 to be more responsive than that.

Comcast wonders why nobody seems to want their video on demand. I'll tell you why: Because even to scan their free stuff, you have to dedicate five minutes of your time, laboriously cursoring here, waiting for the cursor to get there, waiting, waiting, cursoring to the next thing, waiting, waiting, waiting, and hesitantly pushing the "action" button, and waiting, waiting, only to find you had one more cursor action queued up and waiting, waiting for it to take effect, waiting, waiting, waiting for the action to take effect on the wrong screen, pressing "back" too many times in frustration, and finally finding yourself back at the normal TV view, only to start this all again... except, maybe not.

My first-generation TiVo sometimes annoys me (I think the later ones are a lot more responsive), but I still love it. My cable box is utterly unusable. With one of these chips in there it would improve the user experience... well, almost infinitely since right now the user experience is effectively "zero".

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[Detritus]

From what I've read, the problem isn't really the cable box, it's the way they designed the system. Your cable box is like a web browser, making requests for data to the cable company's servers. The delays that you see are a combination of slow communication links and slow servers. Your TIVO is much faster because it caches all its data locally.

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[Jerf]

Even for highlighting the next menu option? (Honest question, I don't understand the internals, all I know is the result is absolutely unacceptable for the user.)

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[Detritus]

I would think that would be local. I notice the delays when I select an option or do something that updates the screen, like paging through the program guide. The delays vary depending on how busy the servers are, or if there are signal quality problems with the distribution system.

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[raygundan]

Tivos are a mixed bag. Series 2 units are fast and responsive compared to the Series 1 units, but DirecTV tivos (which are basically Series 2 units) are so slow that it can take 30 seconds to re-order your season passes, 5 seconds for the "now playing" list to pop up, etc...

Why you can't display or re-order a list of 30 text entries in less than a second with a 200MHz CPU baffles me. Sure, it won't play Doom III, but it really ought to respond more quickly to UI interactions. I'm not sure why the DirecTV Tivos are so awful-- it's the same hardware as the Series 2 Standalones.

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[Anonymous Coward]

A-FUCKING-MEN! Right on the money with this, Jerf!

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[boarder]

It gets worse than that, too... I have a series 2 DTivo and it will take 30 seconds for the Now Playing list to pop up and 5 minutes to reorder the season passes. For about a week or so it was taking 5 minutes to bring up the list and 2 hours to reorder the passes. At that point I finally called Hughes and bitched. They said I had too many shows recorded and could either reformat and lose my shows or go through the painful act of deleting shows manually (each show took about 5 minutes to delete). I finally have it back to usable times, but it still is annoying as hell to wait 30 seconds just to load a list of 30 shows.

Honestly, this is the worst hardware support I've seen in awhile. This is obviously a major glitch, since I've seen other users report the same (and the tech didn't seem surprised). Are they offering a new one? No. Are they trying to fix the problem? No.

Re:Can we get one of these in my cable box?

[mrgreen4242]

You should try getting one of the memory buffer update thingy-do's from the Ninth Tee. While I don't have one my ownself, I understand that it speeds up all of the menu functions significantly. This leads me to believe that the issue isn't CPU power, but rather lack of memory or a swap space issue or somesuch thing. (Remember that the TiVo is ALWAYS writing to the HD, as it is always recording something, so if it needs to use swap space for anything it is inevitabley going to be slow).

Rob

This guy is completely right...

[cttforsale]

I purchased RP TV 2 years ago and what made go with a more expensive Sony (despite poorer image quality according to reviews) was the OSD channel manipulation. Side by side dual channel/input viewing, channel browsing, etc. cinched the deal.

costs justify results?

[radixvir]

i found a picture of what the PSXs menus look like (not sure if thats from the final product). However i wonder if the added cost of a 3d chip will really help push more units for Sony. I mean does anyone care how cool the menu looks? I know personally when purchasing something like a new tv, i read alot of reviews and tend to look at something like picture quality and price as the main selling points. but then i know some people who bought new cell phones so they could get a camera, so maybe im wrong.

memory buffers

[boarder]

I looked at those a month ago, but they aren't for series 2 boxes. They are also more than the cost of a brand new box WITHOUT the cost of the 512MB pc100 it needs.

I read a report that said when the box fills up it doesn't leave any swap space, and that jacks up its file table. I don't believe any manufacturer would be this stupid, but that's what the internet is saying. The only way to fix it is to wipe and start fresh... only to have the same problem in a few months.