PS3 Firmware Update, Heavenly Sword Demo This Week

PlayStation 3 owners are getting a couple of new toys this week. The official Sony blog has announced that the US will see firmware update 1.90 within the next few days. Gamasutra has further details on the patch, which includes a number of functionality improvements: "Ability to rearrange games on the XMB, Option menu now includes 'eject disk', Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB, XMB backgrounds, Change the folder classification, Emoticons, Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz, Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI, Change PS3 video settings in-game, 'Bit Mapping' in the 'Music Setting', Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick, Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games, Add bookmarks, Web browser security function in the browser's tool section." Indications are also that a demo for Heavenly Sword will be coming soon. Europe is getting it this Thursday, with no firm word on a US date yet.

Comments

24 Hz?

[aarmenaa]

Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI

Really? I'm no expert on displays and such, but don't we generally consider 30 Hz (or that 29.9-something) to be the absolute minimum needed to fool the human eye? And wouldn't all this high tech, high definition stuff want to have a decent refresh rate?

Re:24 Hz?

[snarlydwarf]

You do know movies are 24fps, right?

Do they fool your eye?

Re:24 Hz?

[madsenj37]

24 is what Movies and TV are shot in = Useless to go above this for Blu-Ray Movies. Video games on the other hand, can probably benefit from more than 24hz.

Re:24 Hz?

[slacktheplanet]

I believe 24Hz is referring to the sound output. 24fps for film and 29.99fps for video(I believe PAL is something like 25fps, but I may be mistaken) all refers to video frame rates.

Re:24 Hz?

[Chris Burke]

I'm just here to point out that there's a big difference between fps in a movie/tv show and a video game. Video games create still images that are perfectly sharp based on where every object is at the instant in time that the image represents. For a video game, 30fps is a bare minimum for what we would call "playable" today, though the human eye can easily distinguish frame rates above 100 (probably higher than your monitor refresh rate). Movies and TV, by virtue of being filmed, are blurred due to the motion of whatever is being filmed over the period in which that frame is exposed. This inherent blur means that you can get away with a much lower frame rate and still fool the human brain, and is why a normal movie filmed at 24 fps provides a much more convincing impression of continuous motion than a video game at 70fps.

Re:24 Hz?

[Chilijohn]

1080p24 content from Blu-Ray is best viewed on a display compatible with 24fps output to reduce motion artifacts like judder. 24hz playback is already available, but some display devices do not negotiate display modes properly over HDMI. This option is necessary for optimum playback in some instances and GREATLY appreciated by those who need it.

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Theater movies:

24 pysical frames per second, but each frame is shown twice for an 48 frames seen per second. This reduces flicker and helps trick the eye.

TV:

29.9997 dude... go read ntsc

Re:24 Hz?

[aarmenaa]

I kinda thought that projectors were a kind of special case somehow because of the fact that the shutter doesn't stay open for the whole length of the frame; I don't really know where I got that impression from. Like I said, far from an expert on this stuff. Actually, I don't really like watching movies in a theater, in part because of the flicker. It's not something I see straight on, but it bothers my peripheral vision to no end. The color's never right either.

Re:24 Hz?

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Movies are shot at 24fps, PAL/European HDTV at 25fps (50i or 25p), NTSC/American HDTV ~30fps (60i or 30p). For PAL, movies are speeded up by 4%, for NTSC at 30fps a 3:2 pulldown process has to be used.

People complain that 3:2 causes judder, yes to some extent, but the original content suffers from judder also. Judder is a problem with 24fps, the cinematographer has to follow pan tables (it states how fast to pan when using a lens at x focal length and shutter speed) to avoid judder. Judder is also problem with progressive HDTV. Most TV camera operators do not have experience with film, and are used to the 50i/60i video style. They film, pan the image and judder is seen. Also, judder is more noticeable with higher resolution images and small depth of field produced by HD cameras having a small sensor (compared to 35mm of a movie camera).

Re:24 Hz?

[jackbird]

Actually, the rotary shutter on the projector has two cutouts, so the image flickers at 48 Hz, even though the image only changes every other flicker.

Re:24 Hz?

[snarlydwarf]

And that is still 24fps.

Just like NTSC is 30fps, despite half-scanning at 60hz.

Repeating each frame 10 times won't make a movie into 240fps. It is still 24.

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Japan and USA may use NTSC, but much (most?) of Europe and elsewhere uses PAL...

Re:24 Hz?

[Trogre]

And it's been that way for far too long. I find pans and tilts difficult to track in theatres as they come across horribly jittery unless they're done extremely slowly.

The only way I can really enjoy sweeping pans in movies is with an interpolating TV like 100Hz ones with the Philips Natural Motion chip.

This is where both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD really missed the boat. They should be pushing film studios to change to a much more natural-looking 48fps (or 50 or 60 for TV compatibility if necessary). Or failing that interpolate the motion themselves. Hell, they already have the motion vectors from all that MPEG compression.

Re:24 Hz?

[Trogre]

For live action content (which another poster has pointed out is usually different from video game content) my eye perceives motion at around 10 fps, but isn't fooled into seeing fully smooth motion until about 45 fps. For non-blurred video games it's closer to 90 fps.

Of course any game with a decent shader should be using motion blur anyway these days.

Re:24 Hz?

[LKM]

Do they fool your eye?

Most of the time. But interestingly, you don't often see fast horizontal pans in Cinema movies because they look like crap due to the slow framerate. Check out the scene in Matrix 2 where the camera pans over all the Smiths. The scene looks really, really weird.

So yeah, you're right, of course, movies are 24 fps. That doesn't mean that they always manage to fool the eye :-)

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been asking myself the whole time why they have to create a new standard an use 24fps. Why don't they use 72fps or 48 fps, at least the former should work with many displays (or at least should if their interfaces weren't so braindead).

Re:24 Hz?

[jackbird]

it's 24 fps, but presented at 48 Hz. The extra flicker makes a difference to your perception of the persistence of the image. Similar to how a 60 Hz monitor and a 120 Hz monitor could display the same 30 fps animation with differing levels of eyestrain.

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

> They should be pushing film studios to change to a much more natural-looking 48fps (or 50 or 60 for TV compatibility if necessary).

Projectors are expensive. Unless they're going to subsidize changing each and every one of those, forget it. Let's not forget about all the camera equipment too -- most movies are still shot on film.

The renderers in digital projectors already interpolate.

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "judder" is used specifically to refer to the effect non-smooth motion due to the showing of alternating frames of a pan for different lengths of time caused by 3:2 pulldown. Judder does not refer to any effects caused by the low (24fps) frame rate itself.

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many new projectors display each image 3 times to reduce flicker even further.

Also unlike a crt the frame is displayed all at once, it doesn't scan top to bottom.

Re:24 Hz?

[ryanw]

I've been asking myself the whole time why they have to create a new standard an use 24fps. Why don't they use 72fps or 48 fps, at least the former should work with many displays (or at least should if their interfaces weren't so braindead). 24fps is the "film look", when things have higher frame rates they are 'too smooth' and don't feel like a movie any more. They feel like a soap opera. Obviously every major movie you've ever seen has been shot on film at 24 fps (sure there are some recent exceptions where they're shot digitally but still 24fps). Something you probably don't realize is that every major TV show you've ever seen and TV commercials are STILL currently shot on Film at 24fps and then converted to regular broadcast formats and edited.

24fps is the look our minds associate as 'professional' and in my experience things shot on film look more legit because of the lenses that are used on the film cameras. Digital cameras are able to capture light almost as well as film does, but the area that is still way off is in the area of lenses. There is just no way a $3k digital camera compares to a $25k film camera and $50k+ of lenses. But the main difference is the lens.

Re:24 Hz?

[SparkyFlooner]

I can't remember who is doing it, but they're making a TV that can do 120hz (which is a multiple of 24).

Re:24 Hz?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something you probably don't realize is that every major TV show you've ever seen and TV commercials are STILL currently shot on Film at 24fps and then converted to regular broadcast formats and edited.

Umm, except for all of the stuff shot on video???

Re:24 Hz?

[ryanw]

Something you probably don't realize is that every major TV show you've ever seen and TV commercials are STILL currently shot on Film at 24fps and then converted to regular broadcast formats and edited.

Umm, except for all of the stuff shot on video??? The only stuff shot on video is the cheezy local car dealership commercials and local crap. Anything national is shot on film still.

Guitar hero controller

[Groghunter]

support would be nice, wonder if any of this does that, with rocks the 80s coming out tommorow and all...

Re:Guitar hero controller

[MistaE]

Probably not the best solution, but there is a third-party solution available that allows people to use any PS2 controller on the PS3. I know I picked mine up specifically for the GH game coming out tomorrow.

Re:Guitar hero controller

[HTH NE1]

I've heard complaints about that that it doesn't work for all controllers and is a bit sluggish for use with GH. I'm going to wait for PS3-specific hardware.

Holy crap! That sounds fun!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ability to rearrange games on the XMB, Option menu now includes 'eject disk', Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB, XMB backgrounds, Change the folder classification, Emoticons, Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz, Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI, Change PS3 video settings in-game, 'Bit Mapping' in the 'Music Setting', Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick, Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games, Add bookmarks, Web browser security function in the browser's tool section."

Wow! I can't wait to save my AVHCD type animations...and those XMB's sound like a blast. For serious.

Yeah yeah call me a troll, but seriously, how is this a "games" update?

Any reason...

[Bluesman]

...why the upscaling has been limited to HDMI only?

I was excited about the last update but use component so it did nothing for me. Unless I missed something.

Re:Any reason...

[Lane.exe]

Upscaling is only limited to HD in the case of DVDs, and that's because of the HDCP stuff. For games, they will upscale over component. And off-hand, I'd say that the upscaling does have its benefits. The cut scenes in FF12 look great on my PS3, even though the standard game footage shows no improvement at all. Rogue Galaxy looks better all around.

Re:Any reason...

[king-manic]

Upscaling is only limited to HD in the case of DVDs, and that's because of the HDCP stuff. For games, they will upscale over component. And off-hand, I'd say that the upscaling does have its benefits. The cut scenes in FF12 look great on my PS3, even though the standard game footage shows no improvement at all. Rogue Galaxy looks better all around.

Don't you have smoothing on? each static scence in FFXII looks greatly improved. as soon as you move it's not as good but still much better then without smoothing in HD or SD. At least on my 50" at 1080p.

Re:Any reason...

[Chilijohn]

The DVD Copy Control Association's CSS license, required for legitimate DVD playback, limits DVD output to 480p over component video. DVI/HDMI or VGA can legally support upscaled output, however, a DVI/HDMI standalone must use HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection, such a terrible acronym) encryption for the upscaled digital output AFAIK. Of course not everyone fully abides by these rules. Zenith had a model DVB-318 that did component video 720p/1080i upscaling, but they got the hurt put on them and "fixed" that with future firmware revisions. Also, the Oppo Digital OPDV971H player does not utilize HDPC on the DVI output.

Re:Any reason...

[Lane.exe]

Yes smoothing is on. I said it doesn't look "improved," meaning it looks about the same as it did on my PS2. I don't mean it looks bad by any stretch, just that it looks like your regular old PS2 game. For the record, this is on a 50" LCD projection screen at 1080i.

Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe how fast and how many features Sony is adding to the PS3 system software. Sounds like 2.0 is up next with the in game XBM access, and then Home hits. Rock solid and very quiet well built machine. Can't wait to get my hands finally on Heavenly Sword, looks incredible. It feels like the PS3 is the only next gen machine on the market right now.

Re:Amazing

[HTH NE1]

I assume XMB does not stand for XYBASE Message Broker? That just leaves Xtreme Math Baseball, Xtreme Math BasketBall, or Extreme Message Board as the less likely alternatives to Cross Media Bar (Sony user interface).

My PS3 is expected to arrive tomorrow, so I'm not that familiar with its features yet. I even transposed a couple letters and thought was talking about X-Windows BitMapped (XBM) graphics files.

Re:Amazing

[MrJynxx]

Ha! it may be well built, and extremely quiet! But holy shit is it ever hot! I have it in a room that is about 300 square feet and I can use it as a heater in the winters!!

And I'm not lying either.

MrJynxx

Re:Amazing

[ZakuSage]

Cross (as in X) Media Bar.

Re:Amazing

[king-manic]

I haven't noticed this. It's about as warm as my launch PS2. Perhaps my idea of hot is skewed. The wii gets awfully hot too. I believe noticably hotter then my Ps2 or Ps3.

Re:Amazing

[Doctor_Jest]

Heavenly Sword is on my must-buy list. :-) That's for sure. And that Dynasty Warriors Gundam game... what can I say, I like giant robots.

Lair will be 2nd or 3rd, since I've heard it was going to be short initially, but will have add-ons... If it's beautiful and plays like I think it will... my fall's all set. ;)

I'm more and more liking my PS3 purchase... I've seen nothing but good things on the horizon for it... and with stiff competition, maybe both sides (MS and Sony) will work that much harder for my $60 game purchases. ;)

That's assuming my 360 doesn't have the RRoD.

Re:Amazing

[Doctor_Jest]

My slim PS2 (1st-gen slim) gets hotter than my PS3, I've noticed... though, the exhaust port of the PS3 is easy to find. ;) heheh. I think they did a PHENOMENAL job in cooling the system. Microsoft could learn a thing or two about cooling from Sony this go round... whisper quiet, and efficient at expelling heat.

I love my PS3. :)

Re:Amazing

[donaldm]

I think the best rule for any console is make sure you put it in a well ventilated cabinet or on a shelf. I do find my PS3 to be a fingerprint magnet so I make sure I handle it as little as possible which is really easy to do. When the PS3 is working it runs at approx 200W (great small room heater) although when it is in standby it draws much less than 1W. Still talk to an hard-core gamer and they will think you are one of those tree-hugger's using a paltry 200W.

Re:Amazing

[Night Goat]

Nah, it's a typo. Supposed to be BMX. You should see the endos you can pull off with a Playstation 3.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they could include an Xbox 360 emulator on the next update then there would be some games to play.

Re:Amazing

[soupd]

Sony did the same with the PSP firmware, relentlessly adding new functionality to it as an impressive rollout speed. Compare this to Microsoft, the world's biggest software company, who are very slow to in this respect. It took then 7-8 months to add background downloading to the 360's dashboard, Sony had it out four months after the Japan/US launch and on day one of the European launch. Impressive.

Re:Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice way to spin that. Of course, the 360 had background downloading a full year before the PS3 and most of the features Sony has been adding is stuff the 360 had first. You'd think with a year extra dev time that Sony could have copied their features better (like the ability to go into a low power mode to finish downloads). Still no upscaling of PS3 games so people with 1080i sets can only see the vast majority of PS3 games in 480P. Gee, Microsoft had real upscaling since day one.

HDMI-only upscaling

[HTH NE1]

Any reason why the upscaling has been limited to HDMI only? Upscaling of any Macrovision-protected content requires HDCP protection to replace it. This may extend also to CSS-protected content.

Yes, I am presuming that Macrovision protection doesn't exist on component video output, or at least not at HD resolutions. I am extrapolating from what I learned on an episode of DL.TV.

Harumph

[goldcd]

Only thing I'm waiting for from the PS3 is the ability to replace XBMC on my old Xbox (which is wonderful, but doesn't quite have the grunt for x264).
Media Centre extender is clever, but way too fussy with it's formats (and transcoding is a pain in the arse) - PS3 supports x264, but is a bit fussy with the wrappers (from my understanding).
Maybe that much touted Linux thing will help, but I want something more than games to justify an expensive place under my TV.

Re:Harumph

[Anonymous Coward]

Fully agree with you on the need for something like XMBC on the PS3.

Linux is just about useless on the PS3 as far as multimedia goes. The RSX is locked out meaning no hardware access, resulting in framebuffer only for video playback - not good enough.

Most h.264 files people are seeing floating around are mkv files. Nothing will ever support these other than computers. Shame.

Re:Harumph

[Fulg]

Fully agree with you on the need for something like XMBC on the PS3. Actually, you don't even need to; it's already there in the XMB!

I was quite surprised to find that the built-in media streaming features of the PS3 are an almost perfect replacement to XBMC (I just got my PS3 last week, taking advantage of the "fire sale"). The PS3 can already access all your media shared via UPnP, like the Xbox 360 (and "recent" XBMC builds).

There is absolutely no comparison to the built-in streaming of the Xbox 360 -- the PS3 interface is actually usable, and the connection to your media server always works (on the 360 the "discovery" process is very hit-and-miss, and it often loses the connection after a PC or 360 reboot).

It's not quite XBMC yet, but it's close. I can finally stream HD content that my old Xbox 1 was struggling with....

Regarding transcoding, I've set up TVersity (which I already had for XBMC and Xbox 360) and couldn't be happier. The PS3 sees my DivX or x264 or mkv stuff as MPEG-2 streams, which (I assume) is less taxing on the CPU to transcode to than WMV. I can now stream 720p HD in realtime, something I couldn't do on the Xbox 360, using my "puny" P4 3.4GHz. Compared to the 360, there is no delay when starting a video, despite the fact that it is transcoded...!

So far the only problems is that transcoded media loses the AC3 sound (apparently this is a TVersity limitation, but I didn't really look into it), and you obviously can't REW/FFWD until the transcoding is completed. Videos can also be copied (thus transcoded) locally to the PS3 and then viewed with all features enabled, including a live preview in the XMB (so not safe for pr0n!). Apparently TVersity also has a transcode-and-save option but I didn't find it.

Another "awesome" feature (for tech-loving geeks) if you have a PSP is Remote Play. You can basically remote-control the PS3 from the PSP, and media played on the PS3 is streamed to the PSP, including your HD videos! Naturally they are downscaled quite a bit to be streamable, but it was quite amazing to be able to access all of my media, including videos, anywhere around the house from the PSP.

I think by now I sound like a Sony shill, but I assure you this is not the case, I am just truly impressed. With all the crap Sony is pulling recently, the last thing I expected is for the PS3 to actually replace my trusty XBMC box :)

Re:Harumph

[Reapman]

I'm still not convinced enough about Transcoding to dump my XBMC box... I've considered translating my stuff to MPEG2 or w/e the PS3 uses, but from my calculations that would be about 2 weeks of CPU time. Bleh. if Sony would release at least a Divx or Xvid codec that would help so much, but I know not to hold my breath.

I LOVE The remoteplay option on my PSP. I use it at my folks, full access to my media through my PS3. Add in the video out of the PSP Slim, and I can watch my media on any TV that's near WiFi. Only way to improve this is make the PSP it's own DLNA client, so I can go directly to my media server :)

Overall I'm quite happy with my PS3.

Re:Harumph

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't had the PS3 for long, so your judgment isn't based on experience yet. Just wait until you try playing stuff on it. It has extremely limited codec support. Until mplayer can run with hardware acceleration, the PS3 is not a serious multimedia hub. Playing back some mp4 files, if the contain is supported for that point release, doesn't cut it.

Clearly the PS3 can do the job, but sony have decided to not let it.

Folding@Home, autoplay, and Video Switching

[wildsurf]

As a recent owner of a PS3, there are two changes that I'd love to see implemented. First, when running Folding@Home as a screensaver on the PS3, autoplay of CD's is disabled. One has to manually quit Folding@Home, by navigating the visual menus, just to allow a CD to play. It's really dumb that I should have to turn on my TV just to play a CD. (And I'd like to still keep Folding@Home running as a screensaver, when the console isn't busy.)

Second, and considerably more problematic, is that video switching requires the video menus, which leads to a catch-22. In my case, I have my PS3 hooked up to an LCD TV as well as a front projector; through HDMI and component video, respectively. The PS3 only outputs one of these formats at a time, and paradoxically, requires the video menus to switch between them. So if I watch a movie at night on the projector, then need to switch back to HDMI the next day, I'm screwed; the projector is not bright enough to navigate the menu options in daylight, not to mention that repeatedly switching it on and off kills bulb life. A video-switching toggle that doesn't require visual menus would make my PS3 experience MUCH more pleasant. </gripe>

Re:Folding@Home, autoplay, and Video Switching

[powerlord]

When you are turning on the PS3, just keep holding the power button on the front of the unit for a few seconds. After about 4-10 seconds (I forget how long), the system resets the video input so it will display over whatever video outputs are currently connected and active.

Re:Folding@Home, autoplay, and Video Switching

[ivan256]

Wow, that's useful...

I have a 1080p display in my living room, and a 720p display in my bedroom. I have a 50' HDMI cable that runs through the walls from the living room to the bedroom, and the wireless controllers work from anywhere in the house (why don't other bluetooth devices seem to get good range?), so I've been switching the cable to play in the bedroom occasionally. The trouble is that if I forget to power up the system and switch away from 1080p output to 720p, the smaller display doesn't work. This fixes that.

It was really the biggest issue I had with the system. I still think it should auto-detect the maximum resolution of the connected display (which my Tivo seems to handle nicely), but this is better than nothing.

Re:Folding@Home, autoplay, and Video Switching

[powerlord]

Yeah ... I had similar problem where I was retreating to the bedroom when my wife needed the den to work, and we only have an older analog TV in there. Moving the PS3 is the easier option for me (than running a cable :) ), and I was running into a problem switching between HDMI and RCA outputs.

Yeah ... TiVo does a nice job handling this, and its certainly something that Sony could "fix" in the future in a firmware update (like how they just added settable backgrounds, and how they added background downloading and queueing earlier this year). I guess most people don't usually move it between different resolutions/hookups so it wasn't a feature they thought to include. :shrug:

Having the system detect changed outputs, and drop to the lowest supported resolution and rerun the video/audio setup shouldn't be too hard though (I would think), but like I said, its probably only a really small percentage of users who need that sort of functionality.

Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad the POS3 can't even scale 720p games to 1080i. What a fucking joke! The 360 scales *all* games to 1080i as does all other *true* HD devices.

The PS3 can't scale. It is a piece of garbage. Anyone that wants HD gaming should buy the only true HD console, the Xbox 360. If you don't care about HD then just save your money and get a Wii or 360.

The PS3 is a piece of shit. Too bad Sony is so cheap and skimped on the scaler and anything else at the expense of the gaming experience. It's a crappy console that is only good for playing BluRay movies.

The PS3 downscales almost all games to only 480p on HD rear projection TVs. If you only want to play games at 480p then get a PS2 or anything else that's 1/2 the price. It's a steaming pile of crap.

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[casualsax3]

720p is superior to 1080i.

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[donaldm]

I don't normally reply to AC's but you are either trolling or have no idea what you are talking about. If you want a bit of education re HDTV look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_telev ision. As for the PS3 well I have to assume you don't have one. Hey I'm being a nice guy I would not want you to be called an uneducated troll.

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[scolen2]

Flame bait! and... No

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[FunkyELF]

Too bad the POS3 can't even scale 720p games to 1080i. What a fucking joke! The 360 scales *all* games to 1080i as does all other *true* HD devices.

720p scaled to 1080i isn't any more *true* than 720p unscaled and letting your TV scale it for you. In fact, unless your display is natively 1080i, it is worse. I have a 1080p display. If what you're saying is true of the 360, I could play a 720p game, have it upscaled and interlaced to 1080i on the 360 only to have it deinterlaced on my display once it gets there? That is a fucking joke! Why would I want that?

The PS3 downscales almost all games to only 480p on HD rear projection TVs. If you only want to play games at 480p then get a PS2 or anything else that's 1/2 the price. It's a steaming pile of crap.

I have an HD rear projection TV (Sony 60A2000) and only one game (just bought it on Sunday) and its giving my TV 720p for the game, and 1080p for the XMB or whatever its called, and 1080p for Linux.

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[trdrstv]

720p is superior to 1080i.

Agreed. Though some will flag you as "misinformed", as the PS3 added software scaling with Firmware 1.80

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of older CRT HDTVs (mine included) only do 480p and 1080i. Which means for the games that only display 720p, they are downscaled to 480p rather than upscaled to 1080i. The 'inferior' Xbox 360 upscales to 1080i if 720p isn't supported.. why can't the supercomputer PS3 do the same thing?

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[ravyne]

720p is better for fast-action video like Sports, most television and most games. 1080i is better for video with a much less dynamic scene, a good example of which are nature shows. If you receive HD broadcasts, flip through some channels with the video mode display active, you'll see that Sports are always 720p and nature shows are nearly-always 1080i.

Of course, 1080p is the best (for now) providing you have a set that can display it and bandwidth enough to drive it.

Re:Too Bad the POS Can't Even Scale

[FunkyELF]

Sounds like its time to buy a new TV or an external scaler if the only progressive signal you can accept is 480.

I wouldn't want Sony to put a scaler in their PS3's. It would mean that I'd be paying for your crappy research / tv shopping skills.

Alright, eject!

[TraumaHound]

Fucking finally! I've been watching Talladega Nights for eight months!

Re:Alright, eject!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to the store and buy new blurays. they cost a whopping $2-7 more than any new dvd release.

Re:Alright, eject!

[donaldm]

Err! there is an eject symbol on the front of the PS3 so you better eject "Talladega Nights" and get down to Blockbuster fast :-)

Actually the ability to remotely eject is a feature that is actually quite useful (not essential) since it is possible to eject your game, DVD or Blu-ray disk and then just take it out rather than touch the eject symbol and wait a few seconds. After-all many HD/DVD recorders, players and even PC's have this feature and now the PS3 has it. Either way you still have to get up and replace the disk but it is a convenience that is nice and adds another professional touch to what is shaping up to be a very good system.

While waiting for native PS3 games why don't you get some PS2 games if you haven't already, the PS3 will smooth and up-scaled them to 720p, 1080i or 1080p (configurable) via HTMI or component to your HDTV (you have one don't you?) and the resulting graphical improvement makes a good PS1/2 game even better although nothing can save a bad game.

I should also point out that the PS2 is the only last generation console that actually gets new games with more to come, so while a PS2 game does not measure up graphically (NTSC or PAL) to a PS3 game (720p up) the game-play can be on par or even better. Even rumble actually works with PS1/2 games and a PS2 dualshock controller (get a wireless one with a PS3 adapter and you have nearly all the console control features of the sixaxis controller). You can also save quite a bit of money as well since there are so many games available for different tastes you may find that you can easily wait for native PS3 games.

Actually because there are so many PS1/2 games as well as a small amount (at the moment) of PS3 games as far as enjoyment goes you actually will save more money buying a PS3 than any of the the other consoles at least from my perspective of having over 80 PS1/2 games. I do have a Gamecube and still play it but but I don't have enough games to justify purchasing a Wii of which only one game is of any interest to me.

My only gripe with the PS3 is a minor inconvenience with the Bluetooth (sixaxis) controller requiring you to re-establish connection after a game starts (you are warned on-screen though). Basically you should just need to establish the controller connection on PS3 power up then you should not have to fiddle. The ability to change your controller ports and PS1/2 virtual memory cards "on the fly" is rather nice and convenient though.

Re:Alright, eject!

[MikeBabcock]

There are more new PS2 games coming out this fiscal year for Sony than PS3 games in fact. The PS2 is not a dead platform like the Xbox and people predicting Sony's demise would be wise to notice PS2 and PS2 game sales.

Transcoding? How is that ok?

[Anonymous Coward]

The best thing about XBMC is it's ability to play any format _without_ transcoding it first.

I already have a large fileserver (with a 266mhz pentium cpu) with mixed content (DivX,Xvid,mkv,mpeg2/3/4,VMA/VMW,ogg,flac) and transcoding all of that, even if it's transparent, would really be a pain (even if I did the transcoding on my workstation AMD X2, it would still be a pain).

If PS3 Linux had access to the RSX, _then_ and only then would it become a good replacement for XBMC (could even be a very good MythTV box if it was accellerated).

The XBM, or whatever the built in media center is called, doesn't even support Xvid... Come on! That's basic nowadays...

Just my 0.02Krona.

not quite...

[grahamtriggs]

30hz is the minimum needed to fool the human mind - that's why America has NTSC and 100 channels broadcasting nothing but "infommercials"

Movies are 24 Hz Progressive, but... Re:24 Hz?

[Dormous]

Yes, movies are 24 fps. However, the way that a movie projector plays the movie, the projector actually projects each frame twice (i.e. 48 flashes of the light per second, not unlike how interlacing gives us the impression of 60fps for 30fps TV). However, on a tube based (CRT) TV, 24 Hz is ugly, very ugly. Your eye can't miss the flicker and if you are looking at the TV out of the corner of your eye, the flicker is so distracting that your eye will be drawn to the TV. Of course, on an LCD or Plasma, this wouldn't be an issue.

Quiet?

[FunkyELF]

Rock solid and very quiet well built machine.

You must not have tried to put it in an entertainment center.

I got one on Sunday and it sounded like a damn vacuum.