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Sony Issues Detailed PS4 FAQ Ahead of Launch
Sockatume writes "Sony has released a detailed FAQ for the PS4 system, which launches in coming weeks. Of particular note: although Bluetooth headsets will not be compatible, generic 3.5mm and USB audio devices will work; the console will require activation via the internet or a special disk before it will play Blu-ray or DVDs; media servers, MP3s, and audio CDs are not supported. The console's "suspend/resume" and remote assistance features are listed as unavailable for the North American launch, implying that they will be patched in before the console launches in Europe later in November."
Compact Disc Digital Audio is a lossless audio format introduced in the 1980s. Each disc 120 mm in diameter (the size of the later DVD) stored up to 80 minutes of stereo audio at a sample rate and depth that an adult ear cannot distinguish from any higher sample rate or depth. After the introduction of MP3 format in the late 1990s, people would buy CDs, copy them to computers using a CD-ROM drive, and compress the result to MP3 for later listening in a noisy environment that can get away with lower fidelity. And until the late 2000s when Amazon started selling MP3 downloads, CD was the only way to buy popular music for listening on a computer or pocket device without digital restrictions management.
Who, exactly, does Sony have to pay?
Sony would have to pay other BDA members, DVD FLLC, DVD CCA, (Mac)Rovi(sion), AACSLA, MPEG-LA, and anyone else who manages licensing patents or DRM trade secrets associated with BD or DVD video.
DLNA is a standard so dreadful that it's hard to imagine that it wasn't written as some kind of joke, except that you never, ever, hit the punchline, it just keeps hurting.
.01% of users ever used the feature, and it isn't worth the terrible burden of recompiling it for x86, or they actively wish to de-support streaming of 3rd-party media, for reasons of their own.
However, it should be noted that, with the PS3, Sony didn't let that stop them: They put out a DLNA client and, because their hardware was about the single most common DLNA client that anybody actually used (I think WMP, at least some versions, is nominally a DLNA client; but sharing from computer to computer, when both machines are Windows boxes and you could just use SMB, isn't much of a use case compared to streaming to your TV), people sucked it up and tailored their DLNA server support to the PS3. That's why "http://www.ps3mediaserver.org/" is called what it is. It's a DLNA server, it isn't locked to PS3s only or anything; but wherever something was fucked up or unclear (with DLNA, this is normal) the PS3's behavior was taken into account.
Either Sony's figures suggested that only