Sony PlayStation v1.8 hands-on
Gallery: Sony PlayStation v1.8 hands-on
Step one in streaming is, of course, authorizing your PS3 to access your media on your Vista box. Gone are the days of the oh-so-simple folder sharing Windows Media Connect app, though; now Windows is much more active in managing your library before streaming it, meaning it's not as simple a process as granting your PS3 access and letting it go crazy indiscriminately pulling down whichever data it can decode.
Even with Vista codec packs installed (we used K-Lite) and the .mp4 reg hack which supposedly enables MP4 file indexing in WMP11, we could still only jam more "traditional" WMP-capable media into the library (MPG, AVI, etc.). Even then we could only manage to stream old school MPEG-1 video to the PS3. We're sure if our Vista machine would add our PS3-compatible H.264 encoded movies to the library that would be a different story, but unfortunately that's not the case, so we hit a wall.
Tried though we might with other DLNA media hosts (like Connect 360 and TwonkyMedia on the Mac) we just couldn't interface the PS3 with our H.264 video library, patiently lying in wait. It did spot our two Sonos units, but it couldn't do much with them. Eventually our attention turned to the video upscaling, however, and we we weren't disappointed; the visual difference seemed immediately apparent when popping in God of War II. (Unfortunately our pictures didn't do a fantastic job of illustrating that, but hey, check it out for yourself.)
So, anyone having better luck with playing back network video on your PS3? Drop us a line in comments, we're open to suggestion here.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ixalon @ May 24th 2007 5:27PM
I tried it out using Nero's DLNA solution - MediaHome. It does a pretty good job of transcoding videos to a PS3 friendly format on the fly (apart from some xvids which end up with audio/video sync probs.)
DJBro @ May 24th 2007 5:36PM
ryan, maybe its time to get a tripod for your photographer.
Sir Issac Newton @ May 24th 2007 5:50PM
Some of the gaming sites I read they had a lot less trouble getting everything working...
Mac + PS3 Users.... Can we please get a link up for a guide how to get videos to stream? Apparently VLC and TwonkyMedia work to stream from Mac, but if even Engadget had a problem getting it going I think there will be a few of us who could use a hand. A quick guide on how to set it up and settings to choose would be fantastic! Thanks!
BTW... I use connect 360 to make my movies and itunes library accessible to my x360 and it works pretty well for .wmv's but it had trouble with some of the h.264 content I had and overall a mess. I want better compatibility and codec support (like xvid) so hopefully this ps3 media streaming will be a good solution.
DJBro @ May 24th 2007 5:54PM
ill be getting the update as soon as i get home from work (around 2 hours from now) and will be doing tests with nero home, twonky, media center extender. ive had problems with transcode360 because i use mcafee virus scan and it is incompatible with the temporary files theat transcode360 makes (not sure what was up with that but someone posted that Avast! antivirus with a registry hack was the only one that worked properly with Tc360 on vista)
Billy @ May 24th 2007 5:57PM
I love that new series called Unsupported Data, nice that you can watch them on you're PS3 now.
I didn't realize there were so many episodes though.
Rob @ May 24th 2007 5:58PM
Did this update address the problems the PS3 has with outputting content at 720p?
http://blog.thetechnonaut.com
DJBro @ May 24th 2007 6:08PM
my projector is 720p compatible but it also does 1080i so I am going to disable 720p on my output settings and see if it scales the 720p to 1080i when i get home. will report back in a couple hours.
Keith @ May 24th 2007 6:15PM
Yes, Blu-ray movies now play at 720p instead of 480p.
Keith @ May 24th 2007 6:15PM
Games won't be scaled to 1080i.
DJBro @ May 24th 2007 6:18PM
so people with 1080i sets are still stuck with 480p games? damn, that sucks... sorry guys
gamforall @ May 25th 2007 8:34AM
They do
just played killzone in 1080i on my panasonic lcd
John @ May 24th 2007 6:25PM
Did this update address the fact that the PS3 still has no games worth playing?
Mak @ May 24th 2007 6:41PM
Seems today's update has upset a few Xbots..
ahh well, don't worry, it's going to be less thana month before your 360 failes with a red ring of death, you can then buy a PS3 to replace it...
Gustavo Yasuda @ May 24th 2007 6:33PM
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=158357
Good Luck :D
GiovanniMcAdoo @ May 24th 2007 6:39PM
"John @ May 24th 2007 6:25PM
Did this update address the fact that the PS3 still has no games worth playing?"
- Resistence: Fall of Man [Already shipped over a million copies around five months faster than Call of Duty 3 did for the 360 which was its first million shipped Game]
- MotorStorm
- Calling All Cars
- Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
- Flow
- Virtua Fighter 5
- Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection [PSN Version]
These are a just a few games that have overall ratings off 7.9 to 9.2 a cross the boards on the PlayStation 3. So you were saying?
Manuel @ May 24th 2007 7:05PM
he was saying something like GTA IV or Winning Eleven , , maybe even a sequel or prequel to shadow of the colossus ...
Reid Sartin @ May 24th 2007 7:37PM
Hey, I like the firmware update - but be serious:
- Resistence: Fall of Man -- yeah it's good -- not "Gears of War" good, but .. good.
- MotorStorm -- Boring -- it's only fun playing on-line, and Sony's online service is really complicated and poor right now. NOBODY has headsets, and the process of hosting a game is far too difficult.
- Calling All Cars -- Nice little cartoon.
- Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion -- Out on 360 & PC for a long time.
- Flow -- You mean the game you pay for on the PS3, but get free on a PC? I felt totally ripped off on that.
- Virtua Fighter 5 -- Yeah, it rocks.
- Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection [PSN Version] -- I spent $20 on an ok-looking title. I don't care it's a PSP port. I'd rather pay $50 for a GREAT-looking game, when I spent $600 on the system.
Sorry - your list only proves that PS3 titles suck right now. I'm patient, and I hope they'll come. But right now, the best thing on my PS3 is PS2's God of War II.
Mark Gillespie @ May 24th 2007 6:44PM
For H.264 streaming, try the new 4.4 beta of Twonkyvision, adds support for PS3 (the old 4.3 did not). Released a few hours ago...
http://www.twonkyvision.com/Download/TwonkyMedia/index-4-4.html
Mac version tommorrow apparently....
KeeferMadness @ May 24th 2007 6:45PM
A.R.E Weapons!!!
W00T!!!!!
Geoffrey Sperl @ May 24th 2007 6:53PM
Here's my question:
I assume you can choose what resolution you can upscale to. So I can tell the Blu-Ray side to output in 1080i, the old PS games in 720p, and the old DVDs in 1080i, right?
If that does work, how does it look? Is the upconversion on the DVDs nice on a large TV (I have a 50" rear projection DLP), or does it just look slapped together? Can I toss my current upconverting DVD player and get a PS3 and not be disappointed, or possibly even be impressed, by the change?
Donoho @ May 24th 2007 7:00PM
Downloaded the update at about 1am PST. Went into settings for DVD and PS1/2 games to confirm upscaling. Loaded up Final Fantasy XII. Still looks bad. Maybe worse...
I've got my PS3 connected to a Sony BRAVIA KDL-40XBR3 40 in. HDTV via HDMI so 1080p should't be a problem. The tv has not been "properly" calibrated, so I'll reserve judgement until I can locate some settings online.
Whubbsie @ May 24th 2007 8:12PM
@ Donoho did you actually turn the setting on?? cos you have to enable it first.
What software can i use to stream my media that will work for both 360 and PS3?
yoda16 @ May 24th 2007 7:05PM
a
ragar @ May 24th 2007 9:18PM
Check out upcoming titles like:
Lair
FolkLore if your into RPGS
FFX 13 if your into RPGS
Assassin's Creed
Maybe Heavenly Sword might be fun too
i'm sure i'm forgetting a few other titles, this is just off the top of my head, FF13 alone would make me buy a ps3.
GiovanniMcAdoo @ May 24th 2007 9:23PM
"Reid Sartin @ May 24th 2007 7:37PM"
So you were expecting Gears of War from a launch title that the 360 did not have anything compare to it when it launched. Thats why I compared iot to the 360's Call of Duty 3, it took it alot longer to reach 1,000,000 than it took Resistance: Fall of Man.
MotorStorm made be boring to you but it still got pretty good ratings on game sites that average from 7.9 to 9.5.
Calling All Cars is nice little cartoon that got called "One of the best games on both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live and may be better than anything on Live yet" by a few sites. So much for a nice Cartoon.
Oblivion is mention because even though it is on 360 and PC right now but that does not kill teh fact that it is a good game for the PlayStation 3 in its own right.
And Tekken 5 Dark Resurection is an PlayStation Network game not a full blown game that you would spend $50 own and still looks alot better than the maority stuff that was on PlayStation Store and Xbox Live.
My proves in your opinion it sucks but thats only your opinion. Still a great list, just Xbot dont really want to reconize it as one. Great titles for first six months comapred to the first six of the 360.
yourleftnut @ May 24th 2007 7:49PM
Can you test the DVD upscaling and report. Will it really upconvert to 1080p? If so, then I'm buying one.
gt350 @ May 24th 2007 8:09PM
For so much money cant Sony be Sony and make the system work as advertised. They have had how many months now? What about a free game to costumers for there patience. And that has nothing to do with xbox.
Sirrustir @ May 24th 2007 8:10PM
@Reid Sartin
Sorry, your response only proves you suck right now.
KC @ May 24th 2007 8:27PM
I wonder if the DVD upscaling is as good as the standalone BD players. This firmware update is really cool, but it will also cause more confusion for those looking to buy a standalone BD player.
Daniel Cho @ May 24th 2007 8:36PM
Tried to update system. Keep getting "An error has occurred(8002F994)"..
Anyone know what this means?
Chris @ May 24th 2007 8:55PM
DVD upscaling to 1080i works fine. I compared it with the native upscaling of my Bravia and the image quality is by far superior!
Games are great in 1080i, too. I only tested Burnout Dominator so far. However you should turn on anti-aliasing in the settings.
Depending on the format of the game or movie (i.e. widescreen), one has to change the upscaling settings accordingly.
Can anyone confirm 24p output?
Regards,
Nfinity @ May 25th 2007 2:34PM
@GiovanniMcAdoo
You must be living in fairy land or something. First of all, I own all 3 consoles and the games you listed are the ONLY games on PS3, btw, you forgot F1 Championship one that truly looks great.
You are lying to yourself, games that are coming out right now are for Xbox 360 first and then ports to PS3 by publishers.
I have the PS3 for several months now and I'm hugely dissapointed. There's not a single game that I want to buy on PS3 simply cause they are all available on X360 even sooner then on PS3, look better in some cases and are more fun to play in multiplayer especially with achievements and stuff.
The most fun game I played on PS3 was God of War and God of War 2 and that was PS3 title, I kid you not.
Resistance Fall of Man is HORRIBLE. I don't really like it ONE BIT. The atmosphere is always grey and nothing spectacular, graphics are in the range of Call of Duty 2 not Call of Duty 3 btw. Anything on Xbox 360, even Call of Duty 2 is a better experience.
You are just pointing out things that are not valid. Do you have any idea how many games for Xbox 360 are out there with 90+ rating by reviews?
I am patiently waiting for Heavenly Sword, Drake Uncharted Island and Metal Gear Solid 4, but again those are only 3 games coming out on PS3 that are truly next gen. Everything else is pretty much a port from XBox 360 that I, honestly, have no interest in owning on PS3.
It is funny that you call people who prefer XBox, Xbots. You are just showing how low on the IQ level you are are. There's absolutely no DOUBT that Xbox 360 is a better gaming experience. People who love it, love it because it's just that. It's simple, everything works out of the box, multiplayer is awesome, achievements are awesome, friends and arcade is awesome etc etc.
And also, can you please provide your source about the Resistance Fall of Man outselling Call of Duty or whatever you mentioned. It seems highly flawed.
There are few things you are forgetting. X360 had a much bigger list of games at launch. Bigger list means more diversity and lower individual numbers for games. Resistance Fall of Man WAS the ONLY game for PS3. So naturally everyone who bought PS3 went ahead and bought Resistance. It's not because it was SO SPECTACULAR, it's because it was the only game.
The game is truly absolutely nothing. It feels rushed out, not animations between levels, nothing. Just some screenshots and crap.
I'm sorry until these next gen games like Metal Gear Solid, Heavenly Sword, Drake Uncharted and God of War 3 come out, PS3 pretty much sucks for games and it will keep collecting dust except for an ocassional Blu-Ray movie.
Nfinity @ May 25th 2007 2:35PM
@GiovanniMcAdoo
You must be living in fairy land or something. First of all, I own all 3 consoles and the games you listed are the ONLY games on PS3, btw, you forgot F1 Championship one that truly looks great.
You are lying to yourself, games that are coming out right now are for Xbox 360 first and then ports to PS3 by publishers.
I have the PS3 for several months now and I'm hugely dissapointed. There's not a single game that I want to buy on PS3 simply cause they are all available on X360 even sooner then on PS3, look better in some cases and are more fun to play in multiplayer especially with achievements and stuff.
The most fun game I played on PS3 was God of War and God of War 2 and that was PS3 title, I kid you not.
Resistance Fall of Man is HORRIBLE. I don't really like it ONE BIT. The atmosphere is always grey and nothing spectacular, graphics are in the range of Call of Duty 2 not Call of Duty 3 btw. Anything on Xbox 360, even Call of Duty 2 is a better experience.
You are just pointing out things that are not valid. Do you have any idea how many games for Xbox 360 are out there with 90+ rating by reviews?
I am patiently waiting for Heavenly Sword, Drake Uncharted Island and Metal Gear Solid 4, but again those are only 3 games coming out on PS3 that are truly next gen. Everything else is pretty much a port from XBox 360 that I, honestly, have no interest in owning on PS3.
It is funny that you call people who prefer XBox, Xbots. You are just showing how low on the IQ level you are are. There's absolutely no DOUBT that Xbox 360 is a better gaming experience. People who love it, love it because it's just that. It's simple, everything works out of the box, multiplayer is awesome, achievements are awesome, friends and arcade is awesome etc etc.
And also, can you please provide your source about the Resistance Fall of Man outselling Call of Duty or whatever you mentioned. It seems highly flawed.
There are few things you are forgetting. X360 had a much bigger list of games at launch. Bigger list means more diversity and lower individual numbers for games. Resistance Fall of Man WAS the ONLY game for PS3. So naturally everyone who bought PS3 went ahead and bought Resistance. It's not because it was SO SPECTACULAR, it's because it was the only game.
The game is truly absolutely nothing. It feels rushed out, not animations between levels, nothing. Just some screenshots and crap.
I'm sorry until these next gen games like Metal Gear Solid, Heavenly Sword, Drake Uncharted and God of War 3 come out, PS3 pretty much sucks for games and it will keep collecting dust except for an ocassional Blu-Ray movie.
brendan Sheehan jnr @ May 24th 2007 9:53PM
A vdieo would have been a lot better than a load of photos.
jason @ May 24th 2007 10:03PM
Just watched Apoctolypto on my 1080i set, seemed to be a better picture than when I played it through my dvd player...I think...
Jason @ May 24th 2007 11:05PM
I spent some time this evening comparing the upscaling of DVDs to 1080p on my 50in Samsung 1080p DLP set. I compared the PS3 to the Xbox 360 HD-DVD to my Philips upscaling DVD player (which does 720p/1080i).
Both game systems did a noticeably better job than the standalone DVD player (which means I bought that damn thing for no reason at all). As for direct comparison, much like the differences with BD and HD-DVD, I thought the PS3 has more noise, but better colors and the video was smoother. The 360 looked a bit sharper perhaps, but I have to guess it wasn't 1080p, as it seemed to have that interlace choppiness now and then. Still, if you own one or the other, you're getting an excellent upscaling machine and the image quality can approach near HD-levels. Close-ups, for instance, tended to look excellently sharp, though dark sequences were splotchy overall.
Either way, it's about time the PS3 got this functionality and it works pretty darn well. Just be sure not to watch an actual Blu-ray movie beforehand, as then everything looks crappier...
I tried a couple PSOne games and there was noticeable improvement there as well. Sure, they still look old and sort of crappy, and Silent Hill has an audio glitch with the radio, but it's the most tolerably playable they've been in years. I also like that it magically makes the games all widescreen and look right. Red Faction looks better than ever (I love that game).
Jason @ May 24th 2007 10:56PM
Um, absolutely no trouble whatsoever sharing media from Vista Ultimate x64 to PS3. Just share the media via Media Player 11 and it works. Don't knock the PS3's media streaming just because your situation is faulted.
azote @ May 24th 2007 10:57PM
The new network Search also works with LINUX not only mac and windows
check out this how to for linux and your PS3:
http://subvida.com/browse-and-play-videosmusic-with-ps3-via-network-upnp-to-your-linux-box/24/05/2007/
Jason @ May 24th 2007 10:59PM
Sorry, I didn't read further. If you're having trouble with some video formats, try the Vista Combined Community Codec Pack. Although I won't specify the steps here, there are ways to enable all sorts of changes in Media Player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_Community_Codec_Pack
James Hoak @ May 24th 2007 11:03PM
Can someone explain "the .mp4 reg hack which supposedly enables MP4 file indexing in WMP11"?
I did a search for the info, but nothing I saw clearly explained what to do. Thanks.
Afsheen @ May 24th 2007 11:09PM
I've been tinkering with this update off and on all day. There's gonna have to be another update because way too many video file formats are unsupported. It is criminal really. So far I can only get old-school mpeg2 to play. And even then it looks pretty terrible. Does anyone know if a hardwire will produce better picture quality than wireless? Really lots of artifacting going on. In fact, I get better picture quality outputting s-video than I do than streaming to the PS3.
As for upscaling DVDs, it seems that the quality of the upscaling depends on the DVD itself. Star Wars Ep III looked friggin' amazing. Full Metal Jacket not so much so (no, I don't own it on BD...yet). In fact, I think it looked worse than 480p. I tweaked all sorts of settings while it was playing, still REALLY grainy. Frankly, I don't see a point to upscaling DVD but I'll still play around with it until the novelty wears off.
Music works like a charm and sounds great. Though for some reason the PS3 changes the order of all the music files. You probably understand how annoying it is to listen to an album out of order. Or has iTunes completely eliminated the concept of album order...
Pics look fine. Don't see how that could be screwed up.
Don't get me wrong, this update is a kick in the pants. I'm so glad I refrained from buying an HTPC (I was really close at one point). I'm happy to sink that money into BD movies and any kinds of software that will take advantage of this new DLNA capability. Can't wait for the PSP update...
Sony's finally coming through. I have a feeling things are just going to keep getting better (particularly with the games slated for release over the next year).
Cheers.
JP @ May 25th 2007 12:06AM
IT WORKS! Video streaming on MAC using Twonkyvision!
Finally got the video, music, and photo streaming up and going from my MACBOOK PRO.
Had to cut the firewall off though, and then it found the server and streamed the video. That's a problem, but hopefully the beta update that supposedly comes out tomorrow will fix the problem.
Video works great, can't fast forward though.
JP
JP @ May 25th 2007 12:07AM
Ok, now I've got to try to get it up on the XP!
Any helpers?
JP
JP @ May 25th 2007 12:20AM
Ok for MAC---Open sharing, firewall, new and use 9000 for both TCP and UDP and name the service Twonkymedia or something like it. This will allow you to enable the firewall, and still stream... Should have figured this out first I guess.
JP
Grey Acumen @ May 25th 2007 12:35AM
What does this update do for me? I just have an old 20" CRT TV.
Of course, I don't have a PS3 either, so I guess I'm not too worried about it. :P
jake @ May 25th 2007 1:11AM
I confirmed that the upscaling is working for 1080p while playing Black (PS2). I did notice some improvement in picture quality on a 42" LCD. More quality improvement would probably be seen on bigger televisions. As for the DVD upscaling, I was impressed. Star Wars "A New Hope" looked great at 1080p, and the picture quality was noticeably better than two other upscaling DVD players that I have used in the past. And there are some noise reduction filters present now for DVD playback, which I don't remember seeing before in 1.70. Although experimenting around with the different noise filter settings didn't seem to change much while watching A New Hope. You can access the different upscaling options and noise reduction filters in the PS3 menu while playing your movies, so you don't have to quit playback to change the upscaling. I agree with comments that a manual would be nice here pretty soon. It took me a little experimentation to figure out what the different upscaling options were doing for the games and DVDs. I don't quite get what the "double scale" option does for the DVD upscaling besides give me a ~%30 smaller (720p?) resolution image with approximately the same upscaling quality. I also noticed and enabled "full RGB colors" and "Super white HDMI" options in the display menu that I don't remember seeing in the 1.70 firmware. The colors did seem to be a bit richer after that.
Electrox3d @ May 25th 2007 2:31AM
So has anyone noticed ORB automatically connected to their PS3's? The pictures share just fine, but the videos and music all say unsupported format, and that ORB has blocked the useage of that media.
How do we get that to work, it would be WONDERFUL to have ORB right in the crossbar.
KC @ May 25th 2007 3:38AM
I was playing with the update tonight.
DVD upscaling is not too bad. Don't expect a perfect picture when you want to make a 1080p picture from a 480i source. It's almost as good as my Sony upscaling DVD player, which I think I can remove from the entertainment center now.
The streaming is wonderful. I havent got videos to stream over yet, but I think it's very much less hassle to move my external USB HDD with videos from my PC to the PS3.
Thanks Sony!
KC @ May 25th 2007 3:41AM
Actually, if it was able to stream stuff off a Tivo... it would be really awesome!
Prime @ May 25th 2007 4:42AM
So... Videos and pictures work just fine for me. I can't access any of my MP3s from a Vista Ultimate machine. It won't even read the "music" folder. I assume this is due to the 10,000+ tracks that I have. Anyone else have a similar problem?