PS3 2.70 firmware adds in-game text chat, video backup
Sony's just released the details for its upcoming PlayStation 3 2.70 firmware update, and while it's nothing that'll knock your socks off, they are some goodies here to look forward to. Additions include text chat for letting you make the best of that new Wireless Keypad -- or some other physical / on-screen keyboard -- with up to fifteen online friends and / or three chat rooms, in-game or out. Speaking of online friends, those can now be sorted by online status to see who most recently logged on, and the file attachment size cap has been upped from 1MB to 3MB. Additionally, you can now back up your PS Store video purchases to an external drive and restore later for playback, and similarly your PSP video purchases can now be transferred to PS3 for a larger-screen experience. No word on the release date for now, but in the meantime, check out video demonstration after the break.
Update: Well that was fast. Firmware's available now, let us know what you think.
Update: Well that was fast. Firmware's available now, let us know what you think.



















It's available for download now.
Currently downloading at 42% for the past 20 minutes.
Damn 1 megabit downlink.
(Sorry if double posted, wrong password I think.)
I downloaded the whole thing in about 3 minutes. Not too impressed with the new features though, obviously cross-game chat is what people would like to see added not this junk.
The guy in the video is nerdy! Not that thats a bad thing :P
i'd love to download this but sadly, my ps3 died while playing resident evil 5.
i have no money to get it fixed either... i am so sad :(
Ah so this is the great announcement? Or is it the price drop on PS2 (still pretty awesome) plus this as their huge announcement? Or was it not supposed to be huge, I don't remember.
That's what I was thinking.
Neither huge, nor eye opening.
Pretty much FAIL for the crowd that doesn't need Mommy and Daddy to buy the system for them.
I'm still waiting on the USEFUL news/announcement/feature -- that wont call me a bitch when I'm in a game.
I want that Tv, is that 52"?It looked great.
Anyway I don't think Sony is ready for a price drop yet,
since they can't make much profit on games because
many just used ps3 as media centre
Holy shit that thing is massive I think that's bigger than 52...my dad's got a 50 and it doesn't look that big standing next to it. My guess is that's a 65" but I really don't know
*stares at my 5" monitor*
I want one too.
No, I think it's the KDL-70XBR3
it's a 70"
and that 70" Sony XBR is only $20,000
not joking :P
Damn, no MKV or SRT file support.
I would be pissed if they gave us MKV support now. I just finished loading up my HTPC with divx rips. MKV would have been faster and easier.
I play MKV files all the time.
after tsmuxing it (takes a minute for an hour long file or so) of course.
Hope it helps fix the xvid support/bugs
Use mkv2vob. It takes a few minutes even on a huge file (if the source is H.264). It makes a .ts you can stream to the PS3.
The big announcement was the price drop, this is just a bonus I guess.
i just got the update!
WTF! (obligatory) Ps2 backward compatibility by software emulation already!! Ps3 was frikkin $249 when getting a Sony card, include it already! Or else I will sell my ps3 and get xbox360.. No I wouldn't.
They should hire the PCSX2 team.
Voice chat should come out soon, Since on the XMB it says Chat Room (TExt Only) I'm sure thats where the voice chat will occur. Also, new YES/CANCEL boxes
Man this thing is still really expensive. Give a poor guy a break sony.
once in a while they give you a $150 card credit when you open a sony card! Keep an eye out! You need a parent to do it, I'm 22 with decent credit but I was denied. Good luck!
To play MKVs I convert them to .vob with mkv2vob, split them into 4GB files & then transfer them to my FAT32 USB hard drive. If sony just supported MKV liek would be much simpler.
so this was the "big ps3 announcement" that all the game blogs hyped up?
Just installed it, and here's what I've discovered:
You can now copy/paste...somewhat. When you load a web page and select the text with your cursor, you now have the option to copy it or perform a search based on that text. When you go to a text field in the browser, you can either hit Ctrl+V on a keyboard to paste it, or select the paste button from the onscreen keyboard. Sucks that we can't copy/paste within a message, but I guess it's a step in the right direction.
Also new is Dynamic Normalizer under Music Settings - Reduces the difference in volume level between tracks. This sttting is used for content that is saved on the hard disk or storage media.
The new text chatroom caveat: 30 CHARACTER INPUT ONLY. Get used to typing really short sentences. Still beats spamming XMB and creating new message and typing 2 words. Text chat room is much faster cuz you can leave it running while in a game and go back to it any time. Ain't cross-game voice, but it's a step towards achieving it since cross-game chat is now possible via XMB.
Those are my findings so far.
I'm still waiting for an update that will bring a feature to my PS3 that I will actually use.
Dude they wont give you an e-penis so get ready for a lackluster decade.
on the bright side mentally you are a complete penis so you should be stoked.
So you don't use the video games, downloadable movies, streaming media from any DLNA compatible server, photo viewing, blu-ray player, dvd player, or the ability to install and run another OS?
Why did you buy a PS3?
@Nate: Didn't the PS3 come with all those abilites
This better fix hulu, dammit. Is the ps3 not a valid computing/media device anymore??
Can someone please confirm that they are still able to stream divx movies from a network meida server to the PS3 after the update. Every one of my videos now shows up as unsupported data. Crap!!!
DivX problems?
Oh no, what's happening?
I was just about to update my PS3 lol,,,don't think I'll bother now...does it affect local divx files or just streaming ones
Still works for me. However, there have been known compatibility issues once firmware updates come out. Whatever you're using to stream might need a firmware update now in order to work with the PS3. I have a Synology DS207+ and it didn't work when 2.12 or something came out. Once Synology knew about this, they put out a new firmware and things worked again.
I have no problems streaming any videos to my PS3 with 2.70
After the 2.70 update, all my divx media in WMP11 is being re-encoded into really awful, poorly scaled MPEG2 :( Might have to try a new uPnP server...
Got the same problem, every divx-video in my DLNA-media server shows as unsupported data, has anyone found a solution to this yet?
I have a ps3, but no Hdtv, since no one in their right mind would use a old crt t.v. Therefore I weep. =(
Too many button inputs to get to your chat from within game. I feel that this process should be more streamlined to be useful.
Now, how about being able to view *.mov video files... My new Canon SD990 records video in the .mov format and it sucks that I can't watch them on my bigscreen without adding complexity to my setup.
Actually you can do that now.
If you use PS3 Media stream, that is coded by google, as long as your .mov file has a h264 codec, the PS3 will play it. This I can say works because I not only have done it on mine but have done this at a friends house that all of his home movies were .mov and he wanted to stream them to the PS3.
The PS3 Media stream will also stream .mkv and .vob file as well.
Nothing to knock your socks off? Are you serious? The video backup addition is HUGE.
Sony where's the .mkv support? And build a client for Hulu and Netflix already!
That would be GREAT! I actually bought the PS3 mainly to for Bluray and media streaming from my PC. I play some games, but I have an awesome PC I use for gaming. Netflix and HULU would be a major plus.
I guess i don't game enough to have friends on my ps3 to spend hours in-game chatting with -
Hulu and Netflix streaming would be really nice... and so i wait
Anyone who is waiting for mkv support, just download PS3 Media Server, I have yet to find a video file that it can't play. I watch iso files, mkv and any type of HD. Its quite possibly the most useful piece of software that I ever stumbled upon. My PS3 is now the most complete media center on the market, without going over the top, it completes me.
I agree, PS3 Media Server is great. I went through TVersity and the like and was never happy until I found this SIMPLE and great piece of software. "Stay tuned after the break for the link"
http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/downloads/list
The problem with on-the-fly transcoding for streaming is that you can't seek. Which is fine if you never need to rewind or otherwise jump around in your video, but if you ever need to, man are you in for a world of hurt.
I saw this very problem exhibited by PS3 Media Streamer this past weekend - try to rewind a little bit and you end up at the beginning of the video.
Fail :(
the fast forward and jump in is working... it's just the rewind who is buggy and trickier to implement
Wake me up when Sony brings back PS2 support on PS3. Or start selling backward compatible versions of PS3. A lot of new owners are having buyers remorse.
Sigh....still waiting for them to leave the USB ports hot while the system is in standby so I do not have to charge my controllers on my Wii.
I know what the F!
Agreed. that's annoying. You can also use your cable/satellite box- all the ones I've seen with USB ports keep them hot in standby.
Did FW 2.70 add support for NTFS or exFAT formatted harddisks / usb sticks?
any word if this affects the ps2 iso loading through usbExtreme for launch consoles?
I can't believe I'm still seeing messages about people wanting backward compatibility. My God people, buy a Sony PS2 for $99 and a frickin' $30 automatic switch box if you need to play PS2 games so badly and don't have enough ports for more than one input. Sony IS NOT GOING TO PUT BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY BACK INTO THE PS3! They included it originally so people being early adopters would have games to play on their new PS3. Now that there's a decent PS3 library it's not needed anymore.
How about getting the battery meter out of the way of the clock??? It still annoys the hell out of me!!!!
how about we get SKYPE for ps3
READ THIS SONY,
Ok this is THE best controls for text chat, look at Beyond Good & Evil, use the analog sticks to select characters, R1 = backspace, L1 = Spacebar. This is just a basic idea, ou could play with it some more but the Beyond Good & Evil stick controls ARE THE BEST WAY if you arent using a keyboard.
I really wish the Xbox 360's onscreen keyboard was QWERTY like this! I complained about this almost two years ago...
The New Update Freezes my PS3 whenever I plug in my PS2-to-PS3 controller adapter...........does that happen to anyone here?
Well the In-game text chat freezes up my PS3 when playing Tiger Woods 09. It's the only game this happens and i know a number of other people who are having problems with same game.
The only thing i'm disappointed about is no Voice Messaging.
Nice
Nothing for me really, but a step in the right direction.
Ok, I stream using Mediatomb from an Ubuntu Server box and my PS3 is now not even detecting that I'm serving UPnP. Either something is f'd with the UPnP portion of the system now, or perhaps its the problem people have listed above stating that Mediatomb will need an update. If anyone has some info please let me know.
I might be missing something, but... How are you suppose to back up your HD Movies you've bought on the PS3 to an external if it can only except FAT32 formated drives?
Someone please explain this...
Ow Fuck! Sony is missing points with me! I just put my PS3 to update firmware while I as having dinner, and after that I was planning to watch "House MD" from my media stream server (Linksys NAS200), but for my surprise... my divx and avi files aren't working anymore!! I'm getting a lot of "unsupported data"!
Instead of increase compatibility sony just cut of them!
PS3 STREAMING ISSUE AFTER UPGRADE RESOLVED
I had the same problem when trying to stream after 2.70 update. I am using TVersity. I havent updated it since I first installed it. I downloaded and installed latest version of TVersity, it re-built library after installing, and now all is well. Hope this helps....