Is the PS3 and BD 2.0 for you?

[admin]

Is PS3 and BD 2.0 for you? Last week, Sony released the 2.20 firmware update for the PlayStation 3. Among the list of features was BD Profile 2.0, the coveted Holy Grail of Blu-ray playback. Is BD 2.0 really that useful? Will the guys with the BD 1.0 and 1.1 players be left wanting more? Can the PS3 work well as a standalone Blu-ray player for the masses who aren't into gaming?


Discuss "Is the PS3 and BD 2.0 for you? " here. Read the article.

[BMXTRIX]

I don't understand. I thought that HD DVD owners made it clear that it was the web interactivity which was going to kill Blu-ray as a format since HD had it and BD did not? Now you make it sound like the web interactivity is just a bunch of crap stuff that may be used to add more SPAM to our inbox and offers very little in the way of decent interactivity...

Does this really suprise anyone, whatsoever, on the face of the entire planet?

I mean, I'm not sure I heard of a single HD DVD disc that had an incredible implementation of web features.

About the best thing I could think of would be that a user could potentially have access to any type of subtitle in the world that they wanted/needed so they could enjoy the film. Or perhaps offer some sort of chat capability... You know - YAY! - you get to talk during a movie. ???

Obviously, in the future, there is very likely going to be some great ideas that come along and really wow some people and become standard fare. But, right now the fact that only the PS3 offers this, and has been out for well over a year now, and still it remains phenomenally fast as a Blu-ray player is significant and worth noting.

I mean, the Bluetooth remote may not work for all, but the fact is, if you put a disc in, it'll start playback automatically and the Blue Wave remote will work pretty well beyond that. The discs start quickly, and menus load fast, the video output is spectacular... and anyone that bought a year ago has been enjoying this all along, while others have struggled with Samsungs so-so product, or spent far more on Pioneer Elite - for little additional quality.

I think we are just touching on the very front edge of what Blu-ray is going to be delivering overall and just as we saw growth and performance improvements with DVD, we have a lot that is still potential with Blu-ray despite top shelf audio and video already available.

The PS3 is just one of the options out there - yet there will be many more even before the year is out.

[corey]

How does the PS3 compare to the Xbox 360 as a music player?

[jnmfox]

A IR to Bluetooth adapter was just released that apparently will allow you to fully control your PS3 with a universal remote, including power on/off .

http://ir2bt.com/

[GlocksRock]

How does the PS3 compare to the Xbox 360 as a music player?

They both play music from the optical drive, and from a PC connected to the network. The PS3 will also play SACD as long as it's not a 40 gig PS3, and the PS3 connects to the CDDB or something similar so when you put in a retail cd and you have the PS3 connected to the internet, it retrieves the disc information such as title, track names, and artist. Both will rip and store music onto the hard drives, and both will play music from a .mp3 player or flash drive. I also find that the 360 has much better visualizations than the PS3.

[rrehart]

I have been using the PS3 for my primary BD/DVD/CD/HTPC since I got it in Jan '07. It has worked flawlessly for me. I have it hooked up to my A/V controller via HDMI. In your article you mention the pain of entering your name/email/password for these BD 2.0 sites via remote. I, too, found that to be a problem, but I easily solved it with the Logitech MediaPro keyboard for the PS3 (logitech.com/index.cfm/keyboards/keyboard/devices/3616&cl=us,en).

It works as seamlessly as the SIXAXIS controller and solves the remote-as-a-keyboard text entry issue.

[Paul Atreides]

I'm coming into this discussion rather late, but I bought a PS3 about a month ago and wanted to share my experience. I've used it for Blu-ray playback, photo storage and slide shows, and music playback and storage.

As everyone else has said, there is nothing to criticise about the Blu-ray playback. Disc loading and unloading is extremely fast. There is a resume feature that I really like. You can unload a disc, then reload it later, and playback will start exactly where you left off.

I have the Blu-ray remote, which is highly recommended for movie playback. However, for photo slide shows, the game controller is best. The joysticks allow for precise and effortless zooming, panning and scanning.

CD playback sounds good and ripping a CD is very easy. I haven't tried SACD playback, yet--I still need to buy a couple discs.

My only criticisms of the PS3 are: 1) It does get hot; 2) The cooling fan does make some noise and 3) It does not allow a CD to be ripped into a lossless codec or wave file, though it will play both .wav and .wma files. If you can get past those three issues, then I would recommend the PS3 highly, even if you don't ever play a game on it.