Playing Media

nedd

Hi All,

I'm sure this has been discussed before and I asked the same question of the 360 but can you tell me what media the PS3 can play?

ie does it play avi's or do you have to use a transcoder? I currently have an old skool XBOX (chipped with 200gb harddrive) and i can just copy any video format over to the harddrive and watch it. does the PS3 work the same?

Thanks
Nedd

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

Nope, it just plays MP4's, AVI's and .mts files, but I don't know what those are.
I find the 360 better for playing any media at the moment, but that could change.

FuzzyWuzzyWazza

Double post

nedd

but when your playing on the 360 you have to convert everything or else transcode on the fly right?

what i'm really looking for is a good media player that can play everything. was looking at something like this
http://www.amazon.co.uk/IAMM-NTD36HD-MULTI-MEDIA-PLAYER-WITHOUT/dp/B000JOWCJE

but then i thought if either the 360 or PS3 could do something similar then that would be better

Ciaran500

Keep your orignial Xbox, supports much more formats than either the PS3 or 360.

Neither support divx or xvid (avi).

nedd

well thats that then.

i will have to wait for the ps4 or the xbox 720 for them to catch up with my old skool xbox.

Rev Hellfire

Should you be into such things you can install linux on the PS3 and use that.

nedd

i have heard about that, and i have heard that you can upgrade the hard drive as well.

but is it difficult? and what is sony's standing on the whole thing?

WellyJ

nedd wrote:

i have heard about that, and i have heard that you can upgrade the hard drive as well.

but is it difficult? and what is sony's standing on the whole thing?

They wholly support upgrading your HDD and installing Linux,

There is an option to install another OS in the XMB

nedd

WellyJ wrote:

They wholly support upgrading your HDD and installing Linux,

There is an option to install another OS in the XMB

that is pretty class. and with Linux installed the PS3 will play any media type?

Dont be at yourself

Yep, you just have to boot into your Linux OS and use that to play your media.

mathias

Add to that the fact that the hard drive is so easily removed , and you can have a hard drive pre loaded with linux and one with the original PS setup , and you can switch easily between linux for media and PS3 for games.

Very nice setup.

Linux

Main article: PlayStation 3 Linux

Ubuntu Linux running on the PlayStation 3.
Ubuntu Linux running on the PlayStation 3.
Wikibooks
Wikibooks Linux Guide has a page concerning the
PlayStation 3

Sony has included an option in the XMB menu to install other operating systems.[104] Among other Linux distributions, Ubuntu, Fedora Core 7, Gentoo, Debian, and Yellow Dog have been run on the PS3.[105][106][107][108]

Sony currently implements a hypervisor restricting RSX access,[109] though the graphics are fast enough for emulation of some old systems. Linux has access to 6 of the 7 SPEs, and IBM provides an introduction to programming parallel applications on the PlayStation 3.

As of Linux kernel 2.6.21, the PlayStation 3 has official Linux support and does not require any special patching to function. An up to date Linux kernel source with all the latest PlayStation 3 bug fixes and improvements is listed here; and a frequently updated user friendly build (currently based on the Linux kernel 2.6.23-rc3) is also available.
“ Because we have plans for having Linux on board the PS3, we also recognize Linux programming activities… Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we had like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3. ”

—Izumi Kawanishi, on the presence of the Linux in the PS3.

For those of you tempted though , be warned , Linux is not for beginners , not yet anyway.

Heres step by step instructions , non tech backgrounds beware !!

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-linuxps3-1/

nedd

thanks for all this info. i am seriously tempted now.

you mention about having to switch between harddrives for watching media and playing games. if linux is installed will the games not work?

Rev Hellfire

You don't have to switch harddrives.
You can alternate between Linux and the Sony OS as you will. Naturally the Sony games will only play in the Sony OS.

Varik

it partitions the hdd and installs both they have no effect on each other also if you get a wireless mouse and keyboard setup it's great

Dont be at yourself

If you dont want to bother with linux, and have a windows machine around, just install TVersity on it.

Hygro

You can convert divx/avi files to mpeg 2 and play that on the ps3, but if you want to keep some form of quality (as it deteriorates ... Basically the picture will look like a really really old vhs video print. The sound is perfect though )the size of the file will almost quadruple. If you are using it to watch animation you won't notice the difference, but once it comes to live action then that's where the problems lie (especially if you are using an LCD tv).

I used tversity on the ps3 and it does work, though unless you have wireless internet there's no real advantage to to using it. The media that comes through to the ps3 gets converted to Mpeg2 (exactly the same as the conversion I spoke about above), so the quality again deteorates from the original format.

As for ubuntu, I put that on during the week (the programme's called Feisty Fawn and overall it took about 90 mins to instal). If you want to watch any type of media on ubuntu you have to download it (as exe files cannot be open by Linux becase they are windows programmes, as I found out when I tried to use a flash card to put my media players on it). My problem was that I have wireless internet, but I could not acess the internet with Linux because as it is its own o/s it didn't recognise that it has wireless connection abilities (and I didn't know how to access the option to enable it or whatever) so I couldn't download progammes to play my media, catch 22 or what?!

Anyways I got rid of it after 2 days when I found out I couldn't get any use out of it.

Dont be at yourself

There's no driver for Ubuntu for the PS3 wifi card, so you need to use an ethernet cable.

Rev Hellfire

Yellow Dog supports wireless afaik.

mathias

There's no driver for Ubuntu for the PS3 wifi card, so you need to use an ethernet cable.

You don't have to switch harddrives.
You can alternate between Linux and the Sony OS as you will. Naturally the Sony games will only play in the Sony OS.

but I could not acess the internet with Linux because as it is its own o/s it didn't recognise that it has wireless connection abilities (and I didn't know how to access the option to enable it or whatever) so I couldn't download progammes to play my media, catch 22 or what?!

A few quotes from different posters above concerning linux on the PS3 , like I posted before , there is some experience necessary to get the install done , but once its done its done and its a breeze to use.

No you dont have to switch harddrives , but as its so easy Its the way I prefer to do it because its less messy than partitioning the PS3 harddrive.

There is a driver for the wifi card in linux , you need a program called ndiswrapper for it to work. If you install Automatix under Ubuntu it will load all these for you. The ubuntu forums have all this information , as posted , its a bit involved but it does take some time , 2 days will not get you a fully working linux install .

Yellow dog linux , as linked to on the IBM set posted above , has all the necessary drivers for the PS3 to work ,including all its devices like wireless , card readers , etc., so that would be the preferred flavour of linux to get for the PS3 if you have no experience , however any flavour would do if you know how to get the drivers and install them.
Ubuntu will work fine , once all the drivers are installed, but you'll have to install them yourself and with linux thats not just a click on an exe file.

There's no driver for Ubuntu for the PS3 wifi card, so you need to use an ethernet cable.

The driver is available for yellow dog linux , you can get the binary and compile it for Ubuntu , again , this is where the experience comes in , its not hard to learn how to compile binaries , but its not something your average windows user would be familiar with.