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The PS3 As a Media Centre

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  • 10-08-2008 8:41pm
    #1
    Kintarō Hattori
    Registered Users Posts: 14,966 ✭✭✭✭


    How are you guys finding the PS3 as a media centre? For me it ticks all the right boxes but there are a few things holding it back:
    1. The XMB interface is great for navigation but absolutely awful for browsing your music collection. Browsing through your music collection is a real pain in the ass. If you've seen XBMC you'll have seen how the PS3 should be doing it.
    2. Codec support is pretty poor. My old XBox with XBMC installed has never let me down and plays absolutely everything I throw at it. I basically don't use the PS3 for watching video's as it's support is so patchy. Am I right in thinking the poor codec support is something to do with Microsoft?

    I recently installed a 320GB drive in the PS3 and for a moment or two it was great but then I asked myself what was I going to do with it? I still use an XBox with XBMC installed to listen to my music and watch any video's. It's noisy, it doesn't do High Definition video but the navigation and support on it is fantastic.
    I can't see Sony making any changes to the XMB interface as it's becoming a standard, it's even featured on some of their Bravia televisions but I feel it's really holding the PS3 back from being an absolutely amazing machine.

    What do you guys think?
    Tagged:


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    #2
    311
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,332 ✭✭✭311


    I think the same myself ,if it had it's own menu off the XMB it would at least be a bit tidier.
    It's like using one of those cheap mp3 players that has a line of text for 1000's of mp3's.
    Maybe if they designed media usage like they do for downloading on the playstation store ,it would make it more appealing.
    Categories in music and video ,like they have for genres in gaming.


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Hit triangle on a video/song/photo,go to information. Under the title theres a heading called album. I use this to sort genres etc.


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    #4
    Kintarō Hattori
    Registered Users Posts: 14,966 ✭✭✭✭Kintarō Hattori


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Hit triangle on a video/song/photo,go to information. Under the title theres a heading called album. I use this to sort genres etc.

    Yeah I know you can change the way it's listed but it's still not great. As 311 mentioned there really needs to be a seperate list away from the music option otherwise it gets very long and messy.


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    #5
    311
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,332 ✭✭✭311


    Thinking about it from sony's perspective ,they would want media on a seperate network to gaming. Maybe having to log on to media seperately to XMB. Not sure how this would be possible ,otherwise the network would be hogged with album icons and paraphernalia.
    Maybe they could do a MediaStore ,to justify making the development and they could sell stuff like on itunes.


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    #6
    Kintarō Hattori
    Registered Users Posts: 14,966 ✭✭✭✭Kintarō Hattori


    311 wrote: »
    Thinking about it from sony's perspective ,they would want media on a seperate network to gaming. Maybe having to log on to media seperately to XMB. Not sure how this would be possible ,otherwise the network would be hogged with album icons and paraphernalia.
    Maybe they could do a MediaStore ,to justify making the development and they could sell stuff like on itunes.

    Hmnnn I don't know how the whole media end of things is going to work itself into Sony's overall plans for the PS3. Sony at one stage had their 'Connect' online store for music purchases but they ended up closing it as it wasn't terribly successful.

    To be honest I don't really care for that end of things, I'd prefer they concentrated on the machine and the games. Like most people I have plenty of my own music and movies and when it comes to sourcing them there are plenty of places to get it from.
    It'd just be nice if they could integrate media a little better into the XMB. One thing I'm surprised the PS3 doesn't have is an internet radio much like the PSP has. I thought that was a genius little piece of software to include and can see no reason why they can't add it to a PS3 firmware update.


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    #7
    witnessmenow
    Registered Users Posts: 7,016 ✭✭✭witnessmenow


    Regarding the codecs:

    The reason xbmc has such good support is because it uses free open source linux codecs

    You can only use open source code if the final product of what your using it for is open source. It also has to be distrubuted in at least as favorable circumstances as the open source code its made up by.

    Sony (or microsoft) cant make there Os' open source or they'd be hacked to bits.


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    #8
    311
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,332 ✭✭✭311


    Kintarō Hattori wrote: »
    Hmnnn I don't know how the whole media end of things is going to work itself into Sony's overall plans for the PS3. Sony at one stage had their 'Connect' online store for music purchases but they ended up closing it as it wasn't terribly successful.

    Agreed ,they certainly don't want to loose customers. Hopefully as their networks get bigger ,they can make things nicer. I'm still waiting for that 3D envoirment for users to interact with each other and the other funky utilities that seem to get advertised on japanese commercials.

    If they started charging for network usage ,they probably would have stuff up faster. But if it's free ,it's probably always going to take longer.


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    #9
    Conor108
    Registered Users Posts: 3,871 ✭✭✭Conor108


    Install YDL, and then use like itunes or something


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    #10
    guinnessdrinker
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,469 ✭✭✭guinnessdrinker


    I agree with Kintarō that browsing your music on the PS3 is a massive pain. I would love if the interface was changed to something like xbmc's one.


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    #11
    Blazer
    Registered Users Posts: 17,417 ✭✭✭✭Blazer


    I think for video it's way better than the xbox (had 3 of them). Installed a 320GB hard drive and putting all my micro HD movies on it...it's the bee's knees:D
    Music I had on but ended up taking it off as I have an ipod plus the speaker system for it so was no point to it..


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    #12
    Kintarō Hattori
    Registered Users Posts: 14,966 ✭✭✭✭Kintarō Hattori


    When you say the XBox do you mean the 360 or the original one with XBMC? The PS3 has great potential for video but the lack of codec support really lets it down. I can't be sure that if I want to watch something the PS3 will play it. Usually it doesn't!

    In regards to music, yeah sure iPods, CD's, computers etc are great. I use XBMC which is a great piece of kit but I wouldn't mind having a one stop shop, something that can do it all and play it all and that unfortunately isn't the PS3 at the moment. I installed a 320GB drive myself, copied over a load of music and navigating it is a pain in the ass.


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    #13
    bambam
    Registered Users Posts: 597 ✭✭✭bambam


    biggest pain I find is the pause between mp3 tracks when playing an album.
    As for videos, using it with Nero Mediahome it plays nearly every type of movie (by using transcoding if necessary)


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    #14
    carbonkid
    Registered Users Posts: 917 ✭✭✭carbonkid


    The only thing i need to know bout the ps3 media player is will it cut off parts of hard encoded subtitles? I know the xbox360 does. you have a choose of the image been zoomed out (small box on your tv screen) or zoomed in (where it cuts off subtitles).

    I use my old xbox media player for watching mostly anime but way things are going everything seems to be going hi def.


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    #15
    ongarite
    Registered Users Posts: 8,206 ✭✭✭ongarite


    Unless you have a HDTV that you can turn overscan off, you will be missing the hard-coded subs. They were coded were to viewed on PC monitor as they have no overscan.
    The one great advantage of XBMC is that you can calibrate the screen to cut-off overscan.


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    #16
    rejkin
    Registered Users Posts: 890 ✭✭✭rejkin


    Em, I have a 500 gig external HDD,got loads of anime on it,would I be able to plug that into the ps3 and play them? most of em are avi files


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    #17
    Kintarō Hattori
    Registered Users Posts: 14,966 ✭✭✭✭Kintarō Hattori


    rejkin wrote: »
    Em, I have a 500 gig external HDD,got loads of anime on it,would I be able to plug that into the ps3 and play them? most of em are avi files

    Most likely you can. Just plug it in and select the option for 'Display All'. The drive will only work if it has been formatted in FAT32.


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