Major PS3 Firmware Upgrade Announcement

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stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#20319 21-Mar-2008 00:15

Key things are the arrival of BD Live and the ability to use the PSP to select and play music via the PS3 outputs.....Sonos on the cheap!

Firmware v2.20 bringing BD-Live to PS3

+ Posted by Eric Lempel // Director, PlayStation Network Operations

Hi again everyone. Here’s a quick preview of the next PLAYSTATION 3 system software update coming up in the next few days. Firmware v2.20, introduces a number of features to further enhance your PLAYSTATION 3 as the hub of your entertainment center.

Most notably, the update enables the PS3 to support Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, also known as BD-Live. You can connect now to the Internet while playing discs that support BD-Live to obtain additional content and special features. These features vary from disc to disc, and will keep your BD discs fresh with new content and in some cases exclusive content only accessible to owners of BD-Live enabled discs. On April 8th Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release The 6th Day and Walk Hard on Blu-ray; these titles will be among the first to take advantage of BD-Live. With this update, the PLAYSTATION 3 becomes the first Blu-ray player on the market with BD-Live functionality.

Here are some of the other new features/enhancements that will be included in Firmware v2.20:

The ability to copy PS3 Music and Photo playlists to a PSP system. We introduced the ability to create Music and Photo playlists on the PS3 in firmware update v2.0. Now you can easily export your playlists to your PSP.
You can now play DivX and WMV format files that are over 2 GB.
Resume Play - begin playing a DVD or BD disc from the point where you previously stopped it, even if you eject the disc and insert a different movie or game.
Use your PSP as a remote control to play back your music files on your PS3 without turning on your TV.
The Internet browser now displays some web pages faster. In addition [Save Target] has been added as an option under file. This option lets you save a file that is linked to a web page to your PS3 hard drive or storage media.

There are a few other tweaks and upgrades included in v2.20 - we’ll provide more specifics as the update is about to go live.

AmooMan

307 posts

Ultimate Geek

#117874 21-Mar-2008 11:52

wow.. sounds very cool..
Looks like i might be in the market for PSP after all..
Used PSP as a remote with a screen would be great

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old3eyes

9112 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#117878 21-Mar-2008 11:59

No sign of any PlayTV yet??

Regards,

Old3eyes

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#117888 21-Mar-2008 12:40

AmooMan: wow.. sounds very cool..
Looks like i might be in the market for PSP after all..
Used PSP as a remote with a screen would be great

I've been doing my own little bit to agitate for this feature for a while on Sony Forums. I could never really see the point of streaming music to the PSP but using the PSP to choose the music to play on the hi-fi would be great ie not having to have a TV on to choose music from a server.

I actually gave up waiting for Sony and went to the Airport Express to stream music fron iTunes. I then use a Web Server add-on to allow the iTouch to select the music and it works great. I now have the iTouch controlling the whole house.

The PSP can also tie in with this kind of approach with it's browser. I'd like to see them extend the PSP to a full remote control for the PS3 ie playing video, controlling Blu-Ray playback.

lchiu7

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#119476 29-Mar-2008 09:13

old3eyes: No sign of any PlayTV yet??

PlayTV won't be a firmware update but might require one. THere will also have to be a USB tuner I guess and some additional software (and dollars!). Plus given the wierd formats we are using for DVB-T in NZ even if it comes out in the UK it might be a while before they produce a version that works in NZ (and the Netherlands I think who are the other country who have chosen slightly left field standards for DVB-T HD broadcasts_

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#119485 29-Mar-2008 09:46

lchiu7:
old3eyes: No sign of any PlayTV yet??

PlayTV won't be a firmware update but might require one. THere will also have to be a USB tuner I guess and some additional software (and dollars!). Plus given the wierd formats we are using for DVB-T in NZ even if it comes out in the UK it might be a while before they produce a version that works in NZ (and the Netherlands I think who are the other country who have chosen slightly left field standards for DVB-T HD broadcasts_

PlayTV is a USB device and will require a firmware upgrade but but I doubt there would be extra cost for that. Noone seems to know when the NZ release will be but a good guess is towards the end of the year.

I don't think I would describe MPEG4 Part 10/AVC as a "weird" format as it is an industry standard. MPEG4 allows about a 2 to 1 reduction in bandwidth over MPEG2 but the trade off is increased processing requirements in decoding. There's definately an arguement that we should have followed the crowd but a significant number of European and Asian countries are also going MPEG4.

lchiu7

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#119496 29-Mar-2008 11:19

Nothing wrong with MPEG4 Part 10/AVC. It's the AAC-HC LATM audio that I was referring to. Apparently only two countries in the world use this standard and we are one of them!

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

stuzzo

534 posts

Ultimate Geek

#119535 29-Mar-2008 14:47

lchiu7: Nothing wrong with MPEG4 Part 10/AVC. It's the AAC-HC LATM audio that I was referring to. Apparently only two countries in the world use this standard and we are one of them!

Isn't that HE-AAC? I guess that was chosen for bitrate considerations as well.

lchiu7

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#119584 29-Mar-2008 18:04

That's what I meant :-( The acronyms are killing me! Reading up on LATM it's hard to see any major benefits of using this technology versus the grief that it causes! Maybe a way to stop the import of STB's from the UK or other countries that are using AVC/AAC but not LATM

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

bazzer

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#119801 31-Mar-2008 08:03

Has anyone got subititles to work with DivX yet? What am I missing? Does the subtitle stream need to be embedded in the DivX? So, it can't support external subtitles yet (sub, srt etc).