PS3 vs recent state of the art set top players

Finally, Transformers will be out on Blu-ray on September 2nd!! It is the ultimate action movie to watch in high-def. Some of the features you will be able to download with BD-Live!

Check this out for more info transformersmovie.com

Thanks!

Martin, TF
 
Aw come on, you know you enjoyed that "Drake's Fortune" demo:). Seriously though, gaming aside, the PS3 is still a great all around BD player. Just spend the extra $25 for the dedicated remote as the vibrating sixaxis is a bit much for simple dvd playing :).

OH and btw, don't be afraid to go for the full version of "Uncharted" - it's a way fun game.

Maybe I'll try that Drake demo again. Missed out on getting the full Drake on an Amazon sale today. 100% gone by the time I saw it. I mighta bit.


Don- I believe you can load Linux on the PS3 and have your choice of browsers that way. Anybody done this?
 
Congrats Don, You have just been introduced to Sony's much improved Trojan Horse for your home theater. The PS3 has always been a very capable BD player with none of the upgrade problems of the BD standalone players. I hope you continue to enjoy your PS3 experiance.

Can I recommend that the next time you take pictures with a digital camera that you put the mem disc in the PS3 and view your pictures. I think it will change how you view the pictures you take of your family forever.
 
JoeSP

May be but more likely, it will be the Kitchen HDTV that will get the most activity in playing family pictures. The home theater just never gets used for that purpose. However, I do have a docking station now for my HDR SR12 and sometimes watch raw footage from the camcorder in 1080i x 1920 DD5.1 quality. That feed goes directly into the DVDO VP50Pro though.
While my PS3 has the compact Flash card slot, I didn't think to check to see if it had the Sony flavor memory stick duo. I shoot my stills and store them on the 8Gb memory stick so that is a possibility. I guess I haven't really considered the media center and media server paradigm yet. Being an editor, I rarely show my work in the raw prefering the finished look before display. That would make it a more traditional BD recording as opposed to media stick. If I get enough programs, maybe it will become a convenience to load them on a server. Good stuff for next year. :)
 
The PS3 supports many differant memory cards and the Sony duo is just one of them.
 
Joesp

Hope you know the answer to this one. I'm trying to program my remote control and can't figure out how to turn on the PS3 by IR command. Seems this does not work on the IR remote I bought and have to go to the PS3 and touch the button on the box or plug in a disk. I have the toggle switch in the back on all the time and switch the power on and off with a switched outlet in my rack. So, I can switch the power on and off by remote, but that does not turn on the PS3. Any ideas?
 
Joesp

Hope you know the answer to this one. I'm trying to program my remote control and can't figure out how to turn on the PS3 by IR command. Seems this does not work on the IR remote I bought and have to go to the PS3 and touch the button on the box or plug in a disk. I have the toggle switch in the back on all the time and switch the power on and off with a switched outlet in my rack. So, I can switch the power on and off by remote, but that does not turn on the PS3. Any ideas?

Keep the game controller handy and use the PS button to turn on the PS3. :)
 
Does pressing PLAY on the remote power on the PS3?

I just searched this too:

As with the game controller, you also can turn the system on and off using the key adorned with the PlayStation logo. Additionally, if your PS3 is off, you can hit any key on the remote and it will power on. That's nice.
 
Hmmm... didn't work here. I'll have to see why.

When my PS has power turned on by the power switch in the back red light only . My controller has 5 LED's flashing. If I power up at the box or insert a disk. the 5 lights go to one on.

By those signs can anyone determine what I have set wrong that will not allow me to turn on the box by the remote? BTW, what you all suggest does work if the remote is connected by the short USB cable.


Additionally, if your PS3 is off, you can hit any key on the remote and it will power on. That's nice.

That doesn't work either. I'd really like the IR remote to turn it on. That way I could teach my Home Theater Master system to do it automatically in the macro.
 
OK I got the PS button to turn on the box. I redid the initial setup and now it works

Still no go on the IR remote, however.
 
OK I got the PS button to turn on the box. I redid the initial setup and now it works

Still no go on the IR remote, however.

Don, one of the problems is that the PS button is not a direct on/off button. When the PS3 is off it turns it on but to turn it off you have to press the PS button, then press the enter button twice to "Select system to turn off" and then "Turn off System". The key is to getting a signal from the IR remote to work as the PS button. Once you do that you are basically home free.

Here is the sequence for turning off the PS3.

Press the PS Button once (Hold for count of two) = Enters off screen menu (This must be done from the Cross Bar Menu)
Press the Enter Button = Selection menu for "Turn Off System" or "Turn Off Controller" (This screen also tells you the battery level on the bluetooth device you are using)
Press the Enter Button = Selection menu for "Do You want to turn off the system" "Yes" or "No"

If all you do is press the PS Button once (Must be done from the Cross Media Bar) and then the Enter Button twice the defaults of the PS3 is "Turn Off System" and "Yes" and that will turn off your PS3.

The PS3 will then turn off. So, once you have the PS button working in IR all you have to do is program a macro with the above sequence to turn it off. This command has to be entered from then 'Cross Media Bar'. During movie playback the following sequence must be entered in order to get to the 'Cross Media Bar':


To get to the Cross Media Bar while playing a BD = Press ''O" button once the press 'Enter' button once. First action will open menu to ask of you want to stop playback. Second action will send you back to Cross Media Bar were you can then turn system off. Once again the default is to stop playback so you do not have to even see the menu.

To eject the BD = Press 'Triangle' then press 'down' twice from the scroll or toggle of your ir device then press 'Enter'. This will eject your BD.

I have the PS3 Bluetooth remote which I love using. I have never used any remote that worked this fast. And the battery life is very long in the remote. But my guess is that if you want to use your Home Theater remote, setting up three button macros for the above commands would pretty much take care of turning off and ejecting the BD remotely. I never turn on the PS3 for BD playback as the fastest way to get into playback is to just put the BD or DVD in the player. It will turn itself on and go immeadately into playback mode and start up your movie.

I hope this helps you -- Good Luck! :)

ps: I own a Harmony One remote and if I get an IR dongle it is already setup for the PS3. Perhaps if someone will tell which dongle works best I will try it out and then maybe I can help you further. Or better yet, if you know someone who has a Harmony One you can get them to download the PS3 commands into the Harmony One and then put your HT remote in the learning mode and use your friends remote to teach your remote the PS3 commands. This would be the simplest and easiest way to not only teach your remote but set up the macros to do want you want when using your PS3 as a BD player.
 
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Thanks Joe.

I spent some time yesterday reprogramming my Home Theater Master for all my new devices, xbox360, PS3. The PS3 is working fine for everything except turn on. I did get the gamer remote to handle that. I believe I had it set up wrong which is why I was having problems with that control from before.
The NYKO IR remote comes with an IR dongle which would be a cheap way for you to get one designed for the PS3 and use that to teach your Harmony to work the DVD functions.
I agree with you about the turn on process will involve me putting in a BD or regular DVD anyway so not having that button remote is not a serious issue. I resolved the need to create a macro for turn off with a better solution. What do you think: When I had the PS3 connected for power 24/7, the PS3 turbofan that makes all the noise ran as well. I found myself having to switch the toggle on the back to shut it down when the PS3 and Home theater was not in use. Even my equipment rack fans do not run when the home theater is shut down. I only have the VIP622 powered as required by DishNetwork for updates and reporting. So, I moved the power cord to a switched 120vac outlet bank and now when I'm done the off macro on the home theater master simply kills the power to the PS3 as it raises the screen and ramps up the room lights and powers down everything else. So now when I want to fire up the home theater the on macro powers up everything and puts my system to VIP622 and keeps the PS3 powered but in standby. Now if I want to watch a BD or DVD, I'll get up and insert the disk and switch the macro to select audio and video for the PS3.
This is working fine and only is lacking if there is already a disk in the PS3.
 
The current issue of Widescreen Review is talking about deep color possibly coming to Blu-Ray. It is in a news blurb about new higher spec HDMI cables (HDMI 1.3a Cat 2)

And with the Blu-Ray Disc camp showing signs of moving to even higher data rates (there is talk of Deep Color content -- with color bit depths beyond the current 8 bits per channel to 10 or even 12 bits per channel), the length limit of passive HDMI cables will be further receding in the future. While Hollywood studios may take their time in releasing movies using Deep Color, there are rumors that the PlayStation 3 games may hit the stores soon using 10-bit color.

It would be ironic if of course the PS3 is yet again the only player that is able to be updated to the new standard be it either 10 or 12 bits/color...
 
Don, that is great that you have a work around. I have my powered subwoofer on the only switchable plug I have. I want to buy a power/cleaner converter and when I do that I would like it to be able to control each device so that if I do not select it it does not provide power. I am looking right now.

Mike, in the past I have been told many times that it would not be possible for BD to do deep colour. It would indeed be interesting if the PS3 was capable of doing that also for BD. BTW, there are several new BD players coming this fall that do include the deep colour spec. Seems something must be brewing somewhere? Hummmm?
 
Mike, in the past I have been told many times that it would not be possible for BD to do deep colour.
One of them was me, i.e. no existing player will be able to handle it.
And I stick to what I said.

Diogen.
 
Don, that is great that you have a work around. I have my powered subwoofer on the only switchable plug I have. I want to buy a power/cleaner converter and when I do that I would like it to be able to control each device so that if I do not select it it does not provide power. I am looking right now.

Anyways Joe,

I use Richard Gray products. Absolutely spectacular the affect they have on audio and video. 'spensive but worth every penny (or 80,000 of them on up).

Richard Gray's Power Company

S~
 
Joe- What I did was plug in a power strip to the switched outlet on my receiver. On the power strip I have several switched devices. Now I have to caution you that switch in your receiver will have a wattage limitation and as you have your subwoofer connected it may exceed that so be careful how much you power off that. I did something a bit fancy here to resolve the power limit issue. I built a relay powered power strip with 10 A contacts. Now my Denon receiver's switched outlet just powers the coil on the relay. The power for the strip also is sourced from a UPS and is filtered and surge protected.
My subwoofer amp is a 2KW Carver so it draws way too much power to plug into the AV receiver. It has its' own switched power strip separate from the the one that contains little stuff like the PS3, cooling fans, the power supply for the screen roll up motor etc.
 
Thanks Don, I never considered that my subwoofer might overstep the limit of the switched power of my Amp. I guess I need to go ahead and purchase a new power cleaner for my setup. Thanks for the heads up on gray's products teachsac.