I read that the PS3's USB port can accept any USB compliant mass media storage device. Can an external USB hard drive be plugged into the USB port?

I just got my PS3 a couple of weeks ago and I am very impressed with it. I'll admit I know virtually nothing about it's capabilities other than I am probably only using half of what it can do. (So far I've just watched some high def BD movies and played a couple of games).

Can regular standard definition movies be stored on the internal hard drive and played back? I have read where some people have video files on their hard drive, and again I admit I still have to do a lot of reading on things, but what format are they being stored in? At 60gig I could fill that drive very quickly, so that is why I am asking about an external USB hard drive.

One last question topic... I am not sure where to ask this, over in the Bluray player forum nobody answered this, or at least not without some slam or zinger...

Since I read that any USB compliant mass media device can be connected (still confirming if that is true or not) could the XBox 360's HD DVD drive be connected to the USB port since the addon drive is USB?

This isn't for a debate of which is better or anything like that. If I could pick up the addon drive for $181 and get it to work, this would be the ultimate system in my opinion. I could play games, watch movies archived to the hard drive, and also watch Bluray and HD DVD movies... I really doubt that the HD DVD drive would work, but has anyone tried it or know of a site where someone has?

Okay up on other forums I got an answer to half my post...

Someone has a terabyte of external hard drives connected to his PS3, but they have to be formatted in FAT32 not NTFS.

The debate still is on as far as how to get the HD DVD addon drive to work...

External HD must be fat32, you might need to download an app to format with fat32.

Video on your PS3, I use PS3 Video 9, pretty happy with it. There is a guide on the forum at the playstation website.

360 DVD drive, it is USB, it could work but would need to be enabled by Sony. Linux might 'work' but without hardware acceleration you won't be able to play HD Video without problems.

It would be nice if it did work, but I really don't think it is ever going to happen.

Thanks for the reply Jiffylush.

Yeah I am aware of FAT32 (UGH, WHY??!) I can get that formatted no problem so things are good there.

I am looking at DVD to PS3 Converter (http://mp4converter.net/dvd-to-ps3-converter-win.html), it looks very interesting. I definitely will check out PS3 Video 9 as well.

Note to the moderators, I am not talking about illegally converting anything, I own an extensive SDVD video library and think it would be nice to put some of the movie series and TV series on a home video server... definitely high on the coolness scale... I just didn't want anyone thinking I was doing anything not condoned by AVS.

Okay back to the HD DVD drive... I am hearing it may be down to $130 soon. I agree it will be difficult, but doesn't seem impossible. I doubt Sony will open up access to it, but it would be very smart if they did. Linux may have a problem since it doesn't access all the CPU/GPU's, so I'll just have to check some more.