Official PS3 FAQ Master Thread - Page 11

I found it at a Target in Topsham, ME. And while I justified it to my wife for BR playback , I do plan to do a bit of gaming on it. I also have access to a large library of PS2 games . . . thus the need for the backward compatibility.

Lucky you....those older good running problem free consoles may become hi priced collectors pieces, what with the PS2 BC, SACD playback, cute little MC lid, etc....despite the bad reputation (sometimes) for noise and heat.

Thanks Bob. I also suspect the unit's lower power consumption is why it runs quieter. Thus far I'm very happy...happier than I've been with the 'fancier spread'.

Maybe this has been asked before, or maybe its not allowed to ask but here goes anyway:

Is it possible to make your PS3 region code free? For blu-ray and DVD.
In my opinion people should be free to choose wherever they want to get their discs from.

What is it about the different models that allows or not to play SACD? Why can't they all do it?

Has anyone installed a PS3 in a rack?

Middle Atlantic shows 4 different RSH rack mounts for the PS3:

SONY PS3 [ 60GB] 3 11.5
SONY PS3 [ 80GB ] 3 11.5
SONY PS3 [40GB ] 3 11.5
SONY PS3[80GBINTERCOOLER]] 3 11.5

the 3 indicates number of rack spaces and 11.5 the depth of the shelf

I would buy the new version 80gb PS3

Which mount would I order (I am afraid the 80 gb they list might be for the early version)?

I haven't rack mounted a PS3, but since the 'new' 80GB model is simply the 40GB model, but with a larger HDD, I assume that would be the one you would need.

Can anyone please tell me how the PS3 fares as a media center? I've got an external hard drive with 300GB of music and video in a pretty comprehensive folder structure and I want to know whether or not the PS3 is good at finding files, browsing folder trees, searching by artist, etc.

Tasty,
I have a 160 GB western Digital external that I have an assortment of movies and music on. Just let the PS3 open the device and read all the files, chosen via an option, then all the files will appear. It does a great job of showing files, and really easy to navigate thru I found. I have not done any advance folders, but the music/movies are there. and I just choose what I want.

A special optical drive is needed that allows reading the PSP watermark and a licensing fee has to be paid to include the feature.

Ken,

Glad to see you in the ranks of PS3 ownership. I'm sure you'll need to upgrade the hard drive shortly to hold all of your HD video.

I have the original 60GB PS3 which I upgraded with a 320GB hard drive. All of that HD video just keeps adding up fast.

Can you charge the game controller by plugging it into a computer's USB port?

Yes, if the computer is turned on.

The USB on the game controller requires some "intelligence" on the other side of the cable before it will charge. A computer's USB socket, or the USB port sometimes found on the back of cable/satellite set top boxes will usually do the trick, but some of the inexpensive, dumb USB power bricks used for charging other gear will not.

If you plug the game controller into a USB socket and its port number lights start flashing, then you are good to go. It is charging. If they don't start flashing then you need to find a different USB socket.

The USB sockets on the PS3 itself are only powered when the PS3 is turned on. So the controller won't charge when plugged into those if the PS3 is turned off.
--Bob

The PS3 is pretty picky about which video codecs and containers it supports. It will work with DivX/XviD and Windows Media files in the AVI or WMV containers. I'm pretty sure it also supports the mp4 container format as well. It definitely does not support Matroska, which is sadly what almost all my current collection is stored in. It also has no support for Ogg Media.

Here's a quick summary: http://boardsus.playstation.com/play...sage.id=105601

With a small utility called mkv2vob (google is your friend), you can quickly repackage most mkv files into mp4 containers that the PS3 will play.

How about FLAC?

That link makes it seem like no...is there a way to mod it to play FLACC files?

Another thing to consider is the external HDD must be formatted in FAT32. It appears that many PS3 owners with external HDD's have attempted to first connected the HDD to a PC and under windows format it in FAT32 and have still found it not compatible with their PS3. However, some have reported using FAT32 format utilities that can be run on the PC under the command prompt and the result was the external HDD working OK with the PS3.

The short answer is NO. Region free is in violation of both the Blu-ray and DVD license agreements in many countries, including the USA. Hackers have figured out how to make some DVD players region free thru firmware mods or 'secret remote codes' (info widely available on the Web) and a few dealers in Europe are offering rather expensive hardware modifications to a few specific models of standalone Blu-ray players to make them region free, but not the PS3 as far as I know.

I'm not an expert, but I find it's user interface for accessing and organizing music very tedious and primitive. It will access my music library stored on a Windows Vista computer, but I've found it much easier to put together playlists on the computer and then access those from the PS3.

HTH.

Does the PS3 pass Blacker-Than-Black(BTB) information over the Component cables? The reason is that I have yet to save enough for one of the newer scaler/de-interlacers on the market and I still have one of the older analog only DVDO units for 480i de-interlacing. The image from the composite cable included with the PS3 rivals and slightly surpasses the image from my standalone DVD player (except for the inherit dot-crawl) however, it does not pass BTB. Since I don't have a Multi-AV component cable, could any one verify this for me? Obviously this will be my choice for watching DVD until I could afford a proper Scaler with HDMI inputs.

To use your PS3 as a mediacenter, I would strongly recommend connecting to a mediaserver. There are several reasons:
* External harddrives must be FAT32, which has a 2GB filelimit.
* The PS3 does not support ogg and flac, but almost all mediaservers (TVersity and MediaTomb) will transcode these to PCM which the PS3 do support.
* It's very simple to set up and you do not need a external drive.

Some drawbacks:
* You need a PC/Server powered on.
* Wireless works, but wired is highly recommended.

Using the DVE Blue Ray version, I just noticed yesterday that my PS3 suffers from a color shift issue with YCbCr. Same isssue I have with the Reon implementation in my Integra 9.8 pre/pro.

If outputting RGB (prefer not to use it because of lack of BTB and WTW data), all primary colors are saturated evenly (i.e., after adjusting for proper blue, the reds and green also show as balanced). However, if outputting YCbCr; after adjusting for blue, the reds and especially the greens are not balanced.

The YCbCr issue appears to be the same as my Reon issue where the Integra 9.8 is outputting color space 601 (SD) vice 709 (HD). My display, SXRD XBR1, is receiving a 1080i signal and according uses the color space "709" specs to interpret. Since it is receiving a "601" feed, the colors are "off". Green is "undersaturated" approximately 20% versus blue when using the Avia color decoder screen.

Is this a known issue with the PS3's implementation of YCbCr?

Thanks for the input on using the PS3 as a media center.

I guess I'll have to keep poking around for a better solution.

That's weird. I have a PS3 that is outputting YCBCr via HDMI through a Yamaha RXV1800 to a A2000 series SXRD set and have not noticed this problem. I calibrated with the AVS 709 test disc for AVCHD and didn't observe saturation problems when I did grayscale calibration on my TV from the PS3.

No.

The PS3 correctly sends out YCbCr in the HDTV color space when playing Blu-Ray discs at HD video resolutions.

I suspect your XBR1 is not correctly applying the HDTV color space for that input.
--Bob

I admit that I'm not well-versed in video color spaces. But since he seems to have the same problem with both his PS3 and his receiver, from a troubleshooting perspective, that would tend to point to an issue with how the TV deals with that color space and not either of those devices.

I have a vague recollection from the Anthem D2/AVM-50 tweaking thread in the Amps/Receivers/Processors forum here that some of the earlier XBR displays had problems with this when fed YCbCr. Apparently the setting that controlled the color space the display should use was not functioning. At the time, the workaround was to use RGB to that display.
--Bob

I agree with this assessment, but I thought you couldn't create playlists unless the media was stored on the PS3's hard drive? Did I miss something?

"Iron Man" Blu-Ray Issues!

The hive is buzzing here today with complaints regarding the just released "Iron Man" Blu-Ray disc.

NOW HEAR THIS! NOW HEAR THIS!

1) This disc has been authored in a way that causes excessive "dynamic range" compression -- weak audio -- if the player or receiver doing the decoding implements "automatic" Dynamic Range Compression. In the PS3 this is set via the Settings > BD Settings > Dynamic Range Control setting. By factory default this is set to "Automatic". This PS3 FAQ *ALREADY RECOMMENDS* that you change that setting to "Off", and leave it Off for all Blu-Ray discs. If you follow this recommendation, your audio from "Iron Man" will sound just fine. This is *NOT* a problem in the PS3. It is a problem in the way this disc is authored. But folks following the recommendation here to turn OFF DRC will not encounter this problem.

2) This disc has been authored to load a bunch of additional content over the network the first time it is run. The amount of time this takes depends upon your network speed. In addition the studio's servers are getting hit pretty hard right now with download requests since this disc just shipped. So some folks are reporting it takes MANY MINUTES before the movie will start to play. If you don't want to wait for this content to download right now, go into Settings > BD Settings > BD Internet Connection and change this to "Confirm". The PS3 will then ask whether you want to let the disc connect to the network and do its download of extra content. You can deny that for now and get right to the movie and then download that stuff at some later time (just play the movie again) when you are ready.

3) The initial release of this disc has been RECALLED due to problems playing on some players. As far as I know the PS3 doesn't have these problems, but you will likely read reports from folks who can't get the disc to play on other players because they got one of the pre-recall discs that shipped through some outlets a week or so back. The fixed version of the disc is the one that is now shipping.
--Bob

Blockbuster in Canada currently has the 40 Gig PS3 on for $399 Canadian dollars. Is this a good deal and a good model for watching Blueray movies? The 80 Gig model is available at BestBuy for the same price but the problem is I have $400 in Blockbuster gift certificates.

Should I go pick one up now?