PS3 Firmware Update, Heavenly Sword Demo This Week

PlayStation 3 owners are getting a couple of new toys this week. The official Sony blog has announced that the US will see firmware update 1.90 within the next few days. Gamasutra has further details on the patch, which includes a number of functionality improvements: "Ability to rearrange games on the XMB, Option menu now includes 'eject disk', Press triangle to eject games/CDs/movies in the XMB, XMB backgrounds, Change the folder classification, Emoticons, Change CD output to 44.1/88.2/176.4kHz, Force 24Hz output for Blu-ray over HDMI, Change PS3 video settings in-game, 'Bit Mapping' in the 'Music Setting', Save AVCHD type animations from a Memory Stick, Change settings like upscaling while playing PS and PS2 games, Add bookmarks, Web browser security function in the browser's tool section." Indications are also that a demo for Heavenly Sword will be coming soon. Europe is getting it this Thursday, with no firm word on a US date yet.

Re:24 Hz?

[snarlydwarf]

You do know movies are 24fps, right?

Do they fool your eye?

Guitar hero controller

[Groghunter]

support would be nice, wonder if any of this does that, with rocks the 80s coming out tommorow and all...

Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe how fast and how many features Sony is adding to the PS3 system software. Sounds like 2.0 is up next with the in game XBM access, and then Home hits. Rock solid and very quiet well built machine. Can't wait to get my hands finally on Heavenly Sword, looks incredible. It feels like the PS3 is the only next gen machine on the market right now.

Re:24 Hz?

[Chris Burke]

I'm just here to point out that there's a big difference between fps in a movie/tv show and a video game. Video games create still images that are perfectly sharp based on where every object is at the instant in time that the image represents. For a video game, 30fps is a bare minimum for what we would call "playable" today, though the human eye can easily distinguish frame rates above 100 (probably higher than your monitor refresh rate). Movies and TV, by virtue of being filmed, are blurred due to the motion of whatever is being filmed over the period in which that frame is exposed. This inherent blur means that you can get away with a much lower frame rate and still fool the human brain, and is why a normal movie filmed at 24 fps provides a much more convincing impression of continuous motion than a video game at 70fps.

Re:Harumph

[Fulg]

Fully agree with you on the need for something like XMBC on the PS3.

Actually, you don't even need to; it's already there in the XMB!

I was quite surprised to find that the built-in media streaming features of the PS3 are an almost perfect replacement to XBMC (I just got my PS3 last week, taking advantage of the "fire sale"). The PS3 can already access all your media shared via UPnP, like the Xbox 360 (and "recent" XBMC builds).

There is absolutely no comparison to the built-in streaming of the Xbox 360 -- the PS3 interface is actually usable, and the connection to your media server always works (on the 360 the "discovery" process is very hit-and-miss, and it often loses the connection after a PC or 360 reboot).

It's not quite XBMC yet, but it's close. I can finally stream HD content that my old Xbox 1 was struggling with....

Regarding transcoding, I've set up TVersity [tversity.com] (which I already had for XBMC and Xbox 360) and couldn't be happier. The PS3 sees my DivX or x264 or mkv stuff as MPEG-2 streams, which (I assume) is less taxing on the CPU to transcode to than WMV. I can now stream 720p HD in realtime, something I couldn't do on the Xbox 360, using my "puny" P4 3.4GHz. Compared to the 360, there is no delay when starting a video, despite the fact that it is transcoded...!

So far the only problems is that transcoded media loses the AC3 sound (apparently this is a TVersity limitation, but I didn't really look into it), and you obviously can't REW/FFWD until the transcoding is completed. Videos can also be copied (thus transcoded) locally to the PS3 and then viewed with all features enabled, including a live preview in the XMB (so not safe for pr0n!). Apparently TVersity also has a transcode-and-save option but I didn't find it.

Another "awesome" feature (for tech-loving geeks) if you have a PSP is Remote Play. You can basically remote-control the PS3 from the PSP, and media played on the PS3 is streamed to the PSP, including your HD videos! Naturally they are downscaled quite a bit to be streamable, but it was quite amazing to be able to access all of my media, including videos, anywhere around the house from the PSP.

I think by now I sound like a Sony shill, but I assure you this is not the case, I am just truly impressed. With all the crap Sony is pulling recently, the last thing I expected is for the PS3 to actually replace my trusty XBMC box :)

Re:Amazing

[Doctor_Jest]

My slim PS2 (1st-gen slim) gets hotter than my PS3, I've noticed... though, the exhaust port of the PS3 is easy to find. ;) heheh. I think they did a PHENOMENAL job in cooling the system. Microsoft could learn a thing or two about cooling from Sony this go round... whisper quiet, and efficient at expelling heat.

I love my PS3. :)